Mr Bearded Truth – 05 – Criminal Justice System

DISCLOSURE

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all right we are here
we are ready to go and it’s on
time this time what an amazing time that
is
i’m so glad to be here if this is your
first time here or your 100th time here
welcome in i am of course mr merkel the
beard of truth
jason lyon your neighborhood friendly
libertarian i’m so glad
to have this opportunity to talk to you
guys of course on muddy waters
of freedom buddy of ours media has been
a
gracious host of allowing me to come on
here to talk about politics social
issues
one liberty at a time and tonight’s
discussion is going to be centered
around
the criminal justice system can i has
loops
welcome welcome for the first from
twitch
we are tonight going to be talking about
the purpose of the criminal
justice system and some of the rational
points that we can change within the
system in order to ensure that it’s
working
in its desired goals so i’m excited for
that but of course i’ve got to say thank
you to matt and spike for giving me this
opportunity from muddy waters media
they have been so amazing working their
asses off to help
ignite the torches of liberty across
this country and they’ve been doing a
hell of a time at it and so i’m excited
to be
be a part of the team to helping out and
i’m excited for the future
with this
would have been first but i caught the
youtube notification and went to
facebook to watch
oof oof could have been first but you’re
not
i like it
welcome from california janice so
tonight we’ve got a fantastic show lined
up and of course this is not my normal
night so i gotta i would be remiss
without explaining this
so monday night on our way finishing up
the last
last minute notes because you know i i
i prep as much as spike does sometimes
um
maybe even it’s typically a little more
than cajun but
um just about where spike is and uh
finishing up my notes and we found out
that
um we had a coveted case in the house so
i i apologize for my absence we’re only
five days late but here we are
nonetheless and and
thankfully cajun and nolik were willing
to let me
come slide on to the muddy waters media
8 pm eastern
freedom time of course to come talk to
you guys for a little bit
and their show will still be on tonight
at 9 30
freedom time so make sure you guys don’t
miss from buy used to igloos tonight
and all of course make sure to plug them
again tonight
as we as we get ready to sign off
of course i’ve got the bearded coffee
with me
oh i can’t i i will never be able to
prep as much as matt matt and alec are
like
another tier of just ready to go
um nalix got color-coded stuff uh
matt matt’s got like pages of notes i
mean he’s got it
he’s got it well set out um
so i’ve got i’ve got more notes than
i’ve had in any of the previous episodes
so i’m excited
about that to be able to show that i can
do a little bit
but nonetheless we’re here i’m excited
for it
so i think to open this up to start this
conversation off we have to of course
know what is the purpose of the criminal
justice system
it’s one of those easy questions that
you know everyone’s like oh yeah i know
what the criminal justice system is
what’s the purpose uh
poop how do i how do i take this
massive system that’s so important to a
society
and narrow it down and to say what its
purpose is
well of course that’s what you come to
me for
so the purpose of the criminal justice
system
is to create a system that
makes victims whole that protects our
communities when people
create victims we have a system in place
that has due process
to ensure that that uh criminals or
people who are
being aggressive against others and
their properties um
have a punishment to serve um
and and so at the end the very
the very smallest most succinct
definition of what the purpose is
is of course is to make our communities
as safe as possible
um so of course right as we talk about
libertarianism as
we talked with some anarchists as we
talk with minor kiss as we talk with
conservatives or liberals right the
whole purpose of the criminal justice
system
is to ensure that our communities are as
safe as possible we all want the same
thing
now some people believe that that the
state is the best orbiter of this some
people believe that it’s not
and that’s not really what we’re going
to be discussing today because what
we’re discussing
today is a system that we have in place
and so i of course this is something
that
um really drove me to becoming
the libertarian that i am today this is
one of the big topics that i’ve been so
passionate about
because i believe that a criminal
justice system is is is incredibly
important to our society
but the criminal justice system needs to
work for our society as well
and and i think that we’re going to
cover some of the shortcomings tonight
with that
safe and free are opposite getting in
there
all right so now that we’ve got the
purpose of the what the criminal justice
system is i want to break it down
for the criminal justice system itself
the actual
practice the actual what how it actually
functions
and and i’m gonna break it off into five
different categories
and and this is a chronological if you
will so you have the beginning
um where when we talk about the criminal
justice system
you have people that are amongst us
right these are these are just people
within your society so we have our
culture we have our education system we
have people
working and and living amongst each
other
and and so this culture that we have is
what drives our politics right everyone
everyone kind of understands that that
politics is downstream of culture and so
our culture
drives the politicians to make changes
to our laws
and to set things up and to structure
things the way that they will
and so this is incredibly important to
understand that these
also directly tie into later parts of
the criminal justice system such as
right now
there are studies out there that look at
the third grade
literacy rates of people to be able to
determine
if they will be caught up in the
criminal justice system later in life
so all of this is so incredibly
important to it because
we don’t want to have children that that
are pretty much predetermined
to be heading off to prison one day
prison or jail
or to serve some kind of to commit some
kind of crime later on
so it’s incredibly important that we
have this conversation because we need
to be
a well-informed populist to be able to
understand the system to be able to work
to ensure that
we ourselves are not becoming criminals
but also that our loved ones don’t
become it as well
so so the culture thing is very
important to understand
our society our culture to know what
everyone else is thinking of
why something is a crime um when when we
may not necessarily agree with it and so
so it’s a good spot to start off with
this conversation
and and i think that our culture has
gotten to where we’re so political so
divided on so many issues that there are
plenty of things that are criminal
that necessarily shouldn’t be um
and and some of these things are are an
invitation for the growth of government
um some of them are preventing from the
people from being empowered
um and the one that really sparks really
pops to the top of my mind when i talk
about this of course is that
in many states and in many big cities it
is actually a misdemeanor
to go out and feed the homeless so
when we see somebody hurting within our
society
it’s not that it’s it’s not that we all
lack empathy
it’s not that we all don’t want to do
something for them but in some
circumstances some cases it actually is
illegal
so should somebody go out there into one
of these cities such as in california
and start feeding the homeless they can
be fined
and even serve serve a time
for doing this which brings us to the
next portion of this
right the actual crime being committed
we we have a long list
of crimes in this country many of them
people don’t really
know exist because they’re they’re
arbitrary at best
um but there are some that we we all
kind of accept as yeah that that should
be a crime such as you know if you’re
gonna
break somebody’s property that should be
a crime if you’re gonna hurt somebody
that that definitely should be a crime
um
you know more grotesque things such as
rape
of an adult or even worse a rape of a
child
um we all kind of understand that but
but when it comes to
having a child
create a lemonade stand this has been a
controversy in many states texas has got
this
uh recently had a story on this a
child having a lemonade stand to make a
couple quarters make a couple bucks
serve a little lemonade give some
refreshment to their neighbors that
shouldn’t be a crime
but without a permit it is
so we have a lot of these things that
that we do need to
have a good civilized discussion around
and and of course
those are kind of the easy ones that
that are almost a no-brainer for all of
us that
no that shouldn’t be a crime um we’ll
get into some of
the more in-depth uh discussions tonight
about what is a crime and and or what is
what is the right circumstance what is
the right situation
how can we as a culture make this better
should it be a criminal
thing or is it a social problem and um
and so i’m excited to dive in these with
you
so let’s say that you know you were
convicted of a crime let’s say you were
you continually were selling lemonade
from a lemonade stand without a permit
and and so now you’re being
you’re being convicted of a crime this
brings us into our next step so you’ve
committed the crime of selling lemonade
on your street corner providing
refreshment on a hot summer day
and now we get into the second phase
which is of course the the actual uh
the the actual charging of a crime right
so you get
officers will come up and arrest you um
they’ll bring you to
a holding cell they’ll bring you to
they’ll
get you checked in and then you sit
inside of a cell
until a judge can can decide on your
next step
this is probably one of the more
difficult things
within the process because you’ve been
accused of a crime not found guilty of a
crime at this point but you’ve been
accused of a crime even if you’re caught
red-handed you’re being accused of a
crime and this has created a lot of
controversy for a lot of people
um because you’re sitting and your
your life is ticking away while you’re
sitting in there there are
uh circumstances such as in the um
national defense authorization act
section 1021 of it allows for the
indefinite
um incarceration of somebody without
convicting of them
without even alleging them a crime so
this
all kind of we can that’s
that’s certainly the extreme but there’s
there’s a lot of there’s a lot of
spectrum in between there
and of course if you get picked up on a
friday night the judge isn’t coming in
until monday to figure out what’s going
to happen with you so you have
automatic two two and a half days
sitting in in these cells
a waiting to find out if you’re going to
be bondable
if you if they can if you get bail
um set at whatever currency
it brings it to the next question for
somebody who’s rich
who has a lot of wealth who has been
successful in their life
if bail gets if bail gets set
it’s much easier for them to get out as
opposed to somebody who hasn’t been
so affluent with money
somebody who may be lower on the
economic scale somebody who may be in
poverty
um and and having this
it’s more than just a fee because it’s
it’s actually set to a point where if
they go to a bondsman
right the concern of being able to pay
that back
um should it fail or the concern of
getting it approved
this is this is certainly a big issue
for them so
more often than not when people are in
low economic statuses or when they have
terrible credit scores and everything
else they don’t have collateral
they don’t get the opportunity that that
other people get
and so there’s there’s a large push
there to actually look
at how bail is working right cash bail
is something that is just a slap on the
wrist for the rich
but it’s a major life decision for those
who aren’t quite as
um as rich now there are other countries
that have done
something around the system
to make it different because they look
at
they look at the person who has
committed the crime or is being accused
of the crime
to determine where bail is right it’s
not just a matter of the crime
but it’s also a matter of the wealth of
that person and so they would look at a
a percentage and so this way it would be
more proportional
so that way it’s a it’s a bigger
decision for the wealthy and it’s not
nearly as difficult for somebody in
poverty and and i can already hear the
arguments that you know if you’re poor
you know you could just commit more
crimes and it’s not going to
by by reducing that percentage it allows
for them to continue hitting crimes
and and certainly that’s not that’s not
the desired goal from this but it’s it’s
to have that discussion of how do we how
do we actually ensure that those people
who are wealthy
are given um
the proper process in this and and so
there
are many people out there talking about
ending cash bail
in which um you have to be either you’re
a flight risk
you’re the so the court determines that
either a
you’re you’re pretty much guilty of this
crime that
it’s just a matter of going through the
process to prove it and
um and they believe that if they let you
out you’re gonna flee the country and
you’re going to get out which of course
is more of a wealthier
status to have um in which they can deny
the bail
or if they don’t think that you’re
flight risk you’re just a a joe schmoe
committed a small crime
and that you’re being accused of to
allow for that person to be free and
then you know
should they not make it to their um to
their trial
um then you know there’s a bench worn
out for them
pick them up bring them in and then we
know to
to the system can then say look you know
under any circumstances we don’t we
don’t allow for this to happen
so there there can be a determination
there and it doesn’t have to be a
monetary value there at the end um
but let’s say you know you get through
that process you go through
and you’re actually going through the
due process now so
you you went through the bail process
and now your date
has arrived and you’re going to be going
through to trial
so now is where the actual due process
is where
you know you are by virtue of the
constitution
and by any rational moral
system you would be treated innocent
until proven guilty
and so the preponderance of evidence has
to be against you
to find you guilty we see where
there’s still a large issue within this
because
what we have is a criminal justice
system that has created
um such a
volume of people entering into the
system
or re-entering into the system such as
recidivism
which is the term for that um that you
have these prosecutors who are
overworked and underpaid
and and you have you know you have the
defense attorneys right the the state
appointed
uh attorneys defense attorneys where
they’re they’re really overworked and
underpaid i’m sorry the the
the um the prosecutors aren’t
necessarily underpaid they’re they’re
paid a lot more than the defense
attorneys
but you have it where even though the
constitution is being followed and you
have
legal representatives appointed or
appointed for you if you cannot afford
one on your own
um it’s not really
it’s not something that’s working in the
best interest of everybody because what
we’re seeing
is something called plea bargaining
wherein that um
you have the
prosecutors going to give you an offer
right so let’s say you’re being
accused of a crime that could be 20
years in prison
and so through this plea bargaining they
would say look if you plead guilty
you just plead guilty we can we can get
rid of this whole process you’ll admit
guilt
we’ll give you six years there’s
when you look at the way that these
defense attorneys are overworked and
underpaid
they’re encouraging their own clients
whether that client is innocent or
guilty to take these because it takes
one more thing off of their plate it
allows for them to go and
try to put a couple 15 20 more minutes
into the other cases
um but it encourages people and as a
result of these plea bargainings
um it’s
even even when people are known to be
found
innocent later on down the road
they will take these because i can serve
six years and six years is only six
years of my daughter’s life or my son’s
life or
you know six years i can i can handle
that a lot more than i can handle 20. so
having this six years
which is a guaranteed six years maximum
is a lot easier it’s a lot more
digestible
than having a full 20 years and so many
people many
innocent people are taking this up
they’re they’re accepting these plea
bargains
and and so it’s a it’s a system that
incentivizes people to to
claim guilt um
and it it does get perverse it does get
perverse because you have the
prosecutors they are
looking to have that higher rate of
success it helps them out they get
they get uh they get continued to be
appointed and everything else
just as long as they make a sweet enough
deal it’s not a matter of being innocent
or guilty in that case but it’s a matter
of just keeping your percentages up it’s
a matter of keeping your metrics up
and you’ve seen prosecutors across the
country
who boast about this one of them happens
to be kamala harris herself the vice
president united states right
this was a prosecutor who had
exonerating evidence for somebody who
was on death row
and was upholding it and was keeping it
close to her um while this man sat
on death row exonerating evidence that
would have
shown that he was innocent but she
kept it until court ordered otherwise
so we know that this system isn’t
working in the way that it is
we know that you know even through the
due process that
prosecutors aren’t providing all the
information that they can
that there’s not really a good system
for that
and so what we need to do is we need to
to try to find a way to make this system
work better for us
we need to get rid of those plea
bargains and we need to work to to have
something that is going to allow for the
innocent
to actually be innocent in this rather
than encouraging them to lay guilt
um and and it’s certainly one of those
difficult
difficult sentences or situations to
really handle at a at a top top tippy
top level such as the federal government
um but as soon as you take it right you
take the plea bargain or you’re found
guilty you go into your sentencing now
this is
arguably the worst part of our entire
criminal justice system
is the sentencing because whether you’re
in for six years
20 years or 40 years the longer that
somebody is in our
punitive system our punishment driven
system
the more that they will adopt adapt to
that culture which is why we try to tear
out the criminal justice system but it
still doesn’t work quite that same way
you can have hardened criminals i mean
people who are murderers in the same
in the same prison system as somebody
who’s
just done minor crimes and
and so as a result of that there is a
different culture inside those walls
inside those fences inside those areas
where prison guards are walking around
with firearms and everything else
you have a culture within that
which is mostly being led by
the people inside and so from this right
we call it institutionalism
um when you become institutionalized by
the prison system right you have a
system where the prisons
the prison guards are putting you on a
strict schedule
they tell you when to wake up they tell
you when to eat they tell you when you
can work out they tell you
you know your day is structured around
what they desire for you
there’s not a lot of focusing on why
you’re there
there’s not a lot of focus on how to get
you better there’s not a lot of focus on
when you come back into society which is
well over 80
i believe the numbers over 85 percent of
of inmates right now will eventually
come back into society there’s nothing
there to help
them grapple with coming back out
there’s no way of getting them to adapt
to what society is on the outside
and so you have people that become
accustomed to this
and i’ll say like
talking with with former incarcerated
people
um it’s not a culture that necessarily
is
like very giving very loving very
compassionate
what our communities strive to be of
being able to help one another
um but in in many ways it’s a society in
which
you kind of stick to your own if you can
find people to bandwidth to protect each
other like that’s what you’ll do
but in large parts that’s not that’s not
the end goal
and and so this institutionalized of of
a strict system
such as if for if you’ve never
been to to in the system and and i’m
glad that you haven’t
but if you’ve ever been through boot
camp
of the military right it’s that kind of
a structuring right it’s a break you
down
get you used to our system and run you
through this and so this way you know
the steps of each day
and and you’re gonna have compliance and
everything else and so it works in that
way of of just resetting the mind
and then you have the culture within
that as well
and of course in the military they have
they give you the culture because you’re
not there for very long right you’re
there for two to three months
and and so they give you the culture you
kind of make your clicks you
kind of make your friends you kind of
make some maybe make some friends that
or meet some people that you don’t
really get along with
but because of the short time of it you
don’t have the
the same interactions the same culture
as such as somebody who’s who’s going
into a system where people have been
there for 20 30 40 years
and and so while we have a punitive
system
that focuses on on giving those
punishments
it’s not a focus on fixing
the problem it’s not a focus on what
they did wrong
in order to ensure that when they get
out
that they’re going to be a productive
member of society that they’re going to
actually
care about the people next to them that
they’re going to be able to get a job
that they’re going to be able to provide
for themselves and of course this brings
us into our fifth
uh topic of this and that is of course
the re-entry into society
now once you have a criminal record once
you actually have something on the
criminal record we know that
you know most businesses aren’t aren’t
going to be accepting of that
there are some businesses that have
contracts that cannot because of those
contracts with the government they
cannot accept somebody who has been
imprisoned
um so we’ll see those those check boxes
um
whenever you fill in your application
have you ever been committed or found
guilty of a crime
of of a felony or of a misdemeanor or
have you ever served time in prison and
you know you check the box and you you
fill it out and it never gets wrecked
um there are some
some businesses out there that have
realized the potential
that have realized that there has to be
a better way for this
and so they’ve taken the time they’ve
taken the care
they’ve gone into these systems um i can
think of one
company out in detroit that they were
heavily in need of welders and so what
they did was they went to the local
prison system and they said hey look
you guys are getting out in the next
year so let us do a quick vet on you
find out if we’re going gonna be able to
work with you and for those candidates
that they found that they could work
with
they went in and they trained these
people they they took them away
for a little bit um and taught them how
to weld they taught them how to work
with their hands and they they
gave them a structuring they got out and
they provided them with a housing
and a means of getting back and forth to
work and they gave them a job
and so from this right they were able to
be productive they were able to bring
home money
they were able to to buy themselves
clothes and buy themselves foods and
they became
productive in society and sadly that’s
not the case for everybody
so with the the barriers that are in
place for people as they re-enter into
society
as they have to adapt to a new culture
all around them
as they don’t have the structure of wake
up go eat
go do this go do that go work out go to
bed
they have to be able to adapt to a new
culture where they themselves are free
again
and it’s it’s a huge struggle which is
why we have such a high recidivism rate
in this country
i can think of one individual that back
when i used to live in
in alaska that
he would go to jail every year he would
get out of jail and he would go back to
jail
and his whole reasoning was i don’t want
to hurt people i don’t want to take
their stuff
but i have to do something in order to
go back into the system that i’m
accustomed to
and i and at that point it’s not a
punishment
it’s it’s not even living up to the
punitive
goals or ideals of of just punishing
people to keep them out
rather it’s given them a life where they
want to live there
because they don’t want to live in
society because they don’t
they can’t handle it in society and so
from that right they have to do some
kind of a crime
in order to go back in and so they work
in that that interest now
of course this is this is a an anecdotal
situation so it’s not a it’s not a
prominent one it’s not an
average one but it does give you that
perspective
of just how vastly different it is
when you’re inside versus back out in
the free world if you will
and so i think that we as a society when
we look at all of these different
categories we can we can start having
bigger conversations
about how we can maybe
adopt a new system or or implement
new ideas or new systems into the system
in order to drop the recidivism rate
drop the rates in which people are
committing crimes
keep our police officers safe keep our
community safe
we can work to actually better our
communities and our world around us
and it doesn’t mean that we need to take
the money from this person or take the
money from that person
it means that we can actually
structurally change this
with other systems that we’ve we’ve seen
from other countries to be able to adopt
those practices
and to make our community safer and
better and and so
with that in mind right if we were to
change from a
a punitive system to more focusing such
as like what i believe is sweden
where they have a rehabilitative season
or system where they’re actually
taking people in and when you’re in
prison they’re saying look you know
we’ve got you for seven years
um during these seven years let’s let’s
talk about what you did let’s let’s
figure out why you did what you did if
it was a means of just trying to be able
to
to provide food for your family right
and we can work with you and we can find
a way to
to get you educated to get you uh
employed when you come out
to be able to to to take care of you and
your own
um you know giving people the
opportunities to be successful on the
outside that that
should be our system of of
of our criminal justice system right
because while they’re
in in the system if they’re doing work
if they’re if they’re
being employed while in it and certainly
when we look out across this country
right now because of the 13th amendment
you can be a slave
if found guilty of a crime by the very
words of the 13th amendment
um that while they’re working right
though that money that they’re accruing
that could be going towards
you know towards the victims that they
created
through their actions that could be
helping provide for their families
um with any excess that comes through
and everything else
and they could be working towards coming
back out
and being able to land on their feet and
being able to hold their head up
head held up high and be able to to
do something um we can be looking at
our our laws right as a as a culture
we have a great abundance of laws and we
can be
we can be really questioning should this
be
a crime should it be a crime that a
nine-year-old is out there with a
lemonade stand of course not right i
already said this was an easy one
should it be a crime to feed the
homeless
are the homeless better off without food
or am i creating a victim by providing
them with food
that one maybe maybe i’ve got some
people in here that that
like the idea that you have to have a
permit for a lot of things but but for
me
i know when i’ve been when i went
without food for a while
when i went like a week and a half
without really having a
real meal i would not have cared if the
person giving me food had
had a permit
sorry to hear that shamrock i don’t i
don’t know why it’s doing that is it
like that on all of them
um but it’s it’s
we can have these conversations around
the importance
of it’s saying it’s saying this on right
on mine
around the importance of actually
looking at the laws that have been
implemented and finding out if
if even the current punishment for those
crimes is correct if
it’s if it’s suitable if it’s proper if
it’s in accordance with the eighth
amendment of
excessive fines fees and et cetera is it
is it
excessive is it not enough we can have
these
and i think it would be incredibly
important because i’m looking out
and looking at some of the cases um
before i came on the show tonight
um i could think of brock turner oh no
it didn’t it didn’t do it oh i’m so
sorry about that i’m sorry about
i’m sorry for you guys on youtube um
i’ll have to go back and fix that
but when we look at brock turner who was
given
a mere he was sentenced for six months
in prison and then three and a half
years probation
for sexually assaulting three women
he served three months waiting for his
trial and then that was
time served now you’re fine that was
sentenced as time served
so he served three months for sexual
assault of three women
in my opinion three months is not enough
to reform somebody certainly
right the three and a half years of
probation
i could understand i could understand
the desire within that
um the importance of being able to check
in
and everything else within that
but
it’s it wasn’t a one-off thing with that
one and so
so i have a little bit of a challenge
there of thinking three months might not
necessarily be enough
but when you compare that to somebody
who has a couple grams of marijuana
and is serving 20 30 40 years
i definitely don’t think that that’s
long enough but i definitely also think
that that person’s serving for marijuana
something which has been proven to be
medical or medicinal
some something that has been proven to
be more safe than cigarettes
alcohol and other things i definitely
think that there is
grotesquely excessive and so we can we
can really look at some of these
these conversations and and certainly um
coming up this monday
i’ve got a show with matt wright himself
um matt wright from the writer’s block
matt wright from muddy waters of freedom
matt wright who’s giving me the
opportunity to come here to talk to you
guys today about that
um to talk about this today um i’ve got
matt wright coming on we’re gonna be
diving into the war on drugs
because at this point right when we look
at the system and the way that it’s
functioning
when we look at the war on drugs itself
um it’s clear to me who the victor has
become and it’s not the not the
government it’s not the the rule of law
but rather the drugs themselves it’s
never been so
easily accessible it’s never been um
it’s never been so prevalent it’s never
i’ve never gone to a major party
or to a major club in any area and not
been able to find some form of drug
so the question for me
has always been if this is a criminal
activity
why is it becoming more and more
prevalent and when we when we look at it
from the perspective of portugal
who made it a social issue rather than a
political issue
they actually have lower rate of drug
use from changing that perspective from
a criminal one to a social one
where they’ve made it more um they
actually made it more accessible for
people
to get drugs um to be able to have clean
drugs to be able to you know and this is
all drugs this isn’t just marijuana this
is heroin this is
crack this is cocaine this is
meth this is all these things where they
go in
you can go into a clinic and you can
actually shoot up or or get high off of
whatever means
and these are all drugs that are being
checked out and being insured for safety
and and you can do that um
it’s not something that you know i
encourage i i i stand against drugs
themselves but i don’t
i stand against our practice and the way
our criminal justice system has been
handling it
um but but like i said i i don’t want to
dive too deep into this
um we will we will definitely be getting
into that monday night with matt wright
and and i’m so excited for that
conversation so i hope you guys will be
tuning in
monday night 8pm um
where i will be talking with matt wright
on this i am so excited for that show
and i don’t want to i don’t want to
steal my own thunder by by continuing
down that rabbit trail
but we can also talk about some of the
other laws
some of the other systems some of the
other tools that have been used by law
enforcement
in the pursuance of the drug war most
recently
but this is something that predates the
war on drugs and that is of course civil
asset forfeiture
i had a long discussion on this i had i
believe it was like a 40
50 minute show just on civil asset
forfeiture here on mighty waters media
so if you guys have not seen that make
sure you guys go back tune into that of
course that is a
legal tool in which law enforcement
can take your property whether that’s
your home your money
your car your boat whatever valuable you
have
and there’s no due process because all
they have to do to take this to forfeit
that property
is believe that it may have been a
affiliated with a crime
believe that it may have been affiliated
with a crime
not prove that it was within a crime not
prove that it was yours and that this
was
was from a crime or
uh benefit from a crime or anything else
just believe
and and so we can talk about civil asset
forfeiture where
where that is allowed um you know
so i would encourage you guys go back
and check out that
civil asset forfeitures i think that was
my second episode back here on mighty
waters for this uh
wonderful time so i’m excited to be back
and and doing this of course
um qualified immunity this was a legal
precedent created by the
um by the supreme court and i’m
i’m i’ve got my guest in mind for this
one and i’m hoping he’s going to accept
it
um but we’ll see if he does
but qualified immunity was a big
conversation last year
and there are so many people that that
haven’t
that they were too political they were
too partisan
to really sit down and to to understand
it
in my perspective at least and so
qualified immunity
is basically a
protection for government employees
including police officers
from civil court cases if they’ve been
determined to
um by precedent of previous court cases
to not be to
uh to have these protections so i.e
if if you have an officer who
[Music]
breaks somebody’s car and just destroys
somebody’s car
and there was a a precedent of a case
where an officer had done that before
and they were protected with qualified
immunity from
from civil case or from a civil court
case then
in this new instance the the owner of
that vehicle even if that owner was not
a part of a crime was not even be
suspected of a crime that car was not
being truly suspected of a crime but it
was a it was a mistake
they would be incapable of of going and
taking that officer
to court to civil court in order to
look to be um
to have their wrongs righted right to
have their property replaced or to
receive money to have that replaced and
and so what we’ve seen
around this conversation um from people
who are
for lack of a better term just uh
absolute
pro police is well no they need those
protections because otherwise there’ll
be a bunch of
uh frivolous lawsuits against police
officers and
my biggest thing on that is we have a we
have a we’re supposed to have a judicial
system
that can take that because we have the
first amendment we have to be able to re
redress our grievances in accordance
with the first amendment
and and through civil court cases one of
those ways and so
we should be able to take them to court
and if it is determined to be a
frivolous lawsuit then
then we lose and
and the other matter that comes up that
i think is much more important
when it comes around qualified immunity
is where does that money come from
right now if you if you manage to go
around
the qualified immunity and get an
officer into civil court for damages
done
and they’re found guilty usually it
falls either on the state the county or
or the city to pay for those damages
done
and i don’t necessarily think that
that’s the right answer and so i would
like to see
this also be addressed in rational
humane conversation of it wasn’t the
city’s fault
for this for this crime to have
committed right because that’s the
whether it’s a police officer or not for
somebody’s property to be destroyed
um unwarranted it’s a crime
right we can all agree with that so it
shouldn’t be that the city itself or the
state or the the county is paying for it
but it should be rather coming from the
police office
it should be coming from that police
department or from that police officer
independently there are many
libertarians out there who believe that
it should come from the pension
so if you pull it from their pension
then um
and and i’m not i’m not sure if that’s
that’s the right answer
um but if you pull it from them
then now it’s like you’re affecting all
the police officers
and and what i like about this idea what
i really
genuinely like about this idea is that
it it brings about some accountability
to it
because now if you have a police force
with one bad actor and we all
i think everyone out there can agree
that there are some bad police officers
um if you have one bad police officer
in a department and he is getting sued
and sued and sued and he keeps losing
these cases
right now it’s affecting all of those
police officers now there’s a reason for
them to hold each other accountable
as the system goes right now there is a
lack of accountability
because you have people such as derek
chavin who had i believe it was
seven different cases seven different
claims of of police brutality of
overusing his force of
escalating force beyond a reasonable
measure
and and so if you can have these if you
can
hold the police departments accountable
then the police departments will hold
their agents accountable
and this is is something that’s an
incredibly important for any
system that’s out there right when we
talk about free market principles when
we talk about
the market itself of holding companies
accountable
we should also be able to hold out
government agencies and the government
itself accountable
and this would be a good lever to be
able to do so rather than punishing
the city or the the the county or the
state
citizens who are paying in tax dollars
to see those tax dollars go away
because of the bad actions of one of the
agencies if that makes sense
so so this is a conversation that i
would love to have i’m excited for the
guest if i can get him on
um i haven’t even posted to him so it’s
all on me for that but
should i get him on i mean i i know that
it’s gonna be
it’s gonna be as good if not
better than the show that i have coming
up on monday night with matt wright
so i’m excited for that um another
big conversation that people are having
right now
more recently in the last two years or
so
that um yes
i agree with you jessica is looking at
no knock rates right when we had um
president trump in office right after
what was that stone um
i forgot the school down there in
florida it was stone something
high school after the shooting there um
we had
a large push for no knock rates across
the country there was
an attempt by um people such as senator
lindsey graham and other senators across
the country that were racing to be able
to
implement a no knock rate mandate or
tying some funding for if you implement
a no knock rate at the
at the state level then you would be
supplied with or you’d be provided with
funds from the federal government
but no knock raids is one of those
things that is incredibly controversial
because it’s not just putting people at
risk it’s putting officers at risk it’s
putting everybody at risk
and in many cases right because in a no
knock raid the importance of this the
importance of a no knock rate process
is that you if you are
the target of a no knock raid you don’t
get to be aware that it’s happening
so if you get into an argument with a
family member with a neighbor
and they know that you have a firearm
they may report you for a no knock raid
and just saying they can say you’re
looking suspicious they know you have a
firearm then
they you know that you have a temp
temperament issue etc etc
and if they can get a judge to believe
that you could be a danger to society
with a firearm
then officers and potentially the middle
of the night in the middle of the day
first thing in the morning such as with
gary willis
will come in without knocking on the
door
break down the door and come in to
retrieve firearms
now we’ve seen with gary willis that
they did knock on the door
gary willis showed up with his firearm
gary willis of maryland
and and refused to give up his firearm
because of a fight that he had with his
stepsister sister-in-law sister
cousin um and and as a result of that
because he refused to give up his
firearm he was actually
shot and killed so there there’s a
there’s a tragedy there wherein he never
had due process given to him he was
having something taken from
him or attempted to be taken from him
without due process
and and he stood his ground for it
now of course that is a situation which
the civilian side
has lost somebody but in the
circumstance of
we all know some some people who
like their firearms and certainly i am a
man who loves my firearms
and threaten their livelihood and
attempt to take away their ability to
defend themselves their life their
liberty and their pursuit of happiness
that they’re not going to go down
without a fight
and so in those circumstances you’re
putting police at risk
so regardless of which side of the aisle
you’re on
you can see how this is a potential for
more bloodshed
and oftentimes this would be as a result
of petty arguments this is a way that
you can get back at somebody
we all know somebody out there who’s
vindictive who
is uh resentful who is spiteful
who is hateful and why wouldn’t they
try to use the system in any means
possible in order to get back at you
so we all know that there there’s
opportunities out there for this to be
misused not
only the unconstitutionality of it not
only the the
the opportunities for all this death and
destruction
but it’s just bad policy um and and so
there are plenty of states that still
have no knock raids
in their states i believe here in south
carolina there’s a supreme court
decision ending that which i’m so
grateful for
um but it’s something that is is very
prevalent across the way
roger stone douglas yes stone douglas
high school
thank you um so that’s
it’s it’s something that we have to
grapple with and something we have to
discuss and
and to handle um
this last topic that i have for the
night
before i must bid you guys all to do and
of course if you guys have any questions
feel free to drop your questions down
below
um love to answer them um either as they
come in or
at the end but the last topic that i
want to discuss tonight is the death
penalty
as we briefly go through all this stuff
of course we can we can of course do an
entire show on any of these topics and
really dive deep into them um but the
death penalty is one that we’ve seen a
lot of atrocities with
it’s there are plenty of people that
have been killed
by the death penalty wrongfully later to
be found out that they were innocent
i mean we already spoke about kamala
harris and her holding exonerating
evidence against somebody on death row
um so that it it’s a struggle there
because
we as a society i
at least for me personally i would
rather see
i would rather see a hundred men set in
prison for the rest of their lives than
to see one innocent person
be executed right i i think that that’s
more important
and and as we’ve found through history
that there have been plenty of people
that have been put to death
to later be found to be innocent to not
even be in the area
sometimes not even in the same state as
when the crime had been committed
but yet they were put to death and i
think that that’s one of the biggest
most heart-wrenching things to hear
from a financial side of things of
course when we look at the death penalty
it’s actually
cheaper to keep somebody incarcerated
for their entire life
than it is to put them to death i mean
you’re talking about
tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars
to put someone to death
but because of the system that we have
in place because of the 13th amendment
because we lease out prisoners to go
work
um work the fields
because of immigration where
usually right when you look at
agriculture and you look at that people
picking in the fields picking fruits and
vegetables et cetera et cetera
typically they try to find undocumented
immigrants because they can
charge them for cheaper they can sell
their their their fruits and vegetables
for cheaper on the market
and so they become more competitive um
you know
under the table stuff now they’re
because of
the flow because of the the visceral um
discussions there in in dc and
everything else
now they’re having to look at going to
the legal practice of
leasing out prisoners to go work in
these systems
um to go work the fields
to make them their products and they’re
paying them well under minimum wage as
well
so if you have somebody who would be on
death penalty
or death row you could be actually
instead of sentencing them to death
early on in life you can actually be
putting them through and you can
actually be
creating labor or putting them to work
so they can
make money from that and take that money
and send it to the victims that they
created the family of the victims that
they’ve created
you can have it where they’re restoring
some of the society around them
and and it’s a means in which they are
you’re saving the taxpayer money
by keeping them alive and rather than
going through the process of of
killing them through the through the
system wherein that we’ve had innocent
people killed in the past
but it also is a means in which they can
be forced in some regards
to try to help make the victims whole
yep sending prisoners to fight wildfires
so i mean you know there there
is an opportunity there for the most
grotesque people right for people who
are habitual
um child rapists right molesters
um for somebody who’s a habitual rapist
for somebody who is a
serial killer for somebody who is doing
such grotesque things
that you there is a means in which we
can be putting them
to society’s benefit rather than just
killing them
and and so you know the worst of the
worst right we can be looking at that
and we can say
yeah you know i i definitely don’t want
somebody who’s out there
um just creating the worst kind of
victims
i don’t want them on our streets and and
certainly they don’t have a
belonging in our society and there’s
there’s no chance of reform there’s no
chance of bringing them back into
society and having
and trusting them um
but you can still create value with that
and and and i understand like
how the struggle
of course is the idea that slavery is
always going to be bad
right you should never be
forced to work for someone
um because slavery is bad right
but in this instance right to
in order to collect in order to
make victims whole right you can
i mean you got to do something we got to
do something because right now our
society is not making people whole from
our criminal justice system
and you know if it’s on a voluntary
basis
yeah work and then take that money and
send it away and now now they’re stuck
in it
um
a comment from youtube check out sister
helen prieging
she is one of the best voices for death
row and innocent people absolutely um
i i know that uh hannah hannah cox and
and spike cohen recently had a
discussion around this as well
it’s an incredibly important topic um
this is this is this is a difficult one
um it’s a difficult one to navigate
through and to get all
of your points out and be succinct and
and to be
well understood and well heard um and i
know that they’re they’re all doing it
so much better than i am
absolutely appreciate that shamrocker um
it’s a system of
where people of color are sent to prison
warning yes there is a disproportionate
number of people
um in the prison system that are of
color
and um and that’s that is one of the
focal points of our criminal justice
system is
is kind of a focus on
on environments of low economic scale
because
when people don’t have a means through i
didn’t really want to touch on this
topic too much but
when people are have seemingly
higher barriers in front of them because
of where they began
when they have higher barriers in front
of them of being successful through a
legal means they do it through an
illegal means so you have um
in lower economic areas you’re going to
have a higher quote-unquote crime rate
from that where people aren’t paying
their fines and fees
in order to start up entrepreneurial
businesses to go into business for
themselves
or because they’ve taken a means of drug
dealing or they’ve taken a means of
of just committing crimes in order to
make ends meet
that there is a a more focal point for
police
presence and so then you have a a
the outcome of course is a
disproportionate um
number of people in the prison system
that would come from them and
and by our by virtue of our our society
in the way that it’s been ran
it is and it’s
it’s against people of color um
and i’m certain that we’ll dive more
into that as well
but that brings up another point of this
is that you know when you look across
the prison system
a heavy majority of them are low
low income or middle class people of
where they came from and where they are
because it’s sad to say but but
people in affluent areas um aren’t
getting the same police presence because
it’s just like meh it’s okay
um i i know that i’ve seen i’ve seen
jokes or i’ve seen memes and i’ve seen
tick tocks on it
it’s like what is uh trashy if you’re
poor but um
cool if you’re rich and just like people
joke about it and they’re like oh
cocaine you know if you just
do a couple lines of cocaine because
you’re a rich business guy like it’s
cool you know you’re just
partying having a good time if you’re
doing it because you’re poor you know
you’re just
slummy and trashy and disgusting but
it’s like
it’s the same thing and and so certainly
there is a different perspective there
from
from law enforce law enforcement’s
perspective as well as their cultures
right oh you can’t afford that you
should you should
take that cocaine money and you should
be bettering yourself and and buying
better shoes so you can
work a harder job and climb that ladder
and yada yada
it’s just like man i just
i wish that we would see the own our own
cognitive
dissonance on this topic but but with
that guys uh we’re coming up on time and
i
i don’t want to get too deep into the
night because we do have from bayous to
igloos coming up in about 34 minutes
um if they’re on time muddy waters time
um
so in about 34 minutes make sure you
guys are back here to watch from bayous
to igloos with
nalik and cajun libertarian uh it’s
gonna be a great show tonight as
always and then please do make sure that
you guys are tuning in next week
next monday i’ve got matt wright coming
on the show uh we’re gonna be
diving deep into the war on drugs we’re
gonna be talking about the
disproportionate rates we’re gonna be
talking about
uh medical marijuana recreational
marijuana decriminalizing drugs we’re
gonna be talking about
how the system has been used in order to
put us
further and further down into the hole
rather than helping our entire society
lift up so i’m incredibly excited for
that conversation of course tuesday
night we’ve got matt
matt and spike running together for them
to traverse the muddy waters of freedom
wednesday night with spa spike cohen on
my fellow americans
and then on thursday we got the writer’s
block and again friday night
i will not be here because i’m doing a
special slot for tonight thank you to
nolik and cajun but next friday night
we’ll be back with from bayous to igloos
i’m so incredibly excited for this and
then also make sure you guys keep
november 13th
ready it’s gonna be a saturday night put
down your calendars right now because
we’re gonna be doing a special show
november 13th from the south carolina
libertarian party convention
so excited for that so i hope you guys
all have a great night thank you guys so
much for spending your time with me
hanging out tonight
um hopefully i gave you guys some
perspectives that you guys may have not
heard before
um hopefully i gave you some value
tonight maybe i gave you a talking point
here or there
i appreciate and love each and every one
of you all for being here
and uh looking forward to the future
with y’all so
take care you guys have a great night
love y’all
see you guys soon