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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking
Speaker 3: Killers in True crime History and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week,
Speaker 3: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 5: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 5: History and the authors that have written about them. Jay
Speaker 5: Tony Sarah is the epitome of countercull hero. He has
Speaker 5: spent his life defending society's marginalized citizens in the courtroom.
Speaker 5: His role in the Chu Sioux League case was depicted
Speaker 5: in the film True Believer, and he was gained. He
Speaker 5: has gained national prominence for his closing argument techniques. He
Speaker 5: is a lifelong tax resister who has spent time in
Speaker 5: federal prison in protest of what he perceives to be
Speaker 5: an unjust political and legal system. Tony Sarah has been
Speaker 5: a criminal defense attorney for over forty five years. He
Speaker 5: has been involved with numerous high profile cases, including the
Speaker 5: Black Panthers and the Hells Angels. He is the recipient
Speaker 5: of numerous awards, including an ACLU Civil Liberties Award and
Speaker 5: Lawyer of the Year from the Criminal Trier Lawyers Association. Recently,
Speaker 5: he was incarcerated for federal taxes. He decided not to
Speaker 5: offer a federal government he considers hostile to the poor, immigrants,
Speaker 5: Native Americans, and folks who enjoy a bit of inner
Speaker 5: transportation by means of forbidden substances. The book were featuring
Speaker 5: this evening is word Walking the Circle Prison Chronicles with
Speaker 5: my special guest, attorney and author Ja Tony Sarah. Good evening,
Speaker 5: Tony Sarah.
Speaker 4: Hello, this is Tony Sarah. How are you Dan?
Speaker 5: Very good? Thank you. You just missed your your glowing introduction.
Speaker 5: But we just basically gave us an opsis of your
Speaker 5: career a little bit anyway, just a little bit, and
Speaker 5: what this book is about, and that about your tax resistance.
Speaker 4: So the audience takes it with what they call a
Speaker 4: grain of salt, because I think all of these kind
Speaker 4: of exaggerated you no salutations sometimes, you know, we're pure
Speaker 4: HYPERBOLEA but I'm delighted that you're interviewing you know me
Speaker 4: about the book. And it was, you know, a heartfelt
Speaker 4: experience that actually created the opportunity right in.
Speaker 5: Well, great, now we'll tell us just a little bit. Now,
Speaker 5: tell us what for for those people that don't know,
Speaker 5: what's the difference between a tax resistor and a tax evader?
Speaker 5: And tell us what your you're basically your philosophy is.
Speaker 5: What what is it about taxes that you abhore? Tell
Speaker 5: us what your position is about a federal taxes?
Speaker 4: All right? One? Tax evasion is moralterpretive. Tax evasion is
Speaker 4: a felony. Tax evasion you know would not allow me
Speaker 4: to continue practice, is not you know, something that stems
Speaker 4: from what I'll call, you know, political ideology tax evasion
Speaker 4: or tax cheaters that under report, you know, with knowledge
Speaker 4: their income or over you know, their deduct are not valid.
Speaker 4: Blah blah blah. I don't do that at all. I'm
Speaker 4: mayor missed the meeting. And one of the little you
Speaker 4: know vignettes in the book talk about that I have
Speaker 4: been a tax resistor. Tax resistor is one who either
Speaker 4: doesn't pay or doesn't file for my maybe first twenty years,
Speaker 4: I didn't file. For the next twenty years, you know,
Speaker 4: I haven't paid. I've been prosecuted three times. Two of
Speaker 4: those times I ended up in Lumpark prison camp. The
Speaker 4: bar does not California Bar is very commassionate, very you know,
Speaker 4: empathetic when it comes to an idealistic position. So my
Speaker 4: position is, you know, philosophic, political, it's ideological. There has
Speaker 4: nothing to do with cheating the government. There has nothing
Speaker 4: to do with understating my income or overstayed my deductions.
Speaker 4: I just fail, you know, to pay. Previously, I merely
Speaker 4: failed to file. It's a huge difference, and I don't
Speaker 4: like to be you know, a lot of people confuse it.
Speaker 4: They think it's the same thing. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 4: not a tax you no evasion. I'm not evading anything.
Speaker 4: I'm just not god dam paying it. So what is
Speaker 4: my view? My view on taxation is you know, you
Speaker 4: don't know. I could write it, you know, chapters and
Speaker 4: chapters on it. But in a nutshell, the way tax historically,
Speaker 4: for the most part, was imposed is when like the
Speaker 4: Romans or other you know, imperialistically oriented countries invaded and conquered,
Speaker 4: they exacted an annual tax from the defeated, from the victim,
Speaker 4: from the vanguished. The conquerors, you know, demanded their tribute.
Speaker 4: And if you couldn't pay, I brought your you know,
Speaker 4: your silver, you brought your gold, union, you know, brought
Speaker 4: your son who was inducted into their army in lieu
Speaker 4: of payment. So it's always been a relationship between victor
Speaker 4: and vanquished oppressor and those who are oppressed translated into
Speaker 4: public time and present, you know, public dimension now and
Speaker 4: present time. The millionaires, the one percenters, the people that
Speaker 4: the occupied movement is directing their energy toward the corporations,
Speaker 4: the international corporations, the domestic corporations. They don't pay tax.
Speaker 4: If they, you know, can't carve some our mitch that
Speaker 4: protects them, then they pass it on to the consumers.
Speaker 4: We pay ultimately their tax. It is only the working
Speaker 4: class that pays tax. It is only the poor people
Speaker 4: who pay tax. It is only you know, the ninety
Speaker 4: nine percent of us who oppose the one percent who
Speaker 4: really you know, control everything in this so called democracy,
Speaker 4: that pay the tax. Well, I'm a freeman. I'm not
Speaker 4: you know, I haven't been conquered. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: pay their tax I'm not going to support their wars.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to support the corporations that stand behind
Speaker 4: their wars. I'm not going to wage endless war, not
Speaker 4: with my money in order you know, to become like
Speaker 4: oil rich. So you know, it's a pervasive view. And
Speaker 4: if US taxation as something that is, you know, placed
Speaker 4: on a class of people who have not you know,
Speaker 4: the political cloud or the wherewithal to resist it, and
Speaker 4: I just symbolically have made this. I call it my
Speaker 4: peanut principle. I've been doing it, I don't know, nearly
Speaker 4: fifty years. Every ten years, I get prosecuted because it's
Speaker 4: a misdemeanor, because there's no moral turpitude. I get suspended
Speaker 4: while I'm doing my time three four, five, six months,
Speaker 4: whatever it's been. But then when i'm out, I'm free
Speaker 4: to practice. And when i'm in, when the suspensions lifted,
Speaker 4: I'm free to practice. And therefore I practice while I'm in,
Speaker 4: I practice after I get out the bar. You know,
Speaker 4: even solicited the last time I was in Lumpock prison camp,
Speaker 4: which you know was a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 4: that the book came out of the experience, is that
Speaker 4: I had there, but the bar, the California Bar, solicited
Speaker 4: a article based on my experience there that listed areas
Speaker 4: of reform where reform in you know, the federal prison system,
Speaker 4: from my perspective, was required. So not only is the
Speaker 4: bar understanding, compassionate, you know, and understands it's not mora
Speaker 4: alterpitude than and it's a principle, they're interested in it,
Speaker 4: and they're interested in you know, prison reform, and they
Speaker 4: never allow articles to be written. They in the prison officials,
Speaker 4: at least that the camp I was in. They don't
Speaker 4: allow you know, needy to come in. They don't allow
Speaker 4: photographs to be taken, they don't allow you know, interviews
Speaker 4: to occur. It said, no, no, they don't want prisoners
Speaker 4: writing about sometimes the horrific you know, conditions and the
Speaker 4: from my perspective, the slave belaver that occurs there. But
Speaker 4: the bar was so powerful that all of the rules
Speaker 4: got swept away. Oh they were out there. They're taking
Speaker 4: pictures of me, pictures of the facility, interviewing me. So
Speaker 4: you know, it just shows California's beautiful. The bar, you know,
Speaker 4: is from my prospective, fair balanced, you know, not the
Speaker 4: constricting any of my first Amendment rights, and so what
Speaker 4: I did while I was there last time, because now
Speaker 4: I'm older, I was like a camp gardener, you know,
Speaker 4: watered flowers and I wore the lawns, and I cleaned
Speaker 4: up the debris, and I planted, you know, various cactuses,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. But it was only about six hours.
Speaker 4: You see, when you're older, I'm over seventy, so they
Speaker 4: the first time I was in the garbage, oh shit, man,
Speaker 4: you know I was assigned the garbage. I remember going
Speaker 4: to the counselor and saying, listen, I can't help the inmates.
Speaker 4: I couldn't do civil if you don't want me to
Speaker 4: do criminal law. I need as a typewriter. You know,
Speaker 4: I can help them with probath, and I can help
Speaker 4: them with bankruptcy. And I can handle domestic relations. You know,
Speaker 4: even though I'm a criminal law I know all of that.
Speaker 4: And then the next day, job assignment Sarah garbage gardens.
Speaker 4: But this time and I worked my ass off. But
Speaker 4: this time, I you know, watered and contemplated and went
Speaker 4: to the so called library. I read eighty novels. I
Speaker 4: wrote two full books. I wrote poetry, I wrote you know,
Speaker 4: what I called vignettes, and you know, the the editor
Speaker 4: and publishers call it prison chronicles. And I, you know,
Speaker 4: served the inmate populous, like you know, a dentist, you know,
Speaker 4: serves too many clients. They were lined up, you know,
Speaker 4: and I'm sitting out there on a bench. I'm kind
Speaker 4: of interviewing them. I'm hearing their issues. I'm looking at
Speaker 4: their appellate you know, briefs. I'm looking at the whether
Speaker 4: or not they have habeas corpus relief. I'm going over
Speaker 4: with them. You know, they're memorandums of law. I'm helping
Speaker 4: the jail house the lawyers perfect their rits and their appeals.
Speaker 4: It was just like lot if you lock up a
Speaker 4: doctor in a hospital, a doctor who likes to practice,
Speaker 4: a doctor, you know, who is sympathetic and identifies with
Speaker 4: his patients. That's what I was. I was a lawyer
Speaker 4: in a criminal defense lawyer in a federal prison camp,
Speaker 4: and at a point I could practice. And you know,
Speaker 4: it was just fabulous all the people I met and
Speaker 4: all of the secrets that they shared, and every race
Speaker 4: and every religion really contacted me, being open with me.
Speaker 4: So you know, I regard it as one of the
Speaker 4: like the rare moments of the My mind's sort of
Speaker 4: like a vacation. I don't mind work. I work hard.
Speaker 4: I worked twelve fourteen hours a day. I'm a workaholic,
Speaker 4: you know. I'm it's all law. It's in a narrow tunnel.
Speaker 4: The vision obviously is obscured when you're in a narrow tunnel.
Speaker 4: So when I get out of that, and then I
Speaker 4: can't go to court every day, and I can't argue,
Speaker 4: you know, to a judge or a jury every day,
Speaker 4: for me, it's a vacation. But I never gave up
Speaker 4: the practice of law. And I helped everyone, you know,
Speaker 4: to the best of my ability. And right beside that,
Speaker 4: I wrote my ass off just your note for self medication,
Speaker 4: and I'm just colighted that I have, you know, a
Speaker 4: book that came out of that experience. And in that book,
Speaker 4: I outline what I consider like symbolic episodes that I
Speaker 4: either perceived or I participated in. They speak, you know,
Speaker 4: beyond the what what I call it, the myth the
Speaker 4: fact or that are illustrated in you know, each each
Speaker 4: vignette or in each chronicle, because they're symbolic, because they're metaphoric,
Speaker 4: but the underlying theme, the underlining theme is we need reform,
Speaker 4: you know, we need change. Prison camps are unfair. Prison
Speaker 4: camps are slave labor. As soon as I got out,
Speaker 4: I brought against the Federal Bureau of Prisons. What's analogous
Speaker 4: to a class action on behalf of them and inmates
Speaker 4: who are incarcerated and forced into the slave labor. And
Speaker 4: my request in the action, which was filed in San
Speaker 4: Francisco Federal court, was that they be paid you know,
Speaker 4: minimum wage seven fifty an hour instead of the twenty
Speaker 4: three cents or the thirty three cents on if you
Speaker 4: really paid big money, you're getting eighty cents an hour.
Speaker 4: And many people, you know, and me in my first
Speaker 4: stint there.
Speaker 6: They work hard, they get dirty, they get tired, they're
Speaker 6: sweating there. It's dangerous and it's sometimes you know, it's
Speaker 6: longer hours than it should be. And god damn it,
Speaker 6: they're making millions off that, the prison system, you know,
Speaker 6: in terms of these slave you know, labor camps, and
Speaker 6: that's my verbiage. They make millions in our place alone.
Speaker 6: You know, they were making steel cables, they were producing milk,
Speaker 6: they were producing meat, There were cattle, there was corn.
Speaker 6: You know, there there was a mechanical you know, uh.
Speaker 4: Work and all of that benefits the prison system. And
Speaker 4: these prison you know industries exists in every campany in
Speaker 4: every federal prison that has a camp, and they're spread
Speaker 4: throughout the United States and they're making you know, milion
Speaker 4: to millions and they don't want to pay. They want,
Speaker 4: you know, to give you twenty three cents and oh,
Speaker 4: if you don't want to be there, then you can
Speaker 4: go in to do a hard time. But all of
Speaker 4: the people there, include myself, are selected one nonviolent, two
Speaker 4: no escape risk, and you're dare to work. This is
Speaker 4: a work in camp. They tell you you're not going
Speaker 4: to be rehabilitated. We're not here to deter you. We're here,
Speaker 4: you know, to punish you. And you work in this camp.
Speaker 4: Everyone works.
Speaker 5: So you know, for me, wouldn't it be just wouldn't
Speaker 5: it be just you know, I mean, just to be safe.
Speaker 5: The other side of this, you know a lot of
Speaker 5: people that listened read True crime, would listen to shows
Speaker 5: programs like this. It's not that everybody's completely biased, but
Speaker 5: a lot of people know and you know yourself probably
Speaker 5: better than anyone that a typical court case, say that
Speaker 5: the person is a thief. It's not violent, but still
Speaker 5: it costs the federal god or the state government a
Speaker 5: lot of money. And incarceration costs a lot of money
Speaker 5: for correctional officers and the security at a facility. So
Speaker 5: some people might say, you know what, twenty three cents
Speaker 5: an hour. There's no way I would I would advocate
Speaker 5: for seven to fifty an hour because I'd be competing
Speaker 5: with somebody that had never gotten in trouble, had never
Speaker 5: been on side of the law, never cost the government
Speaker 5: any money. So there is something to that, exactly.
Speaker 4: The rationale that the Ninth Circuit Appeals utilize to affirm
Speaker 4: a dismissal of my lawsuit, and bottom line in lay language,
Speaker 4: they said, we don't have to pay anything, you know,
Speaker 4: and it just if you take the history of camps.
Speaker 4: Remember Siberia. They worked them all to death, the tracks
Speaker 4: to Siberia killed half of them, and were using that,
Speaker 4: either knowingly or unknowingly as an historical model for what's
Speaker 4: occurring you know nowadays. So yes, I think the majority
Speaker 4: say good riddance. These people, you know, have committed crime.
Speaker 4: They are you know, menace to society. They have to
Speaker 4: pay their retribution, and these work camps is the one
Speaker 4: manner of doing it. If they don't want to do
Speaker 4: a work camp, then let them let them rot, you know,
Speaker 4: in the cell. And that is a dominant view. But
Speaker 4: that is archaic, that is punitive, that is uncivilized, that
Speaker 4: is unsophisticated, that is immoral. You don't make, you know,
Speaker 4: prisoner slaves. We're way beyond that, hopefully in terms of
Speaker 4: our most enlightened segment of society. And you know, the
Speaker 4: prison mentality, the guard mentality, the warden mentality is still
Speaker 4: way in the past.
Speaker 5: Well. The thing is too is if they fail miserably
Speaker 5: in terms of a prisoner leaving a system and then
Speaker 5: having some kind of it's not necessarily go away. I
Speaker 5: should these people get any support. But if you put
Speaker 5: that person out on the street without really a trade,
Speaker 5: if you work them in a prison, it's not like
Speaker 5: there's a credit towards or or some skill set that
Speaker 5: this person will have once they're released. If if they
Speaker 5: did work towards something like that, then you could say
Speaker 5: they got their apprenticeship. They are employable, but with a
Speaker 5: criminal record and a big void on your on your
Speaker 5: work record for two or three years you have a
Speaker 5: that person has a much harder time making it. And
Speaker 5: then and it's not like you talk about a prison.
Speaker 5: The prison system.
Speaker 4: Do you understand, they don't care about rehabilitation. What they
Speaker 4: say is one out of three of you will be back.
Speaker 4: We you know, we they want you back. They feed
Speaker 4: on recidivism. They encouraged, you know, by not providing education,
Speaker 4: not providing adequate library, not really providing job training. They
Speaker 4: they encourage the phenomenon of recidiitism. Don't you know? They
Speaker 4: get paid Ultimately, the institution gets paid like many schools,
Speaker 4: where their resources are allotted, like many schools on the outside,
Speaker 4: by how many you know, inmates they have. They want inmates.
Speaker 4: Inmates is in essence, you know, their resource. There's no
Speaker 4: way they want to educate them. There's no way they
Speaker 4: want to rehabilitate them. They want them to come back.
Speaker 4: And therefore it perpetuates, you know, their system, their exploitation,
Speaker 4: their you know, capitalizing off this slave waiver. Everyone in
Speaker 4: these camps should be followed.
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Speaker 4: Be proved, you know, should be released. They're normally what
Speaker 4: we call short termers. You know, I only got a
Speaker 4: ten month sentence, and they transition people who've been in
Speaker 4: a long time and they're about ready, you.
Speaker 6: Know, to leave.
Speaker 4: They transition them through the prison camp. And let me
Speaker 4: just be very honest, or many, many people from East
Speaker 4: you know, who have been convicted in the Eastern States
Speaker 4: come out to Lumppark Wumbuck's the pleasure Dome. They come
Speaker 4: out because they're snitches, have to goddamn camp, have been
Speaker 4: snitches and everyone's looking at each other and who's telling
Speaker 4: this and who's telling that? And you know, informants are
Speaker 4: treated very badly when they're ascertained. But the camp, you know,
Speaker 4: produces the camp works and has its quotas. The camp
Speaker 4: is run like a corporation is run. They have to
Speaker 4: make their profit, even if it's only a paper profit.
Speaker 4: So you know, what I advocate is eliminate them all.
Speaker 4: And those persons who are eligible for a prison camp
Speaker 4: are definitely eligible for parole, you know, let them out
Speaker 4: them or they put the short terms or the stitches
Speaker 4: in the camps in order to perpetuate the prison industries.
Speaker 4: That's the only reason they're there and.
Speaker 5: That's but isn't this really part of you know, you
Speaker 5: work in the judicial system, and again the judicial system
Speaker 5: someone you're a member of the judicial system.
Speaker 4: You know, you know of the criminal defense bar. Okay,
Speaker 4: what I'm saying that means that I'll go against most
Speaker 4: of the time the prosecution and the judge and the
Speaker 4: establishment all in you know, one bunch, right.
Speaker 5: But as at the same time, the judge is a lawyer,
Speaker 5: the prosecutor is a lawyer, and the judicial system. And
Speaker 5: if the Lawyers Association or those people that are lawyers
Speaker 5: and who make the laws realize that there has been
Speaker 5: again we can we can talk about this your long
Speaker 5: term marijuana advocate as well, the idea that they're putting
Speaker 5: nonviolent people in in through the court system, wasting valuable
Speaker 5: time dealing with people like that, and then again, like
Speaker 5: you say, put them and putting them the work and
Speaker 5: then making money off their backs. Maybe it starts right
Speaker 5: with the judicial system taking nonviolent crime and dealing with
Speaker 5: it and giving people criminal records and prohibition is a
Speaker 5: really bad example or a really good example of nonviolent crime,
Speaker 5: especially marijuana use. But again, maybe it starts at the
Speaker 5: judicial system. Now let's talk a little bit you were
Speaker 5: Let's just describe for the for those before we get
Speaker 5: into prison reform and what you what your real recommendations
Speaker 5: are and what you think were the injustices in the
Speaker 5: prison system that need this necessary reform. Let's talk about
Speaker 5: the correctional It was it a prison camp?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 5: But is it like a correctional center versus a federal penitentiary?
Speaker 5: Tell us the difference between represent There's.
Speaker 4: A federal penitentiary. It's called Lumpac. It's a very old
Speaker 4: prison and all of the images you know of unsavory
Speaker 4: I don't know conditions exists there. And outside of the
Speaker 4: yard that surrounds the federal prison is the camp. The camp,
Speaker 4: I mean you could walk, you know, to although you're
Speaker 4: not allowed to, but you could walk. It's within walking
Speaker 4: distance and it kind of hovers over you like some
Speaker 4: kind of a black you know, feared domain. And so
Speaker 4: it's starkly different in Lumpac camp. See it it was
Speaker 4: used to be Indian sacred grounds, so that in the
Speaker 4: area there's rolling hills and there's there's trees, and there's rivers,
Speaker 4: and there's deer and there's rampant BirdLife. It's beautiful. The
Speaker 4: you lift as trees, you know, when the breezes go
Speaker 4: through them give off. There you can lift this oil fent.
Speaker 4: You know. The flowers abound. The prisoners are mellow. They
Speaker 4: use there after hours sometimes to cultivate flowers or make
Speaker 4: enhance the environment, at least some of them do so.
Speaker 4: First it's very beautiful. There are no walls, no bars.
Speaker 4: There's two huge dormitories, pretty darn crowded. I think there's
Speaker 4: three hundred and fifty of us one hundred and seventy
Speaker 4: five in each dormitory. You sleep very close, you know,
Speaker 4: like it's bunks one on top of each other, and
Speaker 4: everyone's very close. You know. It's like a funny thing
Speaker 4: if you wake up at midnight, here like one hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy five people snoring and I don't know, groaning
Speaker 4: and grunting in terms of their dream life. Lights go
Speaker 4: off at ten, everyone gets up at six. You go
Speaker 4: outside and have a breakfast, and then you go to
Speaker 4: your job assignment. You get back in the late afternoon.
Speaker 4: Normally there's account and maybe you go to the mail.
Speaker 4: You have a dinner, you can read. You have free time.
Speaker 4: I had more luxious free time because I was assigned
Speaker 4: to the garden detail, which only worked potentially about six
Speaker 4: hours a day, where I told you last time, I
Speaker 4: worked maybe eight nine hours a day with the garbage assignment.
Speaker 4: So you know, the conditions are benign. There's not guards
Speaker 4: with guns. There's guards to carry a walking talking type
Speaker 4: of device, and they're walking around, but in they're in
Speaker 4: playing clothes. And the first time I went there to
Speaker 4: get you out in front and they say, look, you're
Speaker 4: here because you've been selected. You're non violent, and you're
Speaker 4: you're not an escape risk. However, you know five percent
Speaker 4: of you will leave. You don't have to sneak. Don't
Speaker 4: sneak away. See that phone over there, court tab. You know,
Speaker 4: out of the five percent, we'll get ninety five percent
Speaker 4: of you back and you'll be over there. And then
Speaker 4: they point to, you know, to the draconian looking oh prison.
Speaker 4: So then you know, for some in the old days,
Speaker 4: they would allow them to go on buses. That's when
Speaker 4: they believed in rehabilitation to local colleges and people were
Speaker 4: getting degrees, they were doing their homework. It was like fantastic.
Speaker 4: No more. However, there's still is lots of athletic activity.
Speaker 4: It's one of the last places that has the irons.
Speaker 4: That means, you know, the weightlifting, every form of weightlifting.
Speaker 4: There's basketball, there's you know, a whole soccer field, there's
Speaker 4: softball fields, there's tennis, and the first time there used
Speaker 4: to be a musical auditorium where people would go in
Speaker 4: and play musical instruments. That's gone now. So it's very benign.
Speaker 4: It's very easy. You can elevate your consciousness, you can meditate.
Speaker 4: You know, no one's gonna come around and beat you.
Speaker 4: You don't have to worry about being naked. You know,
Speaker 4: in the shower, everyone's on their best behavior. Why they're
Speaker 4: ready to get out, and they know that this is soft,
Speaker 4: this is not the heart doing hard time. My protest
Speaker 4: that if everyone was incarcerated like that and not forced
Speaker 4: into you know, went to classes and took maybe lessons
Speaker 4: in job training, and you know, was allowed to expand
Speaker 4: their mind and rehabilitate themselves, I wouldn't be writing this book.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be yelling, you know, like a fool that
Speaker 4: I am right now. But it's not like that. They
Speaker 4: what there's this image, an aesthetic image, an image, lack
Speaker 4: of sociability, and you know, an image like big Brother
Speaker 4: is smiling, but right behind that it's slave wages. Right
Speaker 4: behind that, they're capitalizing. And that's not fair, that's not appropriate.
Speaker 4: That is something that we outlawed, you know, in terms
Speaker 4: of literature and in terms of philosophy decades and decades
Speaker 4: and decades ago. So I will continue in every fashion
Speaker 4: I can, you know, to seek address and to protest
Speaker 4: the conditions at the camp. Let me can I I
Speaker 4: want the audience to know. Let me read one short
Speaker 4: vignette just to get the flavor of you know, what
Speaker 4: I wrote is that, Okay, sure, absolutely, Let's say this
Speaker 4: is a this is a short one and it's called
Speaker 4: no and we no melancholy you, no, no regrets. I'm
Speaker 4: just getting the book out. I am in prison now,
Speaker 4: stripped of duty and responsibility, ejected from my lawyer's life,
Speaker 4: from my family life, separated from my loved ones, no
Speaker 4: wife to touch, to talk. My routine asunder indulgence is gone, evaporated,
Speaker 4: too many, my reputation tarnish to others, a waste of time,
Speaker 4: an abandonment of purpose. I am in exile, isolated and rejected,
Speaker 4: but none of the above touches me deeply. My vanity,
Speaker 4: my ego, my arrogance is impenetrable. I have no ni,
Speaker 4: I have no shame. Quite the contrary. Prison is my plumage,
Speaker 4: my pinace, A symbol of my dedication to a principle,
Speaker 4: to a belief. It is my distinction I wear proudly
Speaker 4: the garb of a conflict. Lawyers serve so few ideals.
Speaker 4: We wear others' badges of courage and belief. We mouth
Speaker 4: others' ideas and value systems. We validate clients' acts of
Speaker 4: courage or defiance. We enforce others' revelation or cries for
Speaker 4: change or reform. We stand in other people's shoes. We
Speaker 4: walk behind them, not in front. We change horses to
Speaker 4: game the share. My penut principle I will not pay
Speaker 4: taxes has been my career banner held. High tax is
Speaker 4: the plunder of the victorious. Is the price paid by
Speaker 4: the defeated. Is a tribute to the conqueror. The ruling
Speaker 4: class pays no tax, only the vanquished. In modern times,
Speaker 4: the working class pays. I am a freeman. I will
Speaker 4: not pay their tax. That is why prison is not
Speaker 4: for me. A symbol of disgrace, the mark of lost salvation,
Speaker 4: a place for depression, a time of repentance or contrition.
Speaker 4: I exalt in prison. I'm not here because of moral deficiency.
Speaker 4: I am here because of moral consistency. So I find
Speaker 4: the prison life reinforcing. I find the prisoners fascinating. I read,
Speaker 4: I write, and meditate. I have new freedoms now, freedom
Speaker 4: to think outside of legalies, freedom to find new vocabulary
Speaker 4: for goodness, beauty, love and honor. I can be innocent again,
Speaker 4: idealistic and simple. I can thrive on romantic fallacy. I
Speaker 4: retrench in sentiment, camaraderie. I am a man among men
Speaker 4: who have faced danger and punishment. No common minds in prison,
Speaker 4: creative minds only. No bourgeois here, no safe way lifestyles,
Speaker 4: no cowards. I enlarge in prison. I do not diminish.
Speaker 4: We here are all proud to be anti establishment, anti authority,
Speaker 4: anti sheep and anti conformists. We are individualistic. We rage
Speaker 4: at society's norms. We are the angry semantic fists. Don't
Speaker 4: pity us, pity yourselves. You kind of get, you know,
Speaker 4: my attitude from that. That's why I chose it, And
Speaker 4: you can see the types of persons that I respect
Speaker 4: ultimately in life itself. I don't, you know, ultimately respect
Speaker 4: those who just line up behind these societies dictated social
Speaker 4: moral motifs. The sheep. These people have lived, you know,
Speaker 4: with courage. They were all on the cutting edge. They
Speaker 4: were high risk takers. They have imagination. The many, you know,
Speaker 4: come from impoverished conditions. The only way that they can
Speaker 4: work up socially is through outlaw activity, my identic faith.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been doing this fifty years. What I
Speaker 4: do is I go into jail every day, I go
Speaker 4: into court every day. So these are my people. These
Speaker 4: are the people I represent. I see the virtues in
Speaker 4: the society sees devices, but I see the strengths. I see,
Speaker 4: you know, the human values that they manifest. I see
Speaker 4: their camaraderie, I see the way they bond together. I
Speaker 4: see the same grievances in society that they see. And therefore,
Speaker 4: you know, for me, it only strengthens me. As I
Speaker 4: told you, at first, I came out, I went right
Speaker 4: into a murder trial. You know. The first week I
Speaker 4: was out, I was selecting the jury in the murder trial,
Speaker 4: and I was filing my civil action against the Bureau
Speaker 4: of Prisons, you know, for minimum wage. So it only
Speaker 4: instills in me more, you know, motivation coming from anger
Speaker 4: and frustration at the inequities that exist both in the
Speaker 4: you called it the judicial you know, system which favored
Speaker 4: the wealthy, you know, with who favored the white collar,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. You know, to the prison where
Speaker 4: one level the other year harassed, you're exploited, You're subjected
Speaker 4: to a lot of statistic, unnecessary treatment. You know, it's
Speaker 4: it's like you defended in the Down Many Many Circles
Speaker 4: and Dante's Inferno, and you know you're screaming after shadows.
Speaker 5: You know. The thing is, I agree with you know,
Speaker 5: the vast majority of what you're saying, But I want
Speaker 5: to make a couple of these points and let me
Speaker 5: ask what you have to say about this as well.
Speaker 5: There's a big difference again between the non violent criminal,
Speaker 5: the person that's a tax resistor, the person's in on
Speaker 5: drunk driving, this person on various non violent crimes, some
Speaker 5: crimes that people even perceive to say, for as your
Speaker 5: neighborhood plot dealer is not this disreputable. So but there's
Speaker 5: a big difference between some of the people that defense
Speaker 5: lawyers defend, and this program is called true murder. So
Speaker 5: we're talking about a lot of violent crime.
Speaker 4: Sociopath in camp. You know, you don't find the type
Speaker 4: that you evidently you know, are repelled by Camp is
Speaker 4: for non violent, non escape risks. So it's a whole
Speaker 4: different milieu society that you'll deal very severely with violence.
Speaker 4: I was at a camp. There are there may be
Speaker 4: people who went weigh and they're passive, commit violent acts,
Speaker 4: but they're ready to get out. Some have done twenty years. Man,
Speaker 4: they're ready to get out. So they're on their best behavior.
Speaker 4: So you know, I know what you're saying. Now you
Speaker 4: said it. You know a number of times, what do
Speaker 4: you do with the violent offender? It's all right to work,
Speaker 4: you know him to the bone. Well that's not what
Speaker 4: they're doing. They're not going after and punishing the violent
Speaker 4: offender by making them a slave, you know, wage participant.
Speaker 4: Those people are still locked up there in the more
Speaker 4: you know, medium to heavy security prisons. Their life is
Speaker 4: far more curtailed. They don't have deliberties that camp people have.
Speaker 4: So you know, you're applying a concept that is more
Speaker 4: applicable to real prisons than camps. Camps are you know,
Speaker 4: Suy generous. They are, you know, a development of our
Speaker 4: country patterned after as I indicated the Siberia in a way,
Speaker 4: you know, except obviously it's all easier now. But you know,
Speaker 4: I understand the perspective of paying your debt to society.
Speaker 4: When there really is some kind of you know, violent behavior,
Speaker 4: that person has to be separate. You don't have to
Speaker 4: put them in a steel cage. You know, no one
Speaker 4: has no one belongs in the steel cage. The dog
Speaker 4: doesn't belong in a steel cage. So even the violent
Speaker 4: people do not belong in the selling, in the pathological,
Speaker 4: the sociopathic. They have to be separated. If they're gonna
Speaker 4: keep you know, harming people, of course, they have to
Speaker 4: be separated. But you don't treat, you know, a human
Speaker 4: being like an animal, because the causative factors is what
Speaker 4: determines for the most part, behavior, and most of the
Speaker 4: cause of factors that determined behavior are outside of control
Speaker 4: in the volition of the person manifesting the behavior, you know.
Speaker 4: And in the sixties, everyone was interested in causation, sociological,
Speaker 4: you know, in psychological causation. They were in sentencing, they
Speaker 4: were interested in the background. The family was it dysfunctional,
Speaker 4: was it imparvished? You know, did he get enough education?
Speaker 4: They were looking for the reasons. They wanted to cure
Speaker 4: the conditions out of which you know, outlaw behavior occurred.
Speaker 4: Now they don't give up, damn. You know. The main
Speaker 4: ingredient in punishment is how much dope? You know, how
Speaker 4: many felonies, how many counts did the defending perform in
Speaker 4: the act of violence? Did he hurt someone, did he
Speaker 4: assault someone, etc. Et cetera. But it is pure punishment.
Speaker 4: We've retrograded, We've gone backwards in terms of the evolution
Speaker 4: you know, of controlling human behavior. Don't my friend, our
Speaker 4: culture I'm talking you know about, call it North America,
Speaker 4: call it European. We are bred into a culture of violence.
Speaker 4: Don't you understand? Every everything in the media focuses violence
Speaker 4: and fires. The movie industry, you know violence, the sports,
Speaker 4: you know, the boxing and I don't know of this
Speaker 4: cage kind of boxing, wrestling, the everywhere you look. They
Speaker 4: are forcing in terms of creation, forcing in terms of
Speaker 4: you know, media, the concept of violence. You know, we
Speaker 4: are a militaristic country. We're killing people all over the
Speaker 4: world every day. Oh, we've perfected the art of killing.
Speaker 4: All you have to do is, you know, be somewhere
Speaker 4: in the United States, push a button, and you know
Speaker 4: there's a drone that's going to kill a village in
Speaker 4: the Afghanistan. We are brutal, we are satistic, We are you.
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Speaker 4: Plus motivated by what all call primordial instinct rather than reason,
Speaker 4: and and and you know moral precepts as culture, you know,
Speaker 4: and then we say, oh, you know, let's punish these
Speaker 4: people who participate in violence. Well we've we've created the violence.
Speaker 4: We you know, have propagated violence. We you know, worship
Speaker 4: violence in this in this country. And I'm overgeneralizing, but
Speaker 4: it is a major theme. It is a major theme.
Speaker 4: And you know, the good and strong young people who
Speaker 4: think that when they join the armed services that they're
Speaker 4: fighting for freedom and democracy and you know, to supread
Speaker 4: to spread around the world. Let's call it, you know,
Speaker 4: the American idealism. You know, bullshit. What they're doing is
Speaker 4: ultimately working for the aisle, the companies, the jomini you know,
Speaker 4: of oil, oil controls in most of the and and
Speaker 4: I'll call it major economic motifs in UnderGlobe and and uh,
Speaker 4: they're stronger ultimately the corporations, you know, the oil, the corporations.
Speaker 4: They're stronger than any any individual country. No one opposes them.
Speaker 4: And they work in conjunction with nationalities, with you know,
Speaker 4: countries that perpetrate violence, you know, at their behest. And
Speaker 4: in our democracy, we're allowed, you know, to have what
Speaker 4: you call the loombiuss. We're allowed to have you know,
Speaker 4: the pressure groups. Uh. People you know who donate money
Speaker 4: will expect some reciprocity. So are our form of military
Speaker 4: or form of capitalism, our form of materialism. It is
Speaker 4: not consistent with the basic principles that the United States
Speaker 4: likes to believe that it possesses and manifests and you know,
Speaker 4: desires to spread to other countries. So I'm trying to
Speaker 4: make a generic apology for violent behavior, and I'm saying
Speaker 4: there's causal precedence that you know, create it, and that
Speaker 4: is beyond the control of the person who participates in it.
Speaker 4: Don't blame him so much. Blame the conditions that spawned it.
Speaker 4: The racism, the poverty, you know, the psychological dysfunction in
Speaker 4: terms of family life, you know, the lack of employment,
Speaker 4: the lack of education. Blame that. You'll go after that,
Speaker 4: reform that, and you'll find there's less violence, there be
Speaker 4: less crime, they're less outlaws, and less need for any
Speaker 4: form of penal institutions. That's my view. I'm a very
Speaker 4: biased man. I've been fighting, you know, the establishment all
Speaker 4: my life on behalf of defendants who are overcharged, wrongly charged,
Speaker 4: you know, selected because of reasons not related to the crime.
Speaker 4: I'm in court today here there's an arc. He's on
Speaker 4: the goddamn stand, he says. And this is a white
Speaker 4: community in northern California. He says, Oh, I was surveilling
Speaker 4: you know, this parking lot. What did you see? I
Speaker 4: saw an Hispanic and he was looking into cars. Oh,
Speaker 4: he's saw in Hispanic and was that you know part
Speaker 4: of the probable cause was that? Probably? Oh no, no,
Speaker 4: not that. Oh I did I call him a Hispanic? Then?
Speaker 4: You know, My point is racism, you know, is still
Speaker 4: alive and well. A profile, you know, the person's who
Speaker 4: then become targets for law enforcement is live and well.
Speaker 4: If you count how many times law enforcement has assaulted
Speaker 4: and shot and even killed a LED suspects, you would
Speaker 4: see that that statistic is rising every decade. You know,
Speaker 4: we are under the domination of almost quasi military in
Speaker 4: terms of police, you know force. We used to call
Speaker 4: them the thin blue line. Since you know, nine to
Speaker 4: eleven they are a thick blue wall, they're no longer
Speaker 4: a thin blue line. And the thick wall is a
Speaker 4: wall between citizen try and ultimately their constitutional rights. We're
Speaker 4: being squeezed out of our constitutional rights because everyone's afraid.
Speaker 4: Oh there's no domestic terrists, there's international terrists. Oh you know,
Speaker 4: there's a cartel, there's a street gangs, there's drive by shootings.
Speaker 4: Aren't we all afraid? Do you want to give up
Speaker 4: the jury trial?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Of course, you know, there's a movement to make it
Speaker 4: less than unanimous. Do you care about the Fourth Amendments?
Speaker 4: You know, well, I don't have any guns, I don't
Speaker 4: have any explosive I don't have any drugs. Of course,
Speaker 4: we don't care anymore about the Fourth Amendment. It goes
Speaker 4: on and on like that. I can't win a case
Speaker 4: where there is police brutality any longer. The juries will
Speaker 4: empathize with law enforcement because they are in a state
Speaker 4: of fear. They're in fear because the media, you know,
Speaker 4: propagates ultimately the through you know, news reports, etc. Etc.
Speaker 4: They propagate a message of fear and trembling. So you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I'm old. I've done this man for
Speaker 4: fifty years. I'm still gonna vigorously do it. But it's
Speaker 4: harder and harder to win constitutional you know, rights are
Speaker 4: shrinking and shrinking. The courts become rubber stamps for law enforcement.
Speaker 4: The discretion of judges is minimal. The legislature determines punishment
Speaker 4: and the charging authority the executive you know, the district
Speaker 4: attorneys and prosecutors and law enforcement, when they determine the charge,
Speaker 4: they determine what the punishment is. Because most of the
Speaker 4: time it's statutory. You've heard about mandatory sentencing. The discretion
Speaker 4: of the courts is tied down, it is limited. There
Speaker 4: used to be in our country what we call triport
Speaker 4: right system of checks and balances. There was the executive,
Speaker 4: there was the legislative, and there was the judicial. Nay,
Speaker 4: not any longer. The judicial has been swallowed by the
Speaker 4: executive and the legislative. And truly each year the execs
Speaker 4: executive manifests more and more power. Each year, we're going,
Speaker 4: you know, ultimately toward like tyranny by democracy and ultimately
Speaker 4: toward what I want to say is very similar to
Speaker 4: you know, past the talitarian governments in other countries. We're
Speaker 4: going in that direction because our constitution rights are are shrinking.
Speaker 4: While the executive, the law enforcement, the DEA and the
Speaker 4: FBI and the CIA, and you know those Homeland security
Speaker 4: and the local marks, they have more power than they
Speaker 4: have ever had, and you know they're arrogant and boastful
Speaker 4: about it. So you know, there's a lot that has
Speaker 4: to be changed. I'm just one, like one peanut voice.
Speaker 4: My little thing, you know is tax resistance. The little
Speaker 4: book that I wrote, you know, is a plea for
Speaker 4: reform in the penal you know system, specifically targeting the
Speaker 4: work camps. And you know, tomorrow I'm in court and
Speaker 4: I'll be screaming at someone again. That's my you know,
Speaker 4: life goal, so to speak, is to force what I
Speaker 4: call justice in the corininal you know justice system. Now, Tony,
Speaker 4: you have went on a tirade, asked me a question.
Speaker 5: That's fine, your tirade, that's great. One of the reforms that.
Speaker 4: You're very I'm sorry to go ahead.
Speaker 5: One of the reforms you're very adamant about is you
Speaker 5: say you want to return parole to the federal prison system.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that the federal prison system had abandoned parole.
Speaker 5: Tell us about.
Speaker 4: Absolutely eliminated parole. Every time a federal prisoner is sentenced,
Speaker 4: they tell them there's no more parole. So you do
Speaker 4: eighty five percent see the old as you did roughly
Speaker 4: speaking a third roughly speaking, a third of your time
Speaker 4: and if federal system, but when they abandoned parole, you're
Speaker 4: up there at eighty five percent.
Speaker 5: So obviously they, like you said, they've eliminated rehabilitation programs,
Speaker 5: all all that business. They've totally eliminated.
Speaker 4: They have drug rehab so anyone who has documented alcohol
Speaker 4: or drug problems and quotes is eligible, although they don't
Speaker 4: have enough seats. What the program is is unadulterated, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know mind, you know, controlled, its brain wash.
Speaker 4: It is you know, preaching from an outside look. Call
Speaker 4: it scientific view, passed uh and refuted penal themes. You
Speaker 4: talked about marijuana. You know, the federal government does not
Speaker 4: recognize any medical efficacy in marijuana. We have seventeen states now,
Speaker 4: you know, have recognized medical marijuana. We have, I think
Speaker 4: because it's an election year, the feds are crawling all
Speaker 4: over them in Colorado and Montane, in New Jersey, especially
Speaker 4: in California, north and south. They're going after the landlords,
Speaker 4: you know, they're going after people after Obama says, we
Speaker 4: won't prosecute if you're state legal, if your state you
Speaker 4: know requirements, if you're a dispensary or a collective and
Speaker 4: you're in compliance with the state standards, we won't touch
Speaker 4: a bullshit. They have gone after you know, state legal
Speaker 4: in Josh. From my perspective, to make a point for
Speaker 4: the election, Obama has under his reign, he has prosecuted
Speaker 4: you know, more marijuana people. He has made more marijuana
Speaker 4: martyrs than any other president before him, all the time,
Speaker 4: you know, espousing on one side of his mouth, or
Speaker 4: we won't prosecute it for the state legal while you know,
Speaker 4: at the other side, it's it's been revved up. And
Speaker 4: you know, they've destroyed a lot of the state's rights
Speaker 4: in terms of allowing the state to hand medical marijuana
Speaker 4: by by taking down all of the dispensaries, and and
Speaker 4: and from my perspective, you know, that's a huge tragedy.
Speaker 4: So I don't know, you know, there's so many ways
Speaker 4: to be outraged. A crinal defense lawyer, you know, is
Speaker 4: pricked every day by some form of inequity and some
Speaker 4: form of the discrimination, some form of what would I
Speaker 4: call it over as ellis prosecution over a punictive judges.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Maybe it's because they started in the sixties.
Speaker 4: In the sixties, you know, it was the golden age
Speaker 4: of law. Judges wanted to throw out cases. The Constitution
Speaker 4: in the United States, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment,
Speaker 4: the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the sixth men more strong,
Speaker 4: and you know, jurors looked at the law enforcement way
Speaker 4: the testimony evaluated their credibility. That's all been washed away
Speaker 4: now and I'm of the last, one of the fewer
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know, one of the five percent
Speaker 4: from the old school where courtroom performance or ration, you know,
Speaker 4: emotion passion was always sought as an attribute of good lawyering. Now, man,
Speaker 4: they want to shut you down. Don't raise your rs
Speaker 4: business or you put your hand up I was gestay,
Speaker 4: or put your hand back at the podium. You know,
Speaker 4: your questions are argumentative, your tone is argument that they
Speaker 4: cramp down on you. They don't want you to win.
Speaker 4: You think that the judge is a referee. No, the
Speaker 4: judge is the goalie. You know, you after you buy
Speaker 4: their evidence, after you get by the prosecution. You the
Speaker 4: analogy like a soccer game. You see the goal. The
Speaker 4: goal is that the jewy's gonna find not guilty. Then
Speaker 4: you find that the judge it becomes the goalie. He's
Speaker 4: blocking you, you know, from moralistic perspectives, not from legal perspectives.
Speaker 4: He might think the guy is guilty. He ain't gonna
Speaker 4: allow a jury to find him not guilty. So he,
Speaker 4: you know, becomes the arbiter of justice by how he
Speaker 4: handles objections, how he handles. You know the attorney, how
Speaker 4: he curtailed, you know your license so to speak to
Speaker 4: to UH for what I call forensic latitude. If this
Speaker 4: is sad man, you would think by this time, Hey,
Speaker 4: you know I'm over seventy and the ship for fifty years,
Speaker 4: that I would feel at peace, at peace, with my profession,
Speaker 4: at peace, you know, with the system at peace, you know,
Speaker 4: with the notion of punishment, where what has occurred since
Speaker 4: the sixties has only increased my anger, frustration and outrage.
Speaker 4: You know you're heard in that little vignette. I use
Speaker 4: the word semantic fist. You know, That's what I'm proud of.
Speaker 4: I'm a semantic fist, and I'll do it until I
Speaker 4: die or go se Nile, neither of which are imminent,
Speaker 4: you know from my arrogant near no self appraisal. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot, you know, for criminal lawyers. We're in
Speaker 4: office of twenty. We all do criminal defense. We have
Speaker 4: you know, young lawyers who haven't they've graduated, but they're
Speaker 4: waiver bar results to me up to me where you know,
Speaker 4: I have plus forty five years plus experience, and we
Speaker 4: all share the not the same but very similar ideology.
Speaker 4: We're not in it, you know, for the money. We're
Speaker 4: in it for the justice that we perceive as lacking.
Speaker 4: We're in it from an ideological platform, not from some
Speaker 4: kind of a you know, merchandizing perspective. A lot of
Speaker 4: lawyers merchandise their cases. I remember when I started, Oh,
Speaker 4: mister Sarah, you know you're training to miss any cases.
Speaker 4: You're not going to make any money like that while
Speaker 4: you're doing the trial for six weeks. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: getting sixteen clients, you know, And the underlying theme is
Speaker 4: don't go to jury trial. Deal your client out, you know, compromise,
Speaker 4: take a deal, don't file motions. That's a lot of work.
Speaker 4: You can't make any money if you're going to spend
Speaker 4: all your time file emotions and going the jury trial.
Speaker 4: And I've had you know, I'm paraphrasing it, but those
Speaker 4: themes have been given to me by peer group and
Speaker 4: by older lawyers, like aren't you in it for a buck?
Speaker 4: I ain't a way to make a buck. So when
Speaker 4: the defense, you know, bar is so diluted, their advocacy
Speaker 4: is so compromised, their selfishness and greed dominates their you know, representation,
Speaker 4: then we've lost everything. We don't. We don't have a
Speaker 4: dog in the fight any longer. And you know, one
Speaker 4: of my biggest grievance is what I call the snitch lawyer. Oh,
Speaker 4: the snitch lawyer specializes, you know, and who I have
Speaker 4: a client, Well, if you debrief, if you tell someone,
Speaker 4: if you go to the grand jury, if you set
Speaker 4: them up on the telephone, you know, well I can
Speaker 4: get you, you know, very reduced sentence. And there's a
Speaker 4: whole new specialty out there, you know, I call it
Speaker 4: snitch laurent. They don't they don't file motions, they don't
Speaker 4: go to trial. They just roll their client role means
Speaker 4: become a cooperating witness, become an informant, you know, and
Speaker 4: they get leniency. They get huge, you know, blocks of
Speaker 4: whatever leniency in terms of sentencing. And you know what's
Speaker 4: what's more precious than money is liberty and freedom. And
Speaker 4: you know, if I went out pretend and I paid
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars for a witness, you know and a
Speaker 4: material winners, I'll give twenty thousand. I'd be prosecuted, I'd
Speaker 4: be I'd be vilified, I'd go to prison for supporting perjury.
Speaker 6: But they pay what with.
Speaker 4: More valuable commodity than money. They pay with years and
Speaker 4: years of freedom, you know, And it's infiltrated. The informant
Speaker 4: system is infiltrated. The court system. The pillar you know,
Speaker 4: of much of criminal jurisprudence is informants, cooperating witnesses. There's
Speaker 4: all kinds of informants. There's precipient participatory, there's material, there's reliable,
Speaker 4: there's sources of information. We have more law pertaining to
Speaker 4: informants than any other country in the you know, the
Speaker 4: history of our globe. And it is a disgrace and
Speaker 4: ultimately impairs the credibility of the entire system. And you know,
Speaker 4: I deal with them in most every drug case, the informants,
Speaker 4: but it's spread into areas I don't participate to win
Speaker 4: in the white collar crime. They're they're all, you know,
Speaker 4: as fast as they can. They're given statements against people
Speaker 4: in order to gain leniency. And obviously, when all you
Speaker 4: really want to do is reduce your sentence, you'll say
Speaker 4: any thing. To save your own skin, You'll say anything.
Speaker 4: And so they lie, inform and fly. They are prejurious.
Speaker 4: They will tell the prosecutor what is necessary so that
Speaker 4: they can get their deal. So you know, I'm angry
Speaker 4: about that. The system went to hell. And when I
Speaker 4: first started that you didn't have to face free or
Speaker 4: force niches in a jury trial, you know, in a
Speaker 4: drug case or any other kind of case. Nowadays, everyone's
Speaker 4: you know, lining up to become an informant. They're they're
Speaker 4: getting quick a stitch lawyer, they're running into the US
Speaker 4: Attorney's office, they're making their statements that incriminate everyone, and
Speaker 4: they're getting their leniency. And that is a sick system.
Speaker 4: And so you know, there's another reform issue that you
Speaker 4: know doesn't pertain to prison, but you know they give
Speaker 4: this camp, which is luxury for some. They give that
Speaker 4: to the informants who have to do a little bit
Speaker 4: of time. And you're not supposed to know their informants.
Speaker 4: As I said, there mostly from other states. So you know,
Speaker 4: there's an underpinning. The underpinning. When you look in the
Speaker 4: penal system, you see slave labor. In the judicial system,
Speaker 4: you see a system that predicates truth on informant testimony
Speaker 4: and informant information. Both of those things are intolerable in
Speaker 4: a civilized society.
Speaker 5: Well we have you say that the snitche system is
Speaker 5: pervasive in the judicial system. And again there people would
Speaker 5: argue that there wouldn't be very many prosecutions, successful prosecutions
Speaker 5: of say, organized crime, without those very informants. So some
Speaker 5: people would say, listen, I understand it. The proliferation of
Speaker 5: informants and their sort of prominence in the system is
Speaker 5: disturbing and and as you say, destructive, disruptive, unfair, unjust,
Speaker 5: But there has to be some argument for some informants.
Speaker 5: Otherwise you really wouldn't have too many cases without some
Speaker 5: type of informant.
Speaker 4: You know, that's not all I completely disagree with that statement.
Speaker 4: The traditional modes of investigation have expanded along, you know,
Speaker 4: with our technological advances. They have so many other ways
Speaker 4: to investigate now in the wire taps and search warrants
Speaker 4: and you know, extremely technical forms of surveillance. They can
Speaker 4: you know, they can get a warrant now stink and peak.
Speaker 4: That means you go in and you leave the warrant
Speaker 4: seal and no one knows. I've had cases where they
Speaker 4: have wired, you know, put a wire under the bed
Speaker 4: of a suspect in his wife so that they could hear,
Speaker 4: you know, their bedroom conversation. The law has allowed, it's
Speaker 4: opened up so many forms of investigation that you do
Speaker 4: not have to rely on what is unreliable per se
Speaker 4: to what an informant who is being given ten years
Speaker 4: off of sentence, twenty years off of sentence, sometimes paid,
Speaker 4: you know, money, sometimes relocated, sometimes never revealed, an informant
Speaker 4: behind the scene. You know, sometimes an informant has penetrated
Speaker 4: some kind of an organization and is ultimately the one
Speaker 4: who provokes the conduct. A provocateur. You know, someone says,
Speaker 4: I know a lot of these occupied cases. You know,
Speaker 4: our office does, and there's pipes in the system, and
Speaker 4: admittedly so that will go and penetrate these groups and
Speaker 4: urged them on the commit crimes. It's a form of entrapment.
Speaker 4: In a lot of times, the people who are there
Speaker 4: I'm talking about occupying. You look at the person like
Speaker 4: he's crazy, and then you know, ultimately you find out
Speaker 4: that he's an informant and he's a provocateur, and he's
Speaker 4: encouraging criminal activity. That's the way law enforcement is investigating
Speaker 4: is by them creating the you know, the crime, so
Speaker 4: you know, I might see the worst. You know, they
Speaker 4: come to me when cases are bad or where government,
Speaker 4: you know, is out of control. Or snitches are lying.
Speaker 4: So I may have, you know, a bias view, a
Speaker 4: jaded view. I see all of the ugly things. I
Speaker 4: don't see the good things. I don't see the police
Speaker 4: officer walking the streets and you know, shining apples and
Speaker 4: talking with children and guiding them across an intersection. What
Speaker 4: I see is the law officers, you know, who have transgressed,
Speaker 4: who are in essence, you know, either bullies or cowards,
Speaker 4: and you know their behavior is disrespectful. So you know
Speaker 4: I haven't. Admittedly I have a jaundice, knew, but I
Speaker 4: will continue to represent the minority. You see, if you
Speaker 4: eliminate all of the minorities I'm talking ideological minorities, then
Speaker 4: the marketplace of idea diminishes and you're in a totalitarian state.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's important to rush to where law
Speaker 4: enforcement is the most you know, pervasive, To rush to
Speaker 4: the medical marijuana cases, you know, to rush to the
Speaker 4: cases where there is an informant who's going to perjure himself.
Speaker 4: To rush to the cases where there is police brutality.
Speaker 4: So I court those kind of cases. I'm not, you know,
Speaker 4: doing cases that are easy any longer. Because I've been
Speaker 4: around a long time, and I've done an awful lot
Speaker 4: of jury work. I get the most difficult ones, and
Speaker 4: I guess it affects, you know, my attitude. My attitude,
Speaker 4: as I've indicated over and over again, you know in
Speaker 4: our conversation, is very anti law enforcement, very anti authority.
Speaker 4: I've been one of those, you know, with that kind
Speaker 4: of a philosophy who has survived within the system. I'm
Speaker 4: you know, alive and well. I do the good fight
Speaker 4: every day. So when they eliminate that class of lawyers,
Speaker 4: they ultimately eliminate descent. And descent is the most important
Speaker 4: variable in a free society. So you know, it's a
Speaker 4: torch that has to be passed on. It'll be darker
Speaker 4: days and then there will be you know, sunny days,
Speaker 4: and you wait and hope that you facilitate the evolution
Speaker 4: for more freedom, you know, more economic uh stability for
Speaker 4: more people. You know that it's just a very uh
Speaker 4: elusive goal that you ultimately fight for.
Speaker 5: Now, I just wanted to ask, you know, because you've
Speaker 5: you've alluded to, but I'm not sure if everybody in
Speaker 5: the audience is aware of this. Your you have this
Speaker 5: idealistic viewpoint, and I applied you for for your convictions.
Speaker 5: Now when you take what's the criteria for you taking cases?
Speaker 5: If it's not about profit? Are these cases pro bono?
Speaker 5: Is that what you is that what you do?
Speaker 4: Well, let's go back into my history. I am, I
Speaker 4: don't know what you want to call it, a de
Speaker 4: facto Marxist. So I don't believe in capitalism and I
Speaker 4: don't believe in profit. So in the sixties I took
Speaker 4: what I call an informal vow of poverty. What does
Speaker 4: that mean? Now? One thing it meant is I will
Speaker 4: never buy anything new, and as of the last ten years,
Speaker 4: I haven't bought anything. So you know, I'm known for
Speaker 4: my suits out of the Salvation Army, and my freight callers,
Speaker 4: and my old ties, and for holes in my soles
Speaker 4: of shoe and for maybe my buttocks, you know, protruding
Speaker 4: through a hole in my back pants. I'm an avrok.
Speaker 4: Therefore I do not seek profit. Obviously. I have an office,
Speaker 4: I have secretaries, I have all the computers. You know,
Speaker 4: we have all kinds of expenses. I have an to bank.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I'll just grab a case so I can pay
Speaker 4: the goddamn rent. But other than that, I live very frugally.
Speaker 4: I live in San Francisco, California. I pay four hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty dollars a month rent. It's because of rent control.
Speaker 4: It's just a little apartment. I have nothing new. I
Speaker 4: don't have money in the bank. I don't have credit cards,
Speaker 4: I don't have insurance, I don't have squat I don't
Speaker 4: want anything from them, them being the establishment. I am
Speaker 4: a freeman. I am independent. I can think and act,
Speaker 4: you know, within the scope of my ideology. I won't
Speaker 4: pay their taxes. But you know, I am considered the
Speaker 4: best pro bono lawyer available for most and on the beginning,
Speaker 4: let's just say eighty percent pro bono. In the middle layers,
Speaker 4: let's say fifty percent pro bono. Now I would say
Speaker 4: probably about only twenty twenty five percent pro bono. But
Speaker 4: some of the cases are really large political cases that
Speaker 4: take many, many months. I sometimes will, you know, take
Speaker 4: from Peter to pay Paul I e. I will take
Speaker 4: a paying case so that I can put money into
Speaker 4: a case. I believe in a political case, and so
Speaker 4: it's nothing for me to let's just say charge someone
Speaker 4: who has money, who's you know, it's a crime. Let's
Speaker 4: say of greed and nothing for me to take twenty
Speaker 4: grand from him and put it into a pro bono case,
Speaker 4: because a pro bono case means nothing. You know that
Speaker 4: the lawyer's pro bono. You've got to have investigation. You've
Speaker 4: got to have expert witnesses. You have to you know,
Speaker 4: pay many times for various investigatory techniques. You have to
Speaker 4: have researchers for motions. You know, sadly, sadly, it takes
Speaker 4: money to practice, to defend, to engage, you know, in
Speaker 4: adversarial proceedings. The government has unlimited funding the poor public
Speaker 4: defenders around the country or you know, they're starving compared
Speaker 4: to the resources that are available to the federal and
Speaker 4: state prosecutors. And you know, there's the lawyers, very good
Speaker 4: lawyers work only for money. And there's not enough pro
Speaker 4: bono lawyers, not enough idealistic lawyers, not enough you know,
Speaker 4: young cause oriented lawyers. Not enough lawyers lining up for
Speaker 4: the occupy movement. Not enough lawyers you know, representing the
Speaker 4: ninety nine percenters, not the lawyers you know, representing the
Speaker 4: criminal cases where there is you know, obvious constitutional imperfections
Speaker 4: or you know, for of racism, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So you know, we're going to struggle in the judicial process.
Speaker 4: We're dominated by prosecution. This country, as I indicate, is going,
Speaker 4: you know, each decade closer and closer to a form
Speaker 4: of tutalitarianism. And the rights that we are you know,
Speaker 4: surrendering daily. I'm talking constitutional rights, search and seizure rights,
Speaker 4: you know, rights that pertain to course confessions or unmorandized confessions.
Speaker 4: Those things are not you know, litigated to the degree
Speaker 4: that they should. Lack of resources, lack of persons of
Speaker 4: the lawyers, of principle, you know, lawyers are only in
Speaker 4: it for a buck, all of those kind of things.
Speaker 4: And I see, I guess you know, that's what I see,
Speaker 4: and that's what I rage against. That's my you know,
Speaker 4: little attribution to the subculture of the legal world.
Speaker 5: Now, before we wrap up, we're almost out of time. Really, uh,
Speaker 5: it's it's been great listening to your personal philosophy. But again,
Speaker 5: tell us just a little bit more about what the
Speaker 5: book really is though, because as you.
Speaker 4: It's a street of quickie again, because the best way,
Speaker 4: you know, is to get a little taste of it.
Speaker 4: Gold want admit it, I have the book only a
Speaker 4: real short one, the lawn waterer. And it's about me,
Speaker 4: not all of them, somehow I selected to that or
Speaker 4: about me. Not all of them are, in fact, not
Speaker 4: many of them are. Maybe I like to once about me.
Speaker 4: The lawn water the sun pours like lava from the guy.
Speaker 4: A solitary, green uniformed man stands apart alone, watering the
Speaker 4: vast empty, equally green lawn. White tangled hair falls from
Speaker 4: under iron equally white baseball cap, shielding him from the sun.
Speaker 4: An orange hose in his right hand extends the rays
Speaker 4: of water to the grass. This is a prison camp.
Speaker 4: He is a prisoner. He waters lawns all day in
Speaker 4: the burning heat. He is in a trance. His thoughts
Speaker 4: are melting, his eyes brim with tears. Look through hold on,
Speaker 4: I just lost my bitch. He is in a trance.
Speaker 4: His thoughts are melting, his eyes brim with tears. Look
Speaker 4: through the spraying flooding from his He sees visions. He
Speaker 4: sees shiny black crows through his waterfall. These are lawyers.
Speaker 4: They are taking flight from his mind. He sees rainbows
Speaker 4: in the water spray. These are his children of shining colors.
Speaker 4: He sees droplets from a face. It is the face
Speaker 4: of his beloved. She smiles love from the liquid prison
Speaker 4: he now he talks to her. He talks to the
Speaker 4: water flowing. He says, Vicky, I love you. So you
Speaker 4: know what is it? It's little episodes. Some of them
Speaker 4: are they document conditions first paragraph and you know abstinences.
Speaker 4: There is no physical love in prison is the most
Speaker 4: singularly meaningful vacancy in an inmate's existence. It is true privation.
Speaker 4: Celibacy is the death of a vital of human life.
Speaker 4: The ramicrifications are profound. No contact with you're made, no
Speaker 4: physical affection, no touching of flesh, no softness, no caress,
Speaker 4: a soft voice, a warm body, holding, feeling, petting are
Speaker 4: all eliminated from the inmate's experience. Can anyone imagine how
Speaker 4: that destroys the balance between physical and the emotional attributes
Speaker 4: of a man's personality. When love is missing, when no
Speaker 4: femininity enters into the male existence, there are a number
Speaker 4: of reactions visible at prison camp. Subflammation is one overeating
Speaker 4: over exercising, oversleeping, masturbation, pin ups of sexual stimulating nature.
Speaker 4: Pornal magazines take the place of natural feelings. Homosexuality occurs
Speaker 4: in prison, but I think not a camp. Hardening of
Speaker 4: the male psyche is another consequence of celibacy. The inmate
Speaker 4: becomes embittered, defensive, obscene language and behavior, sexist in his pronouncements.
Speaker 4: The ability to be carrying or to extend softness is lost. Depression, lonesomeness,
Speaker 4: isolation can also occur. Why not furloughs home, Why not
Speaker 4: conjugal visits? Why does society destroy the vital light of
Speaker 4: instincts to love and reproduction by inmates? Why are they
Speaker 4: eliminated from the gene pool of evolution? Shame on us.
Speaker 4: So yeah, you can see. I don't know. The tone
Speaker 4: is in sometimes evangelistic, but you know, I try to
Speaker 4: put my finger on the sensitive areas that develop as
Speaker 4: a consequence of prison life. And no one else has
Speaker 4: done this kind of thing. Many many books are written
Speaker 4: on prisons, you know, those are coughed up weekly. No
Speaker 4: other book examines the episode in a pattern in a
Speaker 4: prison camp. Prison camp is different. So this book from
Speaker 4: my perspective, as sociological significance. Anyone who's interested, for instance,
Speaker 4: in you know, the penal system. Anyone who's like probation
Speaker 4: officers or judges or you know, prosecutors, they should read
Speaker 4: it to understand what occurs to a human being in prison.
Speaker 4: Do you understand that every single day of prosecutor's life,
Speaker 4: he's got one thing as an objective to put someone
Speaker 4: in a stale case for as long as he can.
Speaker 4: You know, he's never been there. He doesn't understand. He
Speaker 4: doesn't know the human condition. He doesn't know like the
Speaker 4: valuable merits of someone you know whose behavior has ultimately
Speaker 4: been criminal. It's something, really, you know, that exposes the
Speaker 4: fallacies of prison life. So you know, I'm not saying
Speaker 4: it's great literature. I'm a goddamn lawyer. I'm not a writer.
Speaker 4: But it does document episodes that are meaningful and must
Speaker 4: be understood by anyone who works in or about, you know,
Speaker 4: the criminal justice system and the prison system.
Speaker 5: Well, it's a very interesting read. Tony Walking the Circle,
Speaker 5: Prison Chronicles, Grizzly Peak, Oppressed. Maybe he can tell us
Speaker 5: what's the best way to get this book. I know
Speaker 5: everybody knows Bard and Noble and Amazon online. But if
Speaker 5: they want this, well, I don't think.
Speaker 4: Frankly, I don't know. I think they have their own
Speaker 4: distribution system. So you've got to look up Grizzly Peak,
Speaker 4: and I'm assuming that you know, somewhere on the net
Speaker 4: it'll tell what stores have it and how it can
Speaker 4: be gotten. And I think it's actually doing pretty good
Speaker 4: at point. But I don't think it is available, you know,
Speaker 4: on Amazon, et cetera. I think it's so fashioned and
Speaker 4: it still distributes to bookstores, and I think it's Grizzly
Speaker 4: Peak's been in existence for a long time and they've
Speaker 4: published a great number of books, but it's burked me
Speaker 4: and it's academic and it's political, and many of the
Speaker 4: books have been controversial. So you know, I'm actually proud
Speaker 4: to have been selected by them. They select only those
Speaker 4: people that have an ideology. I think that they respect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an interesting publisher for sure.
Speaker 4: And the other and look, you know, I turned what
Speaker 4: could be an ordeal for many, it would have been
Speaker 4: an ordeal, a painful experience, into something that's bontorful, you know,
Speaker 4: something that has kind of what would I call it
Speaker 4: a value and may in turn to host this, you know,
Speaker 4: my whole experience, and from something that could have been
Speaker 4: negative to some very positive. So you know, I'm just
Speaker 4: very appreciative that Grizzly Peak chose to publish it.
Speaker 5: It's a fine work too, and it's very poetic as
Speaker 5: just from the big nets that you read as well.
Speaker 5: That's very poetic because you're looking at things from a
Speaker 5: very upbeat and positive situation. You said, you gested that
Speaker 5: you went in there like it was a vacation, but
Speaker 5: it really was a rest, a valuable rest and sort
Speaker 5: of a contemplative period for you to be able and
Speaker 5: like you said, a beautiful place basically ironically, but you've
Speaker 5: turned this into a very positive, positive time in your
Speaker 5: life to be able to produce this work. And I
Speaker 5: wanted to tell people too that if they missed the
Speaker 5: program earlier you were on months ago with Paulette, Frankel,
Speaker 5: fr A and k L and if they could look
Speaker 5: up that program in the archives. It was an excellent
Speaker 5: interview with Paulette and yourself to talking more about the
Speaker 5: unique perspective that you have and that you've brought to
Speaker 5: this book and that you bring to your life and
Speaker 5: you bring to your career as a defense attorney. So
Speaker 5: I wanted to thank you very much for this interview
Speaker 5: and sharing Walking the Circle to Prison chronicles with us.
Speaker 4: And it's reciprocal. Dan, thank you very much for having
Speaker 4: me on your show.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much, and you have a very
Speaker 5: good evening. And I hope to talk to you in
Speaker 5: the near future. Thank you very much, Tony. Have a
Speaker 5: good night, good night, thank you, good night.