Latest / SpaceTomatoes / From Mob Lawyer to Meditation - Bob Martin’s Wild Journey S2-EP24

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From Mob Lawyer to Meditation - Bob Martin’s Wild Journey S2-EP24 · SpaceTomatoes

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  Years later, his son got arrested.
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  And at that point, it was, no, you will do this.
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  I said, that's suborning perjury.
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  No, that's creating evidence.
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  He goes, I really think that you should do this.
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  And I said, I really think I can't.
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  And he goes, I really think that you should reconsider that.
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  all right everybody welcome back to another episode of the space tomatoes podcast i'm one
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  of your hosts havoc the other guy lx hello that other guy today we have with us a special guest
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  Bob Martin, Juris Doctorate, Master of Social Work, CMT Cultural Commentator, Recovering
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  Lawyer, and Creator of The Flow, where politics, society, and the human condition get the honest
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  conversation they deserve.
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  Welcome to the show, Bob.
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  Oh, thank you.
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  Thank you so much for having me, guys.
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  And before we even start, I want to do a shout out and thank you guys for the work you do
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  in putting together a platform like this that lets guys like me come and, you know, have our say.
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  So it's wonderful to be here. Thank you so much.
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  Awesome. Yeah, absolutely.
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  We, yeah, really enjoy having guests.
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  You know, it's interesting to hear different perspectives and different life experiences.
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  and some have had profound changes in life as well as career,
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  and you happen to be one of those, which is pretty exciting.
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  So, yeah, let's jump in.
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  We haven't had any guests we haven't liked yet.
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  Of course, we haven't had any lawyers yet, so there was a chance.
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  You know, I understand because whenever people ask me what I do,
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  I say, well, I'm a lawyer, but please don't hold it against me.
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  Well, you know who does love lawyers?
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  Surgeons.
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  Because they're easy to work on.
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  You ever heard of this one?
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  No, I have to tell you something.
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  One time I was having some heart issues,
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  and so I went for a sonogram or whatever they call that thing.
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  So I'm looking away from the machine,
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  and the guy's got the jelly in the machine,
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  and he's going to...
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  And finally, he says to me, do you want to see your heart?
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  And I go, yeah, yeah, I want to see my heart.
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  So I turn around and look and his jaw drops open.
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  And I go, what, what, what?
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  And he goes, you are the first lawyer I've ever had that wanted to see their heart.
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  I was figuring he was going to show you the screen and like hold the wand up against like the bed or something.
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  just blank.
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  See that cold,
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  cold black spot in the middle?
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  There it is.
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  Yeah.
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  So did you start out like,
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  was that you were a lawyer first,
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  I believe,
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  right?
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  And was that something you grew up like wanting to do?
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  Oh no,
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  not at all.
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  Okay.
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  So what,
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  what drove you into the field?
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  Well,
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  it's a story.
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  So,
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  But let's start with the story.
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  So I grew up, well, I guess I got to start with my dad.
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  He was an immigrant.
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  He escaped Hungary in, born in 1898, escaped Hungary during the First World War and the
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  Bolshevik Revolution.
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  All of his, he was royalty and all of his family was wiped out by the Bolsheviks and
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  came here and he found his way to the American dream via popcorn and cotton candy.
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  So, and there's another, there's a whole story behind that. But, um, so I grew up in kind of
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  carnivals and amusement parks. Uh, and we had the cotton candy and popcorn stands and eventually
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  hot dogs and all that kind of stuff. And my biggest dream was really to sell enough hot dogs
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  on the boardwalk in Rockaway Beach, New York, to sell enough hot dogs in the summer so I would not
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  have to work in the winter. That was my main ambition in life. But I got a full ride to Boston
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  University football. And so I was a football player, but I had a career-ending injury.
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  and I broke up with my high school sweetheart within the same two-week period in October
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  of 1969. I think it was October 17th to be, but who's counting?
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  And so after, what does a jock do in 1969 when they can't play ball anymore? They become a hippie.
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  And so I devolved or evolved into a hippie pad.
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  And one of the people who would come and go from time to time was a guy named John Berman.
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  And those were the days of Watergate and Vietnam and Nixon and the like.
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  And everybody, you know, who had any sense about them was either out in protests or smoking pot or whatever.
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  And I would be, or both, and I would be arguing with people all the time, you know, about Nixon and the obscenity of Vietnam.
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  And John, John was kind of a Woody Allen figure.
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  He was like the pig pen figure in Peanuts.
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  He always walked around with the cloud over his head.
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  He had sloped shoulders.
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  A bag wouldn't even like stay, you know, like his bags wouldn't even stay on his shoulders.
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  And his job in our little group was to be the librarian.
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  And he read the Post, the Washington Post and the New York Times rigorously every day.
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  And so whenever we got into an argument, we would go, hey, John, you know, when did Nixon go into Cambodia?
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  Hey, John. And John kept telling me I should be a lawyer. So, you know, I said, yeah, yeah. And my ambition was to sell hot dogs. And one day, John kind of becomes scarce, actually, for a couple of weeks.
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  and then he shows up and he has an envelope and in the envelope is a postal money order
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  for 350 bucks which was the entrance fee to take the law school aptitude test
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  and it was a postal money order made out to the educational testing service so I could not cash it
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  he goes go take the test you should be a lawyer I said where'd you get this money he says I got a
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  job. I said, you are working? He says, nah, I quit. I just wanted to get this. And so,
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  what do you, you can't say no to that. And I had a very mediocre college career. Like I say,
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  flunked out of Boston University, finished up my career at Pratt Institute in restaurant management.
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  and so I, okay, well, I'll go take the test
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  and I did pretty good, not extraordinary
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  and I applied to some law schools
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  and there was one law school that is just brand new
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  and it hadn't been accredited yet
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  and it decided it would take a chance on me
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  and it let me in, it wasn't even accredited,
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  it was accredited by the time we finished the three years,
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  Nova University for the study of law
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  in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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  They let me in.
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  And I guess the tag end of the story is that John was a heroin addict.
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  And we pulled him out of shooting galleries in Harlem two or three times and had to sit on him while he DT'd.
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  But the moment I got accepted into law school, he went straight.
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  and he came down to Florida and got a job at one of the Miami Beach hotels and enrolled in Dade
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  County Community College to become a paralegal and I was going to be Perry Mason this reference
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  is probably too old for you but I was going to be Perry Mason and he was going to be Paul Drake
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  my investigator that was the plan so I proceeded through law school in my third year I was interned
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  in the district attorney's office, which we call the state attorney's office under Janet Reno,
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  who was the DA for Dade County during the cocaine cowboy days. These are the crazy days of Miami
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  that Scarface comes out of. And I interned in my third year there, and then they hired me
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  right out of law school. And the fourth day after I was sworn in, and I was officially,
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  You know, I had my own office.
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  I came up from court and my secretary said, do you know a John Berman?
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  And I go, yeah.
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  And he goes, well, the Miami Beach police called.
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  He passed away.
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  And I said, say what?
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  And it turned out he met some chick and they decided to get high.
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  And he had forgotten that his tolerance over three years had gone way down.
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  And he overdosed, laid down, and just died.
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  And so I have always kind of felt that John's purpose in life was to get me to be a lawyer and that I had to honor that.
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  Wow. That's a powerful story right there.
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  So you started out on the prosecution side of the house and then migrated into the defending side of the house, defendant side.
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  And what was the catalyst for that?
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  What made you think, you know what, I'm not happy doing this.
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  I really want to go do something for the other team.
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  Um, well, you know, uh, DAs, um, tend to rotate out, uh, of the DA's office, you know, in three
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  to five years, usually. I mean, some people stay on as career prosecutors, but you know, most,
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  it's almost as if we have classes. Now the DA's office of Miami had 125 DAs.
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  uh it was it's a big it was a big office and so every year there's about 30 that left and 30 that
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  came on just about um but i was lucky because i i interned with a felony prosecutor as my
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  supervising and he actually let me try two jury trials while i was still in law school
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  um yeah so uh um and i could tell you there's a story there's stories there but um i um
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  i rose up through the office pretty quickly because i i had a three-year career jump usually
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  you go and do intake you do misdemeanors you do drunk driving you know it takes about three years
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  to get to felonies. And I started there. So I became up, I rose up, I became chief of the
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  economic crimes and consumer frauds division. And we went after big boiler room operations and
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  had joint task forces with the feds against major influencers and things. And we went against
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  the cartels and the mob. Actually, the southern branch of the Gambino mob had a branch in South
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  Florida. And we went after them and hit them for $76 million in a civil case. We just got their
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  bank accounts. And so that was kind of a high point. I had already, you know, my retirement,
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  after five years, your retirement vests. So you will get some benefit after five years,
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  even if it just a little bit But I been there six or seven years and I just thought that was a high point It was time to move on So I left the office I walked down the block and there was a couple of old houses
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  Some of them had been turned into little office buildings
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  and got a little one-room and a secretary, a little two-room suite.
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  I hung up my shingle, and inside of two weeks,
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  Johnny, his name was really Giovanni,
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  from the Gambino mob came to my office,
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  walked straight in, passed my secretary,
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  walked straight in, sat down, and said nothing.
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  And it scared the bejesus out of me.
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  And we're looking at each other.
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  And I mean, I remember this like it was yesterday.
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  And he goes, you know, you hit us for a lot of money.
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  He goes, yes, sir.
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  And he goes, we got good lawyers and you beat them.
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  We want to send you some clients.
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  So that started my relationship with the mob,
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  which led to like being involved with people at the,
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  where the Colombians and the Peruvians and the Haitians
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  and the Bolivians and the Italians all speak to each other.
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  Now, I don't want to mislead. I wasn't like conciliate or taken into it, but they sent me their wholesalers and their mules and people that got arrested and things.
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  And they always came in with cash and always under the federal reporting limit.
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  $9,999.
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  Right. Well, it was usually an even $9,000.
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  Sure, sure.
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  Any worry in your mind?
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  Like maybe I shouldn't get involved with these guys or maybe there's stuff I just don't want to know or be involved with?
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  Well, there was stuff, of course, that I did not want to know and I didn't know.
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  And I excused myself when it got to that point.
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  And I had a very down-to-earth conversation with Johnny and I said, look, I'm not going to do anything illegal and I'm not going to do anything unethical.
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  And I explained to him that it is much better for him to have a lawyer whose word is respected by the courts.
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  You know, I mean, in the courts, there's a lot of respect paid back and forth between the bench and the bar.
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  And it's easy to lose that.
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  You can spend your whole career, you know, building up that kind of reputation and lose it in a moment.
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  And I just said to him that I'm not going to do that.
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  And he said, I understand.
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  I just want to, you know, I just want you to do what's right.
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  But just do your best job and, you know, let me know what's going on.
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  Give me the bad news first and the like.
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  And it was all good until years later, his son got arrested.
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  and at that point it was, no, you will do this.
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  I said, that's suborning perjury.
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  No, that's creating evidence.
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  He goes, I really think that you should do this,
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  and I said, I really think I can't,
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  and he goes, I really think that you should reconsider that.
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  And so, well, take it as you will.
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  It doesn't sound like a known threat.
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  But it did put me in a box because not only for a lawyer, not only is it unethical to do something unethical, but it's also unethical not to report another lawyer who's acting unethically.
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  And so even if I said no and he got somebody else to do it, I would be bound to report that.
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  So the only solution I had was to move away.
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  so I decided I'd move to North Carolina and I went back I told Johnny I'm gonna move to North
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  Carolina and and he goes sometimes a man has to move on this way we can part friends and we
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  understood there was an understanding they never bothered me after that I moved to North Carolina
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  and started my life over.
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  No horse heads in the bedroom?
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  No horse heads in the bedroom.
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  Nothing like that.
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  Nothing like that.
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  That's good.
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  No new concrete shoes.
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  That's a good win-win, I guess.
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  Yeah.
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  No, it all worked out fine.
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  It was very good to me.
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  And also, the other piece of the story is that hanging out with those guys,
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  again, it was the cocaine cowboy days.
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  There was a lot of cocaine around and a lot of Chivas Regal.
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  And I got to say that my behaviors were a bit excessive.
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  I was coming home at 2 o'clock in the morning and leaving at 5 in the morning.
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  And I wasn't paying any attention to my family.
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  And I was burning the candle at both ends.
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  So I was seeing a therapist during that period of time.
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  And it turned out that the therapist was the English language editor for books written by Huaching Ni, who is a 72nd generation.
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  And just think about that when I say it.
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  For 72 generations, wisdom was handed down from father to son.
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  So he was a 72nd generation Shaolin Temple Taoist grandmaster.
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  And he would write books in Chinese and they would be translated into English.
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  And my therapist was editing his English books and knew him, of course, intimately and was one of his devotees.
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  And he came to Miami to start a Taoist group.
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  you know and I had no idea what Taoism was I'd gone to my therapist to ask him a question about
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  a fork in a road that I was at and I said well George what should I do and he goes I figured he
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  was going to say something like well you know what therapists say well you know Bob what do you think
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  you should do you know but instead he picked up three coins and started throwing them on the desk
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  and making mathematical calculations and then opened up a book.
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  He wrote Chapter 32.
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  And then he opened the book up to Chapter 32, and he showed to me,
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  and the name of the chapter was Retreat.
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  And I cursed him out, and I walked out,
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  but that was like he tattooed it on my forehead, Retreat.
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  So I started to back away from some of those behaviors.
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  I went back to see him.
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  That's when I found out who he was and who we know.
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  The book that he used was something called the I Ching.
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  And that's like a whole, I mean, the I Ching, it was a major force in bringing me to be who I am today.
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  Are you all familiar with the I Ching at all?
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  I'm lightly familiar with it.
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  I've always heard it referred to as the I Ching.
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  The I Ching, yeah.
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  That's right.
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  I say I Ching because that's how most people, but I Ching is the right pronunciation.
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  It is a book that breaks the dynamic energy between people and things down into 64 pie slices.
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  And each of those pie slices has six subslices.
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  and when I say breaks that energy down it says like it's about timing and it's about understanding
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  the nature of the flow which is see I the flow that's the reason that I have the podcast
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  it's like there's a time like Ecclesiastes there's a time to reap and time to sow and time
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  so the the E-Jing says there's a time to advance there's a time to retreat there's a time to wait
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  There's a time to punch through.
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  There's a time of disparity.
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  There's a time of prosperity.
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  There's a time of this.
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  There's a time of that.
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  So there's all these different times,
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  and the I Ching helps you to understand
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  what the quality of those times feels like
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  and advises about the appropriate, effective, and efficient way
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  to act within that environment.
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  in. You might notice that you're dealing with something and you've been futzing around a little
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  bit and there's just a time when you just have to say, no, we're going, you got to pull the trigger.
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  So that's a particular energy. If you can recognize that energy and then go ahead and
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  pull the trigger when the time is right, it makes life effective and efficient. Of course, if you
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  don't recognize it and you pull the trigger before the right time or after the right time,
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  you know, it won't be as effective. And so learning that is what the I Ching is all about.
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  And that leads you to developing more of a wisdom oriented approach towards life.
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  In this study, is there like a flow chart that you follow of things that you want to do or
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  Or is it like a left to chance kind of thing with the toss of the coins?
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  Or how does that work?
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  Yeah, there is.
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  It is.
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  Well, here I can actually show you a little bit.
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  I mean, to be able to talk about the I Ching is just one of my great passions and love.
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  So thank you for asking.
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  But here's a book, The Illustrated I Ching, which I think is a great book for beginners.
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  and yes, you do assess it randomly,
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  but Carl Jung, who was a great devotee of the I Ching
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  and studied it for years and years,
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  he wrote that the way that it works
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  and why it is so effective
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  and why it's a book of wisdom
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  that has survived thousands of years
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  is because it actually acts as a bridge between your intuitive mind and your rational mind.
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  Your intuitive mind doesn't work with words. It works with sensations and feelings and hunches
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  that's not really put into language. Your rational mind is more effective. Once you have
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  the words, you can take the actions. When you have the hunches, you just are motivated to do
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  something. So what the I Ching does is you'll ask it a question like, what do I need to know about
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  my interview today? And then you engage in some mathematical computations. And what Carl Jung said
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  is that that ties up the rational mind. It distracts the rational mind because that's math
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  and you're working with words and numbers. And it allows your intuitive mind to work on the question
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  now the only thing is can we get the answer that's over on the left side can we get it over to the
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  right side so once you come up with the chapters and the passages to read which are all nothing but
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  horoscopy type of wisdoms your mind will automatically select the words that are
• 25:10
  necessary to transmit the concept to your rational mind. And so you will actually bridge
• 25:18
  that intuitive wisdom over to actionable language, where now you have an idea of how to act. And it's
• 25:28
  a learning process because often it's counterintuitive to what you think you should do.
• 25:37
  You know, like sometimes just like in all Taoism, you know, you see people moving forward and moving back in Tai Chi.
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  So a lot of times you're confronted and you want to push against it.
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  But really the better efficient thing is to move back until the other person runs out of arm.
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  And then they have no power Then you can move forward again So understanding that flow of moving back when you need to
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  and moving forward when you should is all what the I Ching does.
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  In effect, it's word-based Tai Chi.
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  Is that where the phrase go with the flow comes from?
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  That's where go with the flow comes from.
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  But the second piece of that is you have to understand the flow.
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  Right? Because going with the flow on a nice, you know, soft, easy creek is one thing. Going with the flow in whitewater is something else. Going with the flow heading towards a waterfall is something else too. So you have to understand the flow in order to go with it.
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  Interesting. Very interesting.
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  Sorry.
• 26:52
  No, no. It's totally okay.
• 26:54
  So, okay. So you, you, you made this change, you experienced some, some downturn in your life due to, I'm, I'm just going to throw a little assumption in there that it was work as well as lifestyle.
• 27:12
  Well, let's just put it, yeah, it was a drugs. What was it? Music, drugs, and rock and roll.
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  I just picture you driving around in some fancy sports car with like a big brick cell phone back then.
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  Like they were actually dollar bills at the nightclub.
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  I don't know.
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  Yeah.
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  That kind of thing.
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  It was, I was pretty arrogant.
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  Let's put it that way.
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  Full of myself.
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  Fancy Italian suit.
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  I've always, I've always wondered with, with lawyers and I guess I've never really asked
• 27:41
  one.
• 27:41
  And, and I do know a few, but one of the things that, that to me has always been mind boggling
• 27:49
  is you, I mean, obviously you, you're learning this trade, right? But a part of that learning
• 27:57
  experience, and I don't know that you could ever even fully comprehend the entirety of it,
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  but you have these books like Black's Law where they basically go, you know, those words you use
• 28:10
  in your everyday life. No, they don't mean what you think they mean. They mean absolutely something
• 28:15
  different, right? Like the, the simple phrase shall is not what you think it would mean in
• 28:21
  legalese. That's like a, you will absolutely do this no matter what, there is no option, period.
• 28:27
  That's shall doesn't convey that. So I guess one of the things I've always wondered is how,
• 28:33
  how do you keep that? How do you keep that straight? And how much, how much time did you
• 28:38
  have to spend on learning that language and how different it is from just normal language?
• 28:47
  Well, I think the secret to that comes in the word practice. You don't do law, you practice law.
• 28:56
  And just like any other practice, it's a constant learning situation. But these days,
• 29:02
  I retired from the courts, but I teach over at the university and I teach what's called a
• 29:07
  survey course called Business Law to Undergraduates, usually sophomores.
• 29:14
  And in that course, we touch on all these different areas of law. And I keep talking to my,
• 29:20
  you know, division head and I keep talking to the dean of the business school. And I'm saying,
• 29:24
  you know, you shove this thing into one semester. What you're asking me to basically do
• 29:30
  is teach Spanish in week one and then teach Greek in week two
• 29:37
  and then teach Portuguese in week three
• 29:42
  because the language of contracts and the language of civil procedure
• 29:47
  and the language of criminal law are all different words.
• 29:51
  It's a different vocabulary.
• 29:53
  And there's no time for the students to be able to assimilate.
• 29:59
  I mean, think about learning Spanish.
• 30:02
  You learn a little phrase and then you have to say it a few times and repeat it back a few times and then use it in a few sentences before you own it.
• 30:11
  But if you're giving them 37 words this week and a new 37 words that have nothing to do with the first 37 words next week, it's like crazy to try to teach it.
• 30:25
  So, yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 30:27
  Well, it takes three years, and then it takes years of practice.
• 30:32
  And a lot of people are not very good at it.
• 30:36
  There's still, you know, there's a lot of folks out there that don't have the language and don't use the words properly, and they get smacked.
• 30:43
  But fortunately, you know, I had some good mentors.
• 30:51
  And let me tell you a little bit about why I think why.
• 30:57
  And so I get accepted to this law school, you know, and I still don't think that, you know, I don't know why I'm going there.
• 31:07
  I don't know.
• 31:08
  I still am not.
• 31:11
  I'm still in denial that I'm even going to go to law school.
• 31:15
  And I'm sitting in the lobby before the very first class.
• 31:20
  And we're sitting around all these new guys.
• 31:24
  Remember, we're the only class because we're just opening.
• 31:27
  So there's only one class.
• 31:29
  There's no second years or third years.
• 31:32
  And we're trying to get to know each other.
• 31:35
  And somebody says, well, what kind of a lawyer do you want to be?
• 31:38
  And everybody's going around saying what kind of lawyer they want to be.
• 31:42
  And I had no idea.
• 31:43
  And when it got to me, I said, well, I want to be a judge.
• 31:49
  I never got to be a judge, but I just said that.
• 31:53
  And I got to tell you that at that moment, there was like a chill, you know, one of those times when you get a chill.
• 32:01
  And all of a sudden, am I allowed to say the F word here?
• 32:06
  Sure.
• 32:07
  Is that beyond being courteous?
• 32:11
  No.
• 32:12
  Whatever you like.
• 32:13
  Okay.
• 32:13
  We basically just say, look, if it's part of the language, then it's part of the language, but we try not to go into expletive laden rants.
• 32:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:26
  But yes, if you want to say fuck, you can say fuck.
• 32:29
  Okay.
• 32:30
  So I sat there, that chill came, and I said, holy shit.
• 32:38
  I really fucking may amount to something.
• 32:43
  you know, and it was like, whoa, this is serious, you know, and I was a mediocre student,
• 32:53
  but I graduated with a 4.0, because that all of a sudden, I had a voice, I had agency, I had
• 33:03
  the ability to make a difference in another's life, you know, and then coming out of the whole
• 33:10
  hippie thing of the 60s and everything else, you know, that was kind of like building up in me.
• 33:15
  And then all the tutelage under master knee, it all of a sudden just kind of like, boom,
• 33:21
  you know, fell on me in that moment. And, and there was no turning back. And yeah, so, so I,
• 33:32
  you do it. You sit there with, I mean, I remember, I remember the first couple of weeks,
• 33:39
  You're right. You got Black's Law, which is a dictionary that's this thick, right? You got Black's Law over here and you have your casebook over here and they don't give you textbooks. They only give you cases, case after case after case after case. And you're reading and cases, you know, I mean, they're facts, the issue. Here's the reasoning.
• 34:01
  and then the next one, the next one.
• 34:05
  And you're reading this and you get to the fourth word
• 34:07
  and you go, oh, I got to look that up.
• 34:10
  And then, well, I got to look up that word.
• 34:12
  And then you got to look up four words over here in Black's Dictionary.
• 34:15
  And then you got to go back and then read the next three words
• 34:18
  and say, oh, no, I got to look up this one.
• 34:20
  And it's like you creep through it.
• 34:23
  And I remember it was Fort Lauderdale
• 34:25
  and I was in married student housing
• 34:27
  at a big window there next to my desk.
• 34:29
  I'm looking out and there's beautiful palm trees and breezes making the palm fronds go back and forth.
• 34:36
  And I'm thinking that all my friends are on the beach enjoying themselves.
• 34:39
  I literally started crying.
• 34:46
  It is.
• 34:49
  Yeah.
• 34:50
  I could see that.
• 34:51
  I have a copy of Black's Law and I have done this.
• 34:57
  And it's mind boggling.
• 34:59
  You're like, oh my, what is going on here?
• 35:03
  It really is.
• 35:04
  It really is.
• 35:05
  It's crazy.
• 35:06
  It really is.
• 35:07
  Kudos to you for learning as much of it as you managed to.
• 35:12
  Thanks.
• 35:12
  And then, of course, you do kind of specialize.
• 35:15
  And like I say, I spent 40 years doing criminal law and business startups.
• 35:20
  And, you know, that was, you know, it's far better to know one thing deep rather than many things shallow.
• 35:31
  You know, I mean, but I want to go back to something that you that I don't know if we mentioned it pre pre recording or not about lawyers hearts and lawyers, you know, the reputation for being cold.
• 35:47
  And I want to tell you that I've come across a lot of lawyers.
• 35:54
  Well, I'm not going to say a lot.
• 35:56
  I have come across some lawyers who are at the top of their profession.
• 36:01
  And without fail, everyone that is at the top of their profession is a very heartfelt, compassionate human being.
• 36:11
  You know, we have this crazy charge to love our clients and stand for them.
• 36:23
  And I got to tell you guys, the sensation of standing up for somebody or something or some principle, that action is sacred.
• 36:41
  to those that see it that way.
• 36:45
  Now, there's some that just are in for the paycheck,
• 36:47
  and there's some that just want to write contracts.
• 36:50
  But if you're a trial lawyer and you stand up for something or somebody,
• 36:56
  it is sacred, and it opens your heart.
• 37:05
  I don't know if I would have gotten to that point
• 37:08
  If it wasn't for my experience with Master Nee or, you know, those years of study with him, maybe I was that way anyway and it just needed to catch up with me.
• 37:20
  I can't tell you.
• 37:23
  I think one of the biggest things probably people have a hard time understanding is how a criminal defense lawyer, when you're defending somebody that's been railroaded by the justice system and is unfairly being prosecuted, that's one thing.
• 37:38
  But when somebody is, even if they don't say it, you obviously know they're guilty as anything, how you can defend them.
• 37:46
  And I understand it's your position.
• 37:47
  How do you reconcile that personally when you were doing that?
• 37:51
  Great question.
• 37:52
  Great question.
• 37:55
  There's a couple of kind of funny answers, but then this very serious answer to that.
• 38:00
  one of the lighter answers is that you go into the courtroom and if you're not going to,
• 38:10
  if you're, you know, if you're not inclined, this guy's a dirtbag. Let me tell you, I have
• 38:15
  represented child abusers, child rapists, you know, all, there's nothing that anybody has done
• 38:23
  that I haven't represented him.
• 38:26
  And if you're going to go in there, you know,
• 38:31
  and just try to get through the trial, you know,
• 38:33
  because, you know, the guy's a dirtbag and you know he's guilty,
• 38:37
  that doesn't mean that the prosecutor isn't going to come over
• 38:40
  with a hammer and tap you on the head.
• 38:42
  Matter of fact, we had an expression in Miami called a Maxwell.
• 38:46
  Do you all remember from the Beatles?
• 38:47
  And Maxwell's silver hammer came down on his head, tap, tap.
• 38:52
  Well whenever you going into a case and you going to get smashed and you know you going to get smashed you know because they got all the evidence in the world and your guy too stupid to take a plea and he got to go to trial It a Maxwell But the guy comes over and he not going to pull back any the DA
• 39:14
  He's coming at you full bore.
• 39:15
  And you can only get hit and smacked on the head so many times before you start to get your dander up.
• 39:22
  It's just like that.
• 39:24
  You're in an adversarial situation.
• 39:27
  And if you sit back, it's not like he's going to be easy on you.
• 39:34
  So that's one thing.
• 39:35
  But the serious answer to that is that the worst of them is where the state is going to take the most liberties in convicting them.
• 39:50
  That's where they're going to take the shortcuts.
• 39:53
  That's where they're going to create evidence.
• 39:55
  That's where they're going to coach their officers what to say.
• 39:59
  And their job is to enforce the law for the public safety.
• 40:06
  My job is to enforce the Constitution.
• 40:10
  I prosecute the Constitution.
• 40:13
  I am the guy who every cop out there and every prosecutor out there knows that if they take
• 40:20
  a shortcut, if they aren't truthful about why they made that stop, that somebody is going to
• 40:30
  be looking behind them saying, why did you do this? Why didn't you do that? And if it wasn't for
• 40:38
  enforcing the Constitution, power abuses and absolute power abuses absolutely. And I can tell
• 40:46
  you that it's a lot easier sometimes to get a conviction just by changing a little fact here
• 40:55
  or not telling the lawyer about this or you have some exculpatory fact that you don't share and
• 41:03
  things like that. And there has to be somebody that's going to hold you accountable for that.
• 41:07
  And so you don't do it for the dirtbag. You do it for the liberty and freedom that we hold dear.
• 41:16
  And that's an important charge. So it gives you the moral strength, I suppose, to stand up.
• 41:28
  I mean, I represented a guy who was charged with raping his 12-year-old stepdaughter who was given to him to care for for the night by the mom who had to do something, go away.
• 41:44
  and they found his DNA on the intravaginal swab,
• 41:51
  an intra-insider.
• 41:52
  They got his DNA.
• 41:55
  And so there's going to be a Maxwell, right?
• 42:00
  And his defense was that the mom had come that morning
• 42:07
  and had seduced him with a condom
• 42:10
  and had taken his sperm and painted it on her daughter's panties,
• 42:17
  and somehow it gravitated up into her.
• 42:21
  Quite the story.
• 42:22
  Yes, quite the story.
• 42:24
  And, you know, he was looking at life twice over.
• 42:29
  And I worked out a plea for 12 years first,
• 42:33
  and then I even got the DA to come down to eight years.
• 42:37
  The guy was 56 years old.
• 42:38
  and he wouldn't take it.
• 42:42
  He wouldn't take the plea, eight years,
• 42:44
  because he said I didn't do it.
• 42:48
  So I fought my heart out for him.
• 42:52
  My closing argument went two hours.
• 42:54
  I was soaked with sweat when it was over
• 42:57
  and the jury listened to me very intently
• 42:59
  and they went out and deliberated.
• 43:01
  They came back in 14 minutes guilty as hell.
• 43:06
  Guilty as hell.
• 43:08
  And so the guy went off.
• 43:11
  He got 76 years.
• 43:13
  So he'll die in prison.
• 43:16
  I said goodbye to him.
• 43:17
  He went out with his head held high.
• 43:18
  At least I stood up because I'm innocent, he said.
• 43:22
  And I guess maybe it's going to be better in prison for him if he can continue to say, I never pled guilty to that.
• 43:27
  I didn't do it because child abusers are not treated very well.
• 43:31
  but the upside of it was that the whole jury waited outside the courtroom
• 43:37
  and for me to come out and they all came up to me and they said if i ever get in trouble i want you
• 43:44
  to be my lawyer i mean you didn't have nothing but you did a great job have you ever had anybody
• 43:53
  that was that you thought was genuinely innocent and that protested their innocence and you're like
• 43:58
  man, you have to take this deal because whatever they got on you or whatever they made up or got,
• 44:04
  they're going to put you away for a long time if you don't take this deal.
• 44:07
  This is the biggest heartbreak in criminal law, what you're talking about right now.
• 44:12
  Because, all right.
• 44:19
  when the evidence,
• 44:27
  so let's say that you're my client, okay?
• 44:30
  And I'm talking to you and we have a case
• 44:34
  and you are innocent, okay?
• 44:38
  But the evidence that's against you,
• 44:40
  maybe it's a he said, she said, could be.
• 44:44
  Or maybe it's just eyewitness testimony.
• 44:49
  and let's say you're looking at, oh, this would be a typical one, an armed robbery.
• 44:56
  Okay, somebody had a knife, approached this guy in the darkness and took his wallet.
• 45:03
  Armed robbery is a class D felony. You're looking at a minimum of six years.
• 45:09
  Strong armed robbery, taking somebody by force without an arm, drops it down to possibly probation.
• 45:19
  I am talking to you now as my client and I say, okay, Alex, look, here's the situation.
• 45:28
  The guy says it was you. He positively identifies it as you. The jury listens to that and they're
• 45:34
  going to consider it. The guy doesn't have a dog in the fight. This is who he is, blah, blah, blah.
• 45:39
  He seems to be a pretty credible guy. Eyewitness testimony can be faulty and that's our best
• 45:45
  argument. The alibi that you have is, you know, you're home alone. We can't verify it.
• 45:55
  So here's the deal. You can either go to trial and roll the dice. And since you have these little
• 46:05
  misdemeanor records, if you testify, you're going to be impeached with them. And based on the chart,
• 46:13
  you'll wind up in the 12 to 14 year range of sentencing if you get convicted.
• 46:20
  If we take the plea to strong arm robbery, you're probably looking at 18 months probation.
• 46:34
  And now the only other thing that you need from me is what my opinion is as to your chances of
• 46:42
  winning because the jury can do anything. So let's give you the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that
• 46:48
  the guy messes up a little bit on the stand and you testify really well. Under those conditions,
• 46:56
  with eyewitness testimony, I would say I would give you a 70% chance of winning, giving you the
• 47:05
  benefit of the doubt at the most, the best that we can do, even if I do a magnificent job for you,
• 47:10
  maybe 70%. So my question to you is, do you want to take a 30% chance of doing 12 years?
• 47:20
  Yeah. I'm sure there also factors into it some financial aspect because trials
• 47:26
  aren't free and firmly hiring experts and all that stuff.
• 47:30
  Yeah. Let's assume I'm an appointed attorney. So money's not an issue because I can get money
• 47:37
  for an investigator from the court.
• 47:40
  So people have a right to an attorney.
• 47:42
  So money is not an issue.
• 47:44
  Just are you willing to take a 30% chance
• 47:47
  of losing your job, losing your home,
• 47:50
  having your wife out?
• 47:52
  You know what 12 years in prison will do to a life?
• 47:55
  That's a big if for a one in three shot though.
• 47:58
  Yeah.
• 47:59
  Yeah.
• 47:59
  Or you're going to go on 18 months probation
• 48:02
  and have a felony record for the rest of your life.
• 48:05
  Right.
• 48:05
  people will take the deal.
• 48:11
  And we even have a very special plea called an Alford plea,
• 48:17
  where they don't come in and plead guilty.
• 48:18
  They come in and say, I am not saying I did it,
• 48:22
  but I am saying that if we went to trial,
• 48:24
  that the state has enough evidence to convict me.
• 48:28
  But it's treated just like a guilty plea.
• 48:32
  Right.
• 48:32
  So that's the biggest heartbreak because then, you know, there's just nothing you can do.
• 48:39
  That's how the system works.
• 48:41
  It's one of those things that I've always had a big issue with, right?
• 48:44
  I really do.
• 48:45
  I honestly, look, the whole plea bargaining system, I think, is likely if it were ever contested in a real manner and taken to the proper courts.
• 48:59
  I think it would be seen as unconstitutional personally.
• 49:06
  And I have to tell you that this whole thing of an Alford plea,
• 49:10
  okay, it's called an Alford plea because the case of the state versus Alford,
• 49:15
  who gave this kind of a plea, who came before a court and said,
• 49:20
  I am not guilty, but I'm pleading guilty, but only because the evidence against me.
• 49:26
  It's got all the way to the Supreme Court three times.
• 49:29
  And each time they said it is okay to do that.
• 49:34
  Yeah, and I'm sure they do.
• 49:36
  And of course, you mentioned in the beginning, you were at one location with 120 prosecutors in the office.
• 49:50
  Okay.
• 49:52
  This speaks to a staggering volume.
• 49:55
  and of course they're going to uphold that because that is what moves the system the fact of the
• 50:02
  matter is you have a right to a fair and a speedy trial and one of the very first things they'll
• 50:09
  always get you to waive is your right to a speedy trial because they're so booked up it's difficult
• 50:15
  for them to get cases put in on the docket and with a judge and in a courtroom within that 30
• 50:22
  day limit. Um, so you give that up, that gives them some leeway and then the plea bargaining
• 50:28
  comes in and you're essentially, you know, put into a situation where it's like, yeah,
• 50:32
  you know, Hey, we're, we're going to, we're going to go super easy on you. If you just
• 50:36
  make it easy on us, we don't have to spend money. We don't have to book the courtroom
• 50:40
  for, you know, weeks on end. We don't have to waste all this time and yada, yada, yada,
• 50:46
  just plea. And, you know, it kind of goes away, you know? And I just think it's a terrible
• 50:52
  system. I think it's our... Let me give you some real numbers. Here in Alamance County,
• 50:58
  population I think is 92,000, the entire county. Burlington, the main town, has 41,000. So it's,
• 51:10
  you know, doesn't even rise to becoming a mid-level city or a small city. In this county,
• 51:17
  we have one felony courtroom, which means that we can try a maximum of 52 cases a year if we can
• 51:28
  get a case into one week. Sometimes trials go to three weeks. But let's say you get 52 trials in
• 51:36
  in a week, we have 1,750 pending felonies. So those are the real numbers.
• 51:45
  And that, I think, is more the reasoning why that system is allowed to remain, honestly. I think it fails a lot of tests in the individual liberties that are ours and protected from the...
• 52:04
  Yeah. But on the other hand, though, I would say that 90% of the cases that flow through are solid pleas. 90%. The guy did it. And if it wasn't for the numbers, let's say a guy does a strong arm robbery, he could get anywhere from probation to six months in jail.
• 52:31
  Well, if it wasn't for plea bargaining, he would wind up with six months in jail because the prosecution would always want to punish people for it.
• 52:41
  But because of plea bargaining, he has to get to whatever the norm of the county has become because of the pressure to move cases.
• 52:51
  So most of the time, the defendants wind up better off, which may not be good for society.
• 52:58
  I won't go into that issue, but most of the time, you know, there's a certain place where it's all negotiations.
• 53:05
  And most of the time it's fair and the client's happy and they feel they're being appropriately dealt with and the like.
• 53:14
  And, you know, a lot of it is just completely non-controversial.
• 53:18
  Then you get that percentage that really is.
• 53:21
  Do the negotiations work?
• 53:23
  Are they basically just up to the whim of the prosecutor that they – what kind of mood they're in or is there kind of like a format to how that works?
• 53:31
  There's actually a chart.
• 53:33
  Oh, okay.
• 53:34
  And the seriousness of the felonies are given a letter, like possession of cocaine is a class H, armed robbery is a class D, second degree murder is a class B, first degree murder is an A, and a first degree murder with aggravating circumstances is an A1.
• 53:58
  So there's a chart. So it goes from H to A1 up the left side and across the right side going out.
• 54:06
  It's how many points that you have been given for convictions.
• 54:10
  So misdemeanor gets one point. Class H felony gets two points.
• 54:15
  A class D felony gets four points.
• 54:17
  So you look at, you know, is this one to three points, three to five points, four to 17 points.
• 54:22
  And so you have a column and now you go the seriousness of the crime and the person's record and that gives you a box.
• 54:30
  And in the box, you have the range of sentence.
• 54:34
  So let's say you're up, you're over to the right and high enough where you're getting active sentences.
• 54:42
  The sentences might be in the normal range.
• 54:46
  It might be six to 12 months.
• 54:48
  in the aggravated range, it could be 10 to 15 months. And in the mitigated range,
• 54:55
  it could be four to eight months. And so if you can come in and argue to the judge
• 55:01
  that this is a particularly bad case of this particular crime, or there are some real
• 55:07
  mitigating circumstances, the judge can go to any one of those three ranges.
• 55:12
  and you make your argument and the judge sentences within that box. So all the negotiations.
• 55:21
  So now what you can do though is the class D felony, which is the armed robbery, which is way
• 55:28
  up here. Then you say, well, we'll change the charge and drop it down to no weapon. Now you're
• 55:37
  in a different box. And so what the charge is, dropping the charge, dropping, you might be
• 55:44
  charged with six charges, whether you consolidate them, they all run at the same time, or whether
• 55:49
  they run tail to tail. These are all negotiating things where, you know, well, you know, okay,
• 55:57
  I'll take the armed robbery, but only if you consolidate it, everything runs at the same time.
• 56:02
  okay so it's just negotiations what is the difference between somebody pleading guilty
• 56:10
  i did it or no contest or is there any difference in that we the no contest is the alfred plea
• 56:17
  oh okay that's what that okay all right now no contest is civil really sometimes people don't
• 56:23
  want to admit wrongdoing um but generally in a civil case they would settle the court case out
• 56:31
  a court. And so there wouldn't be really a no contest. No contest was the old language. The
• 56:38
  new language is an Alford plea. I see. Okay. Yeah. It's typically basically just like I'm
• 56:45
  not admitting guilt, but I'll take the guilty verdict. Right. And it's protection against
• 56:51
  further lawsuits. Yeah. And we do have one other mechanism. We actually have the ability to
• 56:59
  withhold judgment. And so in some cases, that's another negotiating point. Well, we'll do this,
• 57:06
  but withhold the judgment, which means the person winds up without a record.
• 57:11
  The record sometimes can be the most devastating thing. I remember there was one judge,
• 57:19
  every time he started misdemeanor court, he would come in and the courtroom's packed with
• 57:25
  all these people that are driving while impaired or misdemeanaled
• 57:29
  larceny or whatever. And he would always start by saying,
• 57:33
  how many people here have a felony record? And a few people
• 57:37
  would raise their hands. He says, can I ask you, is it true
• 57:41
  that having a felony record really messes up your life? And they all
• 57:45
  go, yeah, yeah, it's horrible, it's bad. So then
• 57:49
  he says to the rest of the courtroom, now listen guys, having a record's really
• 57:53
  a bad thing. So, you know, if you're getting into a little bit of trouble, don't get into a lot of
• 57:59
  big trouble or something like that. You know, you always use warning folks. But yeah, that can be
• 58:04
  devastating, especially when we get into the whole structural racism thing.
• 58:10
  Because, you know, people of color have an increased chance of being stopped.
• 58:18
  and they also have an increased chance of being searched. There are literally more white people
• 58:25
  driving around with marijuana than black people, but there are more black people that get arrested
• 58:32
  for possession of marijuana than white people. So go explain that, right? And so when you start
• 58:41
  having a situation where it's part of the societal structure that a particular race
• 58:48
  winds up with more people having records that means less earning power less ability to accumulate
• 58:55
  wealth and um you know there's something that's been going on for 200 years
• 59:01
  no i'm sorry if i keep going on with these lawyer questions it's no no no it intrigues me
• 59:09
  One of my guilty pleasures is watching court cases on YouTube.
• 59:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:14
  And one of the ones that I find particularly interesting are the ones that try to defend themselves.
• 59:24
  And they do the whatever sovereign citizen kind of thing.
• 59:29
  I mean, it sounds to me like they're just babbling a bunch of words.
• 59:32
  Is there anything to that stuff and they're just not doing it right?
• 59:35
  Or is it just stuff that they picked up on the internet?
• 59:39
  conspiracy theorists and they're talking about yeah you don't have any right over me and they
• 59:46
  have these theories and things like that but like i'm i'm not the man jim jones i'm you know like the
• 59:52
  free person whatever whatever kind of stuff they're trying to say i i really don't understand
• 59:57
  it but it never seems to really work out for them especially on the side of the road they always end
• 1:00:03
  up with like their window smashed and they're getting dragged out of the side of the car
• 1:00:06
  yeah we have an expression is this the lawyer who represents himself as a fool for a client
• 1:00:12
  and that certainly can be true but i've also seen some people come in and do pro se and and really
• 1:00:20
  rock it out of the house just using standard procedural arguments right i mean yeah like you were supposed to do this and you didn do this right you have no claim at this point right
• 1:00:35
  so you know there's there's but those guys the you know i'm yeah i am a living man and all that
• 1:00:42
  stuff yeah yeah yeah hey that doesn't know but if the person is making a good argument
• 1:00:46
  it can be very effective. I mean, think about it, that you have an accuser on the stand
• 1:00:55
  being cross-examined by the accused. That can spook anybody. That can spook anybody. And so,
• 1:01:05
  it can have some effective intimidation effects that are positive if they're done correctly.
• 1:01:15
  But, you know, I mean, like you say, you were saying it's a practice and it takes skill and you're going to make a lot of mistakes before you get any good at it and just go off the bat one time.
• 1:01:28
  But there are those that that did.
• 1:01:35
  What's the case?
• 1:01:36
  Excuse me.
• 1:01:41
  Gillian's.
• 1:01:43
  Sword.
• 1:01:45
  I just can't think of it.
• 1:01:51
  It was made into a movie.
• 1:01:53
  There was the fellow who took his case, he was pro se,
• 1:01:57
  and his argument was that he had a right to an attorney,
• 1:02:01
  but he couldn't afford one.
• 1:02:03
  And he argued that case all the way up to the Supreme Court and won.
• 1:02:08
  And because of him, we have public defenders.
• 1:02:13
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:14
  Yeah.
• 1:02:15
  but he did that pro se all on his own.
• 1:02:18
  I think that's pretty mostly from jail.
• 1:02:21
  And,
• 1:02:21
  and seeing,
• 1:02:22
  seeing that I actually get a kick out of the pro se stuff.
• 1:02:26
  I,
• 1:02:26
  I like to tune into some of that on YouTube as well,
• 1:02:29
  because there's some interesting arguments that are presented that it makes
• 1:02:34
  sometimes I wonder,
• 1:02:36
  I'm like,
• 1:02:36
  well,
• 1:02:37
  why,
• 1:02:38
  why aren't the lawyers doing more of this?
• 1:02:41
  Right.
• 1:02:42
  And maybe they are,
• 1:02:43
  and we just don't see it.
• 1:02:45
  But, you know, they pull some obscure weirdness out and it's like, hey, it's right here. It's in the, you know, title, blah, blah, blah, section, blah, blah, blah. You know, you must do this and you didn't do this. And well, it's no longer a valid, you know, case, right? Or whatever. And it's just interesting to me. But again, like you said, it's practice.
• 1:03:08
  going back to what you were saying about like you know lx's question which i think is a very
• 1:03:15
  interesting one right morally and ethically defending people that you know have guilt i i
• 1:03:21
  remember i remember uh sitting in court i i was in a job where i was trying to get people to uh
• 1:03:31
  get people help as opposed to jail, which doesn't help anyone. It's just not, not helpful to anyone,
• 1:03:40
  right? There's no rehabilitation going on. Let's be honest there. But I remember the, the,
• 1:03:47
  a case that had came up before the case that I was there for, and I was, you know,
• 1:03:53
  sitting in the courtroom waiting because you kind of have to, right. And the gentleman had been
• 1:04:00
  pulled over and they, you know, pulled him out of the car and had him sit on the curb and all this
• 1:04:06
  stuff. And, you know, they finally got an answer back and, you know, got a warrant, searched his
• 1:04:12
  car, popped the trunk, and there's just a trunk full of drugs. I mean, the guy's red-handed. It's,
• 1:04:18
  you know, come on, dude, this was you. And I remember the lawyer came in and in 10 minutes,
• 1:04:25
  The case was dismissed. And outside the hall afterwards, I remember hearing the prosecutor and the lawyer arguing about this. I was kind of eavesdropping. And the lawyer basically, the way he won was they had pulled the guy out of the car and sat him on the curb for, I think it was like 45 or 50 minutes.
• 1:04:46
  and the lawyer came back and said, that's an illegal stop. You can't just unreasonably
• 1:04:53
  detain someone for, you know, and you know, whatever amount of time you feel is necessary
• 1:04:59
  and then wait for the warrant and then go and take your action. So he got off scot-free case
• 1:05:06
  was dismissed. And I remember they were arguing and the prosecutor was like, I can't believe you
• 1:05:10
  did this you know blah blah blah blah and he just said look you know we all have rights and while in
• 1:05:16
  this case yeah dead dead to rights it's not okay for that precedent to be set which is you know
• 1:05:26
  detrimental to the rights of everyone else you know and so it's drugs back though probably not
• 1:05:34
  No, he didn't get a cigarette.
• 1:05:36
  Probably not.
• 1:05:37
  But, you know, the thing is that we already know.
• 1:05:45
  I mean, if we want to face reality and look at the numbers,
• 1:05:48
  we already know that there is racial profiling that goes on.
• 1:05:53
  And if we get into what ICE is doing with Hispanics,
• 1:05:57
  and I don't even want to, I mean, that's a whole other level.
• 1:06:01
  but even your regular cop on the street,
• 1:06:05
  we know from the numbers,
• 1:06:08
  there's racial profiling goes on.
• 1:06:09
  So here's the thing.
• 1:06:10
  If that particular guy was prosecuted
• 1:06:17
  in spite of a violation of his rights,
• 1:06:20
  then those police officers who did that
• 1:06:24
  would be empowered to stop more people
• 1:06:28
  and they would tend to stop those people
• 1:06:30
  who don't look like them. And so we would just, so the balance comes down to, are we going to let
• 1:06:37
  this one bad guy go in order to put some guardrails on state conduct, or are we not?
• 1:06:50
  A really powerful example of this was when I was a prosecutor, there was a case, and I kind of set
• 1:06:59
  the scene for you here. Miami Beach and Miami are separated by Biscayne Bay. And in the middle of
• 1:07:08
  Biscayne Bay, there are some islands. And a couple of those islands are big enough to actually be
• 1:07:16
  occupied and even big enough to be occupied with a town. I mean, there is a going up the 127th
• 1:07:24
  street causeway from Miami to Miami beach. You cross over one bridge onto an island, you go
• 1:07:29
  through the island, and then you cross over another bridge to Miami beach. This particular town
• 1:07:36
  is mostly Jewish. And they have their own little police force. And this two guys,
• 1:07:47
  we didn't know it was two guys, but this, I'll start with the police officer. The police officer
• 1:07:52
  is at two o'clock in the morning,
• 1:07:56
  sees a young black man driving a Cadillac Eldorado
• 1:08:01
  through this Jewish town at two o'clock in the morning.
• 1:08:06
  And he goes, hmm, I don't seem right.
• 1:08:10
  So he stops the car, right?
• 1:08:13
  And he goes walking up and he looks at the guy
• 1:08:17
  and the guy rolls down his window
• 1:08:18
  and the guy is very nervous.
• 1:08:22
  and he's sweating, and he looks in the back seat,
• 1:08:28
  and he sees a bunch of personal property back there,
• 1:08:31
  like jewelry boxes and televisions and stuff like that.
• 1:08:38
  So he gets the guy out of the car and starts asking him some questions and the questions that he asked were not consistent So he calls in the license tag
• 1:08:53
  Then at that point, he calls in the license tag.
• 1:08:56
  He stops the car first, calls in the license tag,
• 1:08:59
  comes back to a house on the island.
• 1:09:02
  So another squad car goes over to the house,
• 1:09:06
  elderly man and his wife hogtied and executed in their bedroom.
• 1:09:11
  house ransacked. This is their car with their stuff in it. His fingerprints all over the house.
• 1:09:22
  All right. Let me guess. I didn't have the proper PC to pull him over.
• 1:09:27
  Yeah. All the cop had to do. Now I'm the prosecutor who gets the case. I'm the DA who gets the case.
• 1:09:33
  The cop comes in and he tells me, and I say, well, why did you stop him? He says, well,
• 1:09:39
  I mean, the black kid driving a Cadillac in the middle of a Jewish town.
• 1:09:47
  Okay.
• 1:09:48
  Well, I heard it.
• 1:09:50
  Now I know.
• 1:09:51
  If the cop came in and said he had a busted taillight,
• 1:09:54
  or if he took his baton and busted the taillight,
• 1:09:57
  it would have been all good.
• 1:09:59
  He had a license plate light that was out.
• 1:10:01
  That's it.
• 1:10:02
  That's all we needed.
• 1:10:03
  But no.
• 1:10:04
  So I had the job of calling in the family and telling them that we weren't going to file the case.
• 1:10:12
  Wow.
• 1:10:13
  Their mom and dad had been executed and we were not going to file the case.
• 1:10:19
  That's crazy.
• 1:10:21
  It all fell.
• 1:10:22
  It all fell.
• 1:10:23
  Everything fell because it was all fruit of the poison tree.
• 1:10:26
  Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  The fun and upside of the story is that the other guy, his compatriot, he jumped in and took all the jewels and he just stuffed them in his pocket and swam across the little creek to get to Miami Beach.
• 1:10:45
  And so he got away clean, but he was pawning the jewels and bragging about it and he got reported.
• 1:10:54
  and so we got him clean and what we took we took all the evidence from the poisonous tree and we
• 1:11:03
  boxed it and sealed it so that was out we couldn't say that so this guy was completely independently
• 1:11:11
  located and when we got him and we got the jewel and the jewel was identified he rolled over on
• 1:11:18
  this guy and when he rolled over on this guy we went out and rearrested this guy so we got to him
• 1:11:24
  clean. But that was one of the most difficult things that I ever had to do.
• 1:11:30
  So we haven't really touched on this one little aspect is you were, you were also a master's
• 1:11:40
  of social work. Yeah. Okay. Why? What? I mean. Okay. So after studying, you know, years with
• 1:11:52
  Master Knee, when I got to North Carolina, it was like, you know, all these forces conflated into
• 1:12:00
  this, who am I going to be now? You know, it was getting here was forced. But once I got here,
• 1:12:09
  I kind of recognized, you know, this is really a gift because I'm being given the ability to
• 1:12:16
  recreate my life from scratch. At 40 years of age, having learned everything that I've learned,
• 1:12:24
  I get to start over like 100%. So I got a job in this Alamance County and this small DA's office.
• 1:12:33
  We had five DA's instead of 125. And there's a lot of funny stories about acclimating to North
• 1:12:42
  Carolina. Can I tell you one? So they send me over to this. Now, I got to get all the names
• 1:12:52
  right because we're called a county court in Florida and that's called district court here.
• 1:12:56
  And there's no jury and there's no court reporter and there's a judge. And I get up there.
• 1:13:05
  Steve Balog, my boss, the DA, he says, well, Bob, go over and handle district court today.
• 1:13:10
  And I go, okay.
• 1:13:14
  So I walk over to district court and I say, where are the files?
• 1:13:19
  And the lady said, you mean the shucks?
• 1:13:23
  The shucks?
• 1:13:24
  I said, yes, ma'am, the shucks.
• 1:13:27
  She goes, well, you got to go down to the office, get the shucks.
• 1:13:29
  Oh, okay.
• 1:13:30
  So I go down, I get this box.
• 1:13:32
  A shuck is a file that's folded in thirds and put into a little envelope.
• 1:13:37
  So it looks like a letter.
• 1:13:40
  So I get the shucks and I'm pulling them out and we got a judge up there.
• 1:13:45
  His name was Skinny.
• 1:13:48
  Everybody knew him as Skinny, white hair.
• 1:13:51
  And I remember one time I asked, put a witness on the stand and said,
• 1:13:55
  yes, ma'am, could you tell us your name and your age?
• 1:13:57
  And he looks at me and goes, I don't know where you come from,
• 1:14:01
  but Mr. Martin, in this part of the country, we do not ask a woman her age.
• 1:14:10
  So I get this case, and the charge is taking antlerless deer.
• 1:14:19
  Yeah.
• 1:14:20
  Now I'm coming out of Miami with murder cases and stuff like that.
• 1:14:24
  Taking antlerless deer.
• 1:14:26
  So I'm figuring, well, taking probably is in the biblical sense.
• 1:14:30
  So I got to prove that this guy killed a deer that didn't have antlers.
• 1:14:36
  Okay, I can do this.
• 1:14:37
  All right, good.
• 1:14:38
  put the wildlife guy up on the stand.
• 1:14:42
  Yes, sir, and what'd you do?
• 1:14:44
  We got the report of the reports and went down there,
• 1:14:52
  and that's when I saw the snow and the truck was parked
• 1:14:56
  and there was some footprints coming out of the truck,
• 1:14:59
  so I followed the footprints, and then I saw some blood in the snow.
• 1:15:03
  I followed the snow back into the forest,
• 1:15:06
  And that's when I found the dead doe deer.
• 1:15:10
  And I looked over to him and said, yes, sir.
• 1:15:13
  And knowing that I had to prove that it was a deer with no antlers, I said, yes, sir.
• 1:15:18
  And was it antlerless?
• 1:15:22
  And the whole courtroom cracks up laughing, of course, you know.
• 1:15:25
  And I don't know why they're laughing.
• 1:15:27
  And the wildlife guy leans down and he looks over at me and goes, yes, sir.
• 1:15:32
  That doe deer didn't have no antlers.
• 1:15:36
  everyone's like yeah bailiff comes over you know those those don't have the antlers
• 1:15:47
  yeah that's that's definitely a big difference no question about it
• 1:15:55
  but to answer your question uh when i got up here i practiced for a couple years
• 1:16:02
  and then I went out again into private practice.
• 1:16:09
  But after a couple of years, I just saw in a small town,
• 1:16:15
  in Miami, you never see anybody again
• 1:16:18
  because 125 DAs, you don't see people rotating through.
• 1:16:25
  In a small town, you do.
• 1:16:26
  So you would see somebody that you prosecuted last year.
• 1:16:30
  Now you're, comes to you as a defense attorney.
• 1:16:33
  And I, at that point, Miami was very good to me and I could afford to say, I only want
• 1:16:40
  to take court appointed cases.
• 1:16:42
  They don't pay you very much, but that's what I devoted myself to is just representing the
• 1:16:48
  indigence and taking care of people who didn't have otherwise access to the court.
• 1:16:53
  And I started noticing the rotating door.
• 1:17:00
  And like you guys feel it became very obvious to me that the system as it constructed just doesn work
• 1:17:14
  And so I decided maybe I need a change of careers.
• 1:17:18
  Maybe I'm a different person.
• 1:17:20
  So I closed the office.
• 1:17:22
  I went to become a social worker.
• 1:17:24
  And you would be surprised that I think inside of every social worker is the desire to be a lawyer.
• 1:17:30
  And inside many lawyers is a desire to be a social worker.
• 1:17:33
  It's a, they're two very similar things that because social work is very fact or, you know,
• 1:17:40
  you have your case, you have the situation, what's the situation, what are the needs?
• 1:17:45
  You catalog those things, you know, if you do it in the appropriate way and it's very
• 1:17:49
  lawyer-like in a way, but it has that heart that's associated to it.
• 1:17:54
  So I graduated and I went out to work first in, at that time, the mental health system was concentrated in a single, it was called the Mental Health Developmental Disability and Substance Abuse Authority.
• 1:18:18
  It was concentrated in one hospital and everybody that was in mental health was there and it was a government agency and it was great.
• 1:18:30
  It was terrific.
• 1:18:31
  There were mentors and the best of the best.
• 1:18:34
  But then people started screaming about, you know, we need to have free enterprise and we need to open it up to have a menu.
• 1:18:43
  Anyway, there was mental health reform and everything went out into agency.
• 1:18:48
  and I went out into a private agency and all they cared about was billable hours.
• 1:18:56
  And I said, this is just not fun.
• 1:18:58
  So I opened up my law office, but I opened it up with a commitment to this,
• 1:19:08
  that when a client came to me that's charged with a crime,
• 1:19:12
  who is probably on the very edge of existence, not knowing how his life is going to go,
• 1:19:18
  when he left me, he would be certain that he's been heard, that somebody listened to him,
• 1:19:28
  that somebody was on his side and stood up for him, and that no matter what happened to him,
• 1:19:35
  if he went to jail or got on probation or whatever else, that he understood why what was happening to
• 1:19:43
  him was happening to him, even if it wasn't fair, he would understand why it wasn't fair.
• 1:19:49
  I feel that's important.
• 1:19:51
  That's important because sometimes things can't be fair because of the numbers.
• 1:19:57
  He would understand that. That's how I practiced after that. One of the great joys of my life is
• 1:20:06
  many of those folks stopped going through that cycle.
• 1:20:11
  And even today, I'll be walking down the street and somebody will say,
• 1:20:15
  you're Mr. Martin, aren't you?
• 1:20:17
  I say, yeah, yes, I am.
• 1:20:19
  You represented me back in 1989 and 2014.
• 1:20:25
  I want to tell you, I've never been in trouble since.
• 1:20:29
  And that's one of the great joys of my life.
• 1:20:32
  That's awesome.
• 1:20:33
  That is really awesome.
• 1:20:36
  All right. Well, I think we're probably, that's, that's a good story to end on. I like that. It's a good, happy feely type of a story. So one of the things we like to, you know, give our guests the opportunity to do is to shout out someone that had a lasting and impactful, meaningful, you know, impact on their life. Right.
• 1:20:59
  But this could be anyone.
• 1:21:01
  It could be an author, historical figure, sixth grade science teacher, you name it.
• 1:21:06
  So who would you like to shout out?
• 1:21:10
  Well, I can't not say my dad, and I can't not say Master Watching Me.
• 1:21:21
  but the person that I would like to shout out is my eighth grade English teacher, Mr. Giese.
• 1:21:31
  And I still don't know why, and unfortunately he's passed so I can't ask him,
• 1:21:38
  but there was this moment, now that I'm retired, I write. I've written a couple of books,
• 1:21:44
  I write a blog and I write and I love writing.
• 1:21:48
  And there was a time once when Mr.
• 1:21:52
  Giese had given us an essay to write and I was sitting in the class and I was
• 1:21:58
  kind of a fat bully, ugly little kid.
• 1:22:04
  And, um, and he held up my paper and he goes,
• 1:22:08
  now if y'all could write like, like they all called us by lesson.
• 1:22:12
  If you could write like Martin over there, you'd be doing great.
• 1:22:15
  This guy, he held it up.
• 1:22:17
  He said he can make a dirty backyard French garbage infested alley seem like a beautiful place.
• 1:22:30
  Very cool.
• 1:22:31
  And that just shifted something in me.
• 1:22:38
  That is awesome.
• 1:22:39
  I love hearing about who people shout out.
• 1:22:44
  I think it's really an enjoyable experience for me.
• 1:22:49
  All right, so where can people find you?
• 1:22:51
  What do you got going on?
• 1:22:52
  What are you working on?
• 1:22:55
  Well, you know, besides loving my wife and loving my dogs,
• 1:23:01
  my wife sometimes gets a little jealous.
• 1:23:07
  Dogs getting all the love.
• 1:23:09
  They do. And teaching at the university and teaching meditation. Besides all that, I write and I do a blog and I do a podcast and I do a vlog, YouTube things.
• 1:23:27
  And it's all under the name of The Flow.
• 1:23:31
  And I'm about to launch a website, which is going to be at theflowmedia.com.
• 1:23:39
  All one word, theflowmedia.com.
• 1:23:41
  And that'll have links to the blog and to the YouTube channel and everything on it.
• 1:23:47
  So you can just go there and find everything.
• 1:23:50
  Awesome.
• 1:23:51
  So you heard the man.
• 1:23:53
  Go look him up.
• 1:23:54
  Search for The Flow.
• 1:23:56
  Check him out.
• 1:23:57
  Give them a so.
• 1:23:57
  Because you know why?
• 1:23:59
  In order to go with the flow, you got to understand the flow.
• 1:24:03
  It's probably true.
• 1:24:05
  Know the flow to go with the flow.
• 1:24:07
  You got to know the flow to go with the flow.
• 1:24:10
  All right.
• 1:24:11
  Well, thank you very much for giving us some of your time.
• 1:24:14
  I really appreciate it.
• 1:24:15
  And this was a wonderful session.
• 1:24:18
  And thank you for giving us some of your time as well.
• 1:24:21
  You know where to find us.
• 1:24:23
  We're everywhere.
• 1:24:23
  We're now hosted off of Fountain.fm.
• 1:24:26
  Go check us out.
• 1:24:28
  See what you think.
• 1:24:30
  As always, if you liked us, give us a thumbs up.
• 1:24:33
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• 1:24:35
  Leave us a comment.
• 1:24:36
  Tell us we suck.
• 1:24:37
  Tell us you loved us.
• 1:24:38
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• 1:24:39
  We'll respond either way.
• 1:24:40
  If you have an idea for a show, topic, or a guest, throw that in the comments.
• 1:24:46
  We'll respond.
• 1:24:46
  We'll see what we can make happen.
• 1:24:47
  And remember, wherever you are, whenever you're watching this, have an amazing day.
• 1:24:58
  Everybody, maybe next time, jury nullification.
• 1:25:01
  I didn't say that.
• 1:25:02
  Ah, yeah.
• 1:25:03
  Jury nullification.
• 1:25:05
  One of my favorite legal topics.
• 1:25:17
  We'll see you next time.