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we are funded by these television companies and more including buckeye broadband. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> buckeye broadband supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front-row seat to democracy. >> welcome back to "washington journal." join now by charles stimson, deputy director of the center for legal and judicial studies at the heritage foundation's, also co-author of the book called rogue prosecutors. welcome to the program. >> thanks have any. >> talk about your role at heritage. are you affiliated at all with the trump campaign and with project 20.5? >> not affiliate all with any campaign including trump.

i do havean a very small role in project 125 and us because of my time at dod in the bush administration so i'm helping with the w regulatory reform sie of dod, if another person comes into office in the fall. so i'm helping with whole bunch of other people. just look at dod directives, the unity and structures and see whether they should be reformed if at all. >> host: before we talk about crime policy let's talk about crime statistics. the fbi, theth view of statisti, they compiled statistics about crime. what do most experts in use and how useful are those statistics? >> guest: so it's a t good question because it's sort of complicated. it's a little bit of stuff that goes into the steel here.

you have the fbi, to the uniform time reports statistics, you also have another measurement of crime and that the national crime victims survey of a quarter million victims a year are surveyed by doj. recently doj has moved from the uniform crime reports, , ucr, ta new reporting system called nibrs come national incident beer of statistics. here's the tough part. when you go from one system to another, which is what happened, in 2019, 89% of police agencies across the country covering 97% of the country reported their statistics to the fbi under the old ucr system. but then when they switched to the nibrs assistant, 2021, immediately went down to 63% of agencies which only covered 65% of the country.

it excluded chicago, l.a. and new york city, obviously places where there's a lot of crime. and so at the same time when you switch the system the national crime victims survey data showed crime was actually up according to the victims. when you don't have good input you can have good output. what the fbi has done to try to make up for that gap is estimate the amount of crime. there is another data input that should be talked about just quickly. that is the major cities chiefs association, chief of police inn the 70 largest cities. a know what's going on in their cities. they collect this data and so you can look at that index to sort of get a general sense of what's happening on the ground level. a complicated process. >> host: all right. this is a headline from "usa today" that says fbi data shows america is seen a considerable drop in crime. trump says the opposites.

so what are your thoughts on that? >> guest: i just look to the data. since 1992 when we had our last peak in the crime sonata, crime has been cleaned upmi across the country for about 25 years. that changed around 2017, 2018. since 2018 crime has gone up in many cities across the country, not all, but many. i don't look at the headline that you just reference where it talks about someit 2022-2023. i open up the lens because you have to look at data like a stock them here to here. this year insteadro of one days trading. so, for example, from 2019-2023, according to the council on criminal justice, murder is up 18%, aggravated assault of a%. gun assaults up 32%. carjackings are. carjackings are up 93%. .. they are a political looking t

crime statistics that came up with their yearly report in january 2024. host: they get the data from? guest: all of the sources that i talked about. you don't have good outputs unless you have good inputs and they are looking at the major cities chiefs association, crime victims surveys, they are looking at the new fbi reporting system, and motor vehicle theft, which we see in this city and other major cities of 105%. it is it is true from 2022 to 2023 there's a drop in crime in some cities that's like saying gas prices went from $5 to 4.75 when they started out years ago at $2 is going in the right direction there's a massive problems.

>> tell us about book how radical lawyers are going america's community. >> untrue crime novel layered with policy. this is tracing the, playbook, belief of the progressive prosecutor movement focusing on the funding of that and focuses on a particular rogue prosecutors or progressive prosecutors. there are 2800 elected da's but 74 are bought and paid for by george soros and other heavy funders. in my opinion they are, if you read the policies in the book, pro-criminal, anti-victim, refusing to prosecute misdemeanors, they watered down felonies to misdemeanors. host: how can anyone be pro-criminal?

guest: they are, unfortunately. if you look at their policies, and i was a defense attorney, looking at from all sides of the courtroom, does the policy help victims or the criminal? they have blanket policies not to prosecute any misdemeanors. they have blanket policies not to prosecute any juveniles, no matter how heinous the crime, as an adult. blanket policies never to ask for cash bail. they never ask, for example, prosecutors in l.a. county's, to go to parole hearings. they have blanket policies not to add gun enhancements or sentencing enhancements to any crimes. of every one of those policies, does it help the perp or the victim? it is all towards the benefit of the perp. host: we are taking your calls for our guest.

the lines are democrat, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. we have a line set aside for law enforcement. if you are in law enforcement, you can call us on (202) 748-8003. that is the same line that you can use for texting. send us your first name, city, and state. you have a piece in the daily signal about the macy's in san francisco closing. you say that it is due to theft and crime. however, macy's is closing a lot of businesses and retailers are closing and consolidating, shutting down some of their larger stores for various economic reasons. how can you say that it is because of theft or crime? guest: the employees interviewed

for various news articles say that is exactly what's going on. you're right. macy's has announced through corporate they are closing 105 stores across the country. there is no coincidence that these stores, like the flagship macy's in san francisco in union square, smaller stores like wa- wa in philadelphia have left because of rapid theft. the nordstrom's in san francisco. they have not only lost customers because employees were afraid, but you see story after story after story of stores that close because of the policies of the local leaders who should be enforcing law and order giving the cream -- the green light to criminals to do the 10 finger discount again and again.

when they arbitrarily raise the threshold saying that even the losses is 500 dollars for misdemeanor you can still up to $950 per incident, people walk in, take it, and the profit margins for some of the stores is so small. big stores like macy's will survive. the small mom-and-pop shops who have closed around the country, not only because of the pandemic, and that was hard, but because of rapid theft and a lax attitude towards theft. when you say these progressive prosecutors that these are quality-of-life crimes and therefore should not be prosecuted, the only quality of life it improves is the criminals. it doesn't improve the store owners, it doesn't improve the shoppers. the societal rot theory that we did on a video series shows you through video what is going on in these inner cities. host: this is from an interview last month with fox 40 news in san francisco, the city's mayor, who talks about crime and i will

have you respond. [video clip] >> what is the biggest issue facing your city right now? >> i think the biggest issue facing san francisco right now is the perception of safety and concerns around safety when in fact in 2023 we had the lowest crime rate that we've had in 10 years, not including 2020 when we had to shut down the city for the global pandemic. not to mention, crime was down this past month of march by over 43%. we had no homicides during the month of february. san francisco is not only getting better and feeling better, it is transforming. there are a lot of exciting, great things going on. our goal is to overcome the issues around the perception. when tourists come here and people visit they are like, it's not what we thought it was. it's actually a great experience. our hope is that that message is

getting out loud and clear. >> you know the phrase perception is reality. how do you fight something like that? you can give folks all of the data that you month, but if they feel a certain way it is hard to overcome. find you think that san francisco has continued to be under the microscope, not only locally but nationally? >> i think, sadly, san francisco, where you have seen a number of political champions in the democratic party, like kamala harris, gavin newsom, they come from san francisco and san francisco has a huge personality and is an incredible city. some of the things have been used to attack some of our political leaders and imply something negative about our city because these people came from politics out of san francisco. i think that part of it, also after the global pandemic, so

many major cities face real issues around crime and safety. many of those videos went viral. not just in san francisco. in other parts of the country as well. host: what do you think of that? guest: videos don't live. she is a politician and she wants tourists to go to her city. san francisco is a gem. the problem is when you go to parts of the city like we showed in our societal rot series, it is eating itself from the inside out. the pandemic caused crime to rise. the mantra is not backed up by the facts. crime started to rise in 2018. unfortunately, san francisco had eight years of george gus cohen as the da followed by 2.5 years when the voters said that we are done with you and recalled him in a special election because crime was the number one issue. watch the videos, go on youtube and do crime in san francisco,

and you will see rapid theft going on all the time in san francisco. she is cheerleading for tourism. host: stephen in lexington, kentucky, democrat. guest: good morning. caller: a big fan of you, mimi. mr. simpson, thank you for your time. my question relates more to the policies of how the police, i guess, brown and black people and people of color, they are statistically arrested at higher rates. the numbers don't lie. across the country. why is it so militarized to come after these people? i'm curious what the policy is. how do you justify the numbers when it comes to black and brown people, people of color, compared to their counterparts, white and so on? thank you. guest: i appreciate stephen's question.

there is no criminal justice system in the united states. there are systems. 3000 counties. what happens in one part of the state might be different than another part of the state. the core of the question is right. i was a prosecutor in the district of columbia. i used to go to homicide scenes all the time of the tough parts of town. the folks did not want fewer police, they wanted more. they wanted police to look like them, police who they trusted, police who they could have private conversations with. unfortunately, in this country, we have a crime problem. in communities of color, unfortunately, a majority of the sit instance who live there are peaceloving, honest, hard-working folks who just want to get by like everyone else. you have a certain segment, a small segment of society, who commits a crime.

unfortunately minorities commit a disproportionate amount of crimes, especially in inner cities. the police do not go where there is no crime. the go to where there is crime. do police make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but the police go to where the crime is and that is why that is happening. host: the republican line, minneapolis, patricia, hello. caller: please do not interrupt me, drop me, or cut me off. yesterday in the trump trial in new york, cohen was grilled and admitted that what he remembered was wrong about the trump body guard phone call that informed him of the payment. that was regarding a 14-year-old who was caught with harassing telephone calls. it should have been a directed verdict. c-span should be talking about this. the judge used to work for the ag. his daughter works for the dn

c. when he was a judge, talk about rogue prosecutors. talk about a justice system. talk about an injustice system. the other thing is c-span, with an cnn ceo running c-span, you can tell every host is a democrat by what you do and don't cover. if president trump had done as many bumbling speeches in incoherent language as biden, you would be running that every single day. but you ignore it. guest: i am a huge fan of c-span. i think that brian lamb is an american treasure. i think we need more brian

lamb's. i understand the new person elected is a squared away person so i wish him the best of luck. host: he is. he has gotten a lot of good comments from both sides. guest: following the trump trial, we have a whole chapter in our book about alvin bragg and i encourage people to read the chapter. host: what were you saying specifically about alvin bragg? guest: he got money from soros and ran on a promise if elected to prosecute donald trump. i think that if you are running on a promise to prosecute anyone, that raises red flags. he issued directives, like a lot of rogue prosecutors, the day he is elected to his prosecutors not to prosecute all classes of crime and crime goes up when you give a green light to criminals. host: pat, independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am on the veterans memorial

committee. we are going to honor our veterans at the memorial. kids don't really know who to look up to anymore. they get one side of it. who is telling the truth? you look at donald trump, we look at menendez, we look at our leaders, who do we go to? i think it is a very difficult time for young people in the united states of america, and i honestly don't know where they can get their truth from anymore. if you go to churches, the evangelical church preaches trump. there used to be a separation of church and state and it isn't that way anymore. i still love this country. i think it is the greatest country of the world. thank you. host: what do you think? guest: i think the sentiment he is expressing, that people on all sides are having a hard time figuring out what the truth is,

that is one reason why this term disinformation has crept into the dialogue. my dad served in world war ii. i looked up to him. i'm sure that pat has done distinguished things for the fact that he is helping with the vets memorial service. i served 30 years in the military and i still think that this country is a great country and there are people to look up to. i think that you want to read across a wide variety of sources and make up your own mind, not let people guide you. host: christopher, democrat, oklahoma. caller: hello, mimi. i read your commentary. i was wondering if you have changed your mind in the last four or five years since you

heard remarks and overwhelming evidence in the scientific american in march. they talk about noevidence it is general or social deterrent. how do you explain that? guest: i appreciate your question, christopher. i think that there are perfectly legitimate moral, ethical, religious reasons to be against the death nolte and i won't change anyone's mind. i'm not for the death penalty but understand that it is mentioned in the constitution, upheld by the supreme court. there is a famous case out of oklahoma which has caused some controversy in oklahoma. it's used in a very limited class of cases and it is up to the states to decide whether

they offer the ultimate punishment. most cases don't go capital, but we do have it. unless the states take it off the books, we will continue to have it. host: your opinion of it? restroom was saying that it has been shown not to deter crime. guest: that piece to me is not a definitive piece of research. i have seen other research suggesting that it is a general deterrent. as a former homicide prosecutor in two different jurisdictions, having been in prisons to debrief people, that is a comment that people in the criminal justice system on the bad side of the law say. they don't want the needle. also, that is one aspect of the criminal punishment side of things. the other is whether they deserved it. it is the punitive aspect.

whether it deter someone or not is part of the equation. host: from compton, california. caller: i just wanted to make a statement on republicans saying alan bragg was going to go after trump. i get alvin bragg running on the fact that no man is above the law. he was running on the fact that he will pursue the law the way that it is stated to be. that no man is above the law, even the president. it just happens to be one president. republicans got this thing on trying to paint it that he wanted to go after donald trump. but he is actually saying, i'm running on the fact that no man is above the law. republicans don't seem to get that. i don't understand why if they want to be the party of law and

order. host: what do you think? guest: i think alvin bragg did say that no man is above the law, no man meaning human. he also specifically targeted an individual. it didn't matter if it was trump, bump, or jump. it didn't matter what the last name was. prosecutors are supposed to be an and minister of justice and prosecute. this is the reason why the county da is not, pamela is being recalled because she has all of policies to the benefit of criminals. in fact, the first -- the iconic in and out burger store in oakland closed on march 21 this year as part of our societal route series because the employees, the patrons, were

being subjected to criminal assaults, burglaries, and robberies. no person is above the law including the president. i agree. i think it is a law and order versus chaos thing and that is why we wrote a book. host: the time magazine article with the headline america's suburban crime problem. it says essentially that in the urban centers things are getting better, but in the suburbs they are not. do you have an opinion as to why that might be? guest: i'm not sure that i agree. crime, especially violent crime, is demographically and geographically concentrated in inner cities. in cities like philadelphia. host: per capita or just because there is more people in urban centers? guest: it is per capita. for example, if you look at philadelphia, you look at the counties surrounding philadelphia, in philadelphia before we have a full chapter on

philadelphia in our book, in the five years before he was elected versus the five years since he has been elected, murders were 271 in the five years before, 457 the year after. he was elected in 2018. same with shootings and auto -- auto thefts. crime it spills over from the cities into the outlying counties. your public safety privilege totally depends on whether or not the prosecutor is going to hold people accountable and whether the police are adequately funded. if either of those are imbalanced, especially the prosecutor because that is the gatekeeper to the criminal justice system, you will see crimes spilling into suburban counties. host: let's talk to sharman in hunting town, maryland. caller: yes, earlier i heard you say that the police go where crime is. i just couldn't say that i agree. i think that the police go where

policy dictates. a lot of the times in inner-city communities it is more so a policy issue versus direct crime issue. guest: so, sharman brings up an interesting point. the police agencies, especially major police agencies, have a crime spotter heat map where various incidents -- not only 911 calls, but where shootings are and that sort of thing. if you go on the map in d.c., you can go on d.c. crime at a glance, and you can see a map where crime is happening. yes, it is a policy question. you send a bunch of police to 1-d where american university is and there's not a lot going on, or 5, 6, 7-d where there is a lot of shootings? it is a policy choice. you send police where there is high crime or do you send them to american university to sit

around and eat donuts? it is a decision, but it is a resource issue. if the goal of the police is to help ensure safety, protect victims, and arrest the people who are committing the crimes or have probable cause to be committing crimes, that is the situation. host: what are the policy changes you are recommending? guest: i have worked in drug courts and domestic violence court. one of the reasons that crime went down for 25 years after its peak in 1992 is because prosecutors and public defenders , and other stakeholders in the criminal justice system, realized that you cannot prosecute and incarcerate your way out of this problem. which have been building from the late 1970's forward. they created thousands of alternatives to incarceration which i am a huge proponent of. i'm a huge proponent of drug courts, domestic crime court, if you have a carrot and stick

approach. 57% of murders are unsolved. same with 95% of rape. 95% of those people don't go to prison. guest: why is that? guest: because we have a massive underreporting problem, we have a resource issue, and we have an under charging problem. setting aside rape, which is a complicated case and i use to prosecute those and defend them because people don't report for all sorts of reasons. aggravated assault and burglary, a lot of victims that you see on the national crime victims surveys, they don't think that they will get justice. they don't think the perpetrator will get caught so they do not report it. when you see that and you hear about mass incorporation, mass incarceration includes people not incarcerated, people on probation and parole is one third of the number. one third of the other number is in jail. the average person spends 23 days in jail. if you believe that every

murderer, every rapist, every armed robber, every aggravated assaulter should be imprisoned for a time you are woefully disappointed in this country because that's not do you thinke under-incarcerating in the united states? even comparing to other industrialized countries, that we have a much higher percentage of our population in prison? guest: yeah, and here is why. if you think of an equation, you are looking at one part of the equation, the number of people in correctional control. probation, parole, jail, or prison. we are not looking at the amount of crime being committed. when you consider that for the last few decades we have had 25,000 murders a year in this country, that is more than canada, all of western europe, australia, new zealand combined every year.

host: why is that? guest: i don't know. i'm not an expert on why people are killing people, but we do. and we glorify crime. we have crime shows. law and order. i'm not blaming any of those things. you have rap music, all sorts of the culture that, sort of, shows crime. i don't know why we have crime. part of it has to do with the breakdown of the family unit. i think it has to do with poor education outcome. i think it is a very complicated answer, but we just have it. you have to look at both sides of the equation. host: carol in tyler, texas. good morning. caller: good morning and thanks to you both. i wanted to say is that i think that we don't, the individual person does not trust themselves enough in this country. we blame everything on that you watch this, you watch fox news, you watch msnbc, but really it

is sort of like january 6. we all watched it on television. i saw what happened and i saw who was responsible for it, and it was the president of the united states. it doesn't take, you know, someone to interpret that for me. i trust myself. another thing is, we see now the supreme court has to take on cases to decide whether or not the president should be above the law. now they are taking on cases to decide, is it fair that we can eliminate minorities from having their opportunities to vote? so when you get your highest court in the land, to spend all of their time trying to decide what we all know inside, that everyone should have a fair chance to vote no matter their caller -- color, and no one should be above the law. why should that even be a question in the country? now we are diddling on all of this stuff about answers we already know, and we just don't want to see the answers. that is what i believe.

thank you. host: thank you, carol. guest: the one part of her statement that i will treat as a question is, to what extent did the supreme court's decision in nixon versus fitzgerald, which was dealing with a civil matter, leave open the question of whether the president has immunity for his official acts versus his personal acts, unrelated to criminal matters. that is the issue before the court now and the case that was recently argued. i'm not going to touch the rest of her comment. host: do you have an opinion on presidential immunity? guest: i have not studied it that much. i did listen to the arguments with some interest, and i think this court is going to try to thread the needle between what were official acts and what were not official acts. i think more likely than not they are going to send it back down to the lower courts to develop the factual record.

just so carol understands my position, i work in the u.s. attorney's office prosecuting the people who committed crimes on january 6. i think anyone who has committed crimes anywhere, including on january 6, should be held to account criminally. host: you mentioned briefly funding for the police. here is maryland democratic representative glenn ivey, who is a member of the judicial committee and not talking about funding the police. >> the defined language, none of that is pending legislation with respect to police right now. the only defined language i have seen right now is defund atf and fbi. those are sponsored by the republicans. defund the atf bill is one sentence long. when i raise the question with the gentleman who proposed that i said, how is that supposed to work? how would you defund the atf

knowing that we have gone cases pending now? the same with the fbi. international prosecutions, cartels and the like, he would just shut them down like that? that is what those would do. talk about irresponsible. that is what that proposal is right now. so, let's get serious. host: what do you think about? guest: glenn was a good prosecutor. but people need to remember that only 10% of the crimes across this country are prosecuted or handled at the federal level. 90% or handled at the local and state level. so, the defund the police movement bubbling up at the local level through either city councils, county councils, or state, that we know, people are not talking about defunding the police because it is toxic, now being weaponized as if one party is trying to defend the police. the fact is major police departments across this country are suffering. they are down police.

philadelphia is down 1300 police officers. our metropolitan police department was, the findings were cut substantially by the city council. they lost 1000 officers since 2020. they are down 500 now. you see that across the country, and that has a route, retention problem, and it is a big problem. host: where is that money being moved to? i know a lot of the argument was, let's move that money to prevention, let's move it to mental health services, things like that. guest: i don't know the answer to that, because, again, these are local issues and i have not studied every 3000 counties in the country to see where they are. but in the major cities, if their goal was to defund or cut the budget of the police, i guess they are not very good at preventing crimes, because in those cities when there is a lower police presence and a prosecutor is not willing to

prosecute, crime explodes. host: let's talk to sean. caller: how are you all doing? i could talk for hours about what this guy got going on right here. the best thing i could say is, you can make statistics say whatever you want. crime, in my opinion, is directly proportional to poverty and choices. i don't even know your statistics. you can go back as far as you want. when people are poor, crime goes up. when people don't have choices, crime goes up. so, when those things go down, crime goes down. there is not a criminal alive -- maybe a small percentage in the psychopaths that have something messed up mentally, but there is not a criminal alive that is committing a crime because the

prosecutor said this or any kind of policy. they commit crime because they are trying to feed their kids or they are committing crime because they have a drug problem. but nobody is committing crimes because of a policy. after they committed the crime they might worry about the policy. i killed this guy, now i don't want to get the death penalty. but you having the death penalty did not stop him from killing the guy, because he was hungry. it is almost laughable when you talk about policy. host: what you think about the connection between poverty and crime? guest: well, just because you are poor doesn't mean you decide to become a criminal. i sort of reject his general premise, or his suggested premise that he thinks i am starting from. i'm not saying that. in fact, you go to a lot of these parts of town where murders are happening and the folks there are law abiding,

they want their kids to have a better life than them to get out of the neighborhood, go to college, be productive members of society. would like to sit down with sean and talk with him. i think he and i would agree on a lot of things. unfortunately i disagree with him. a lot of these criminals are not doing the crimes to feed their kids. i wish they were caring about their kids and staying with keeping an intact family. but that is not many of the reasons they are committing crimes. yes, they are bettering their lives by stealing timberland shoes and all of the other stuff they are stealing from stores, but then they are turning around and flipping it and selling on ebay and elsewhere. that is what they are doing. host: let's talk to mike, murfreesboro, arkansas, independent line. caller: good morning, c-span. host: good morning, mike. caller: i heard mr. stimson

state that a lot of these prosecutors were funded by george soros. i'm just curious, who funds the heritage foundation? i think it is funded by rich right-wing dollars, so they are skewed. guest: that is a great question. over 600,000 members around the country, starting from $25 a year and up. less than 2% by corporations. if you want to contribute, mike, go right ahead. host: he does bring up soros, which you brought up. it is in the subtitle of your book. why is he such a -- why does he loom large for a lot of people that are critical? guest: first off, let's be clear. we are criticizing his policies. host: which are what? guest: his policies are funding these progressive prosecutors. by the way, people can look it up online, on july 21st, 2021,

george soros wrote an op-ed. he is very proud of this. in chapter two of our book we trace the funds, about $50 million in direct spending, and perhaps up to $1 billion in indirect spending for groups and think tanks and others who are the progressive prosecutor mantra. i think in this town we need to dial down the temperature and focus on policy and having legitimate policy disagreements without being disagreeable. and, you know, he is funding these things. if they are not turning out well and it is a failed social experiment, it is fair game for policy discussion. host: maryland, republican. mark, good morning. caller: the morning. a couple of things you just touched on concerning george soros. i'm not sure if they were being sarcastic or not.

questioning george soros's funding of these d.a.s. i think it is called the open borders -- guest: open society. caller: thank you. he is the one funding a lot of this invasion that our southern border that is going on too. the fact of the matter is, the best defense against a revolution is a stable society. and george soros has made it his mission to make our society unstable. he used to be that you could not bring up his name. if you even brought up his name you are called an anti-semite. i would assert that george soros himself is an anti-semite, considering he turned his own people into the nazis and later said if he had not done it he would -- somebody else would have done it. he said this in a 60 minutes interview. another point i want to make real quick. as far as these da's, there was

a d.a. out of san francisco a couple of years ago that got recalled. if you want to know anything about chess obtain -- chesa boudain, he was raised by the founder of the weather underground. his parents were actually doing prison time for killing a couple of new york city cops, i believe. host: right, mark. let's get the response. guest: we have a whole chapter in our book on chesa. his parents were involved in the weather underground and were responsible for the death of a person because of the bank robbery. we held a conference at berkeley law school. we had a clash of ideas, as you can imagine. involving criminal justice. again, look, in our book we never say that soros commits any

crimes or violates any campaign-finance laws whatsoever. in fact, they are very fast eddie is in setting up these 527 political action committees called safety and justice pacs. those create independent expenditures that just so happen to be the progressive candidate. there is nothing wrong with that. it is part of free speech. but if the policies they enact blowup in your face or are a failed social experiment, which is what is happening and we are seeing in in real time, it is fair game to criticize that. host: one more from boston. eugene, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. you know, you made a comment earlier about the over policing in commonly black neighborhoods. that that was our situation when

the government ran its highway system, they strategically ran it through every prosperous black business district there was in america, and then fill those neighborhoods up with guns, alcohol stores, drugs, and over policing. because you know that whites do far more drugs than black folks, but you do not see why people over populating the jails and prisons with drug charges. and why is it that prosecutors often withhold evidence that they know can free people, but do not suffer any penalty for that? as a prosecutor if you come across evidence that points to a person's freedom and you withhold it, that is a clear violation of the law. and i do not see many prosecutors suffering any penalty for that. can you address that? guest: i would be happy to,

eugene. first off, brady versus maryland is the supreme court case that requires prosecutors to turn over what is called exculpatory evidence. most prosecutors turn that, and more. those who don't, they are held to account by pretrial motions. secondly, this is 2024. most major city police departments are majority minority and are run by minorities. so, i get this term, over policing. it is more of an opinion word or phrase than reality. over policing compared to what? not policing? i think police should go to where the crime is, to preserve people's public safety. host: that is all the time we've got. charles

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