>> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> cyrus vance, jr. is here. he is the only the fourth person

to hold the post in last 75 years and is circuit -- serving his second time in office. chip brown wrote in some ways and might be the user to be the district attorney in manhattan in an era where new yorkers are not inclined to do terrible things to one another and yet the da office still handles more cases than the entire united states department of justice. he has recently voiced his concerns about cyber security and other issues. i'm pleased to have him to this at this table. as we were talking about, i knew your father well and what an honor it was to know him. he was such a great public servant. a very good lawyer. >> i think that was one of the secrets to his success. his -- i think people trusted his word which i think was -- you have to have that to be a good lawyer. it enabled him to work well with others around the world as they could trust him.

>> they did not doubt he was a man of integrity. it was well known he resigned as secretary of state. a gave up that power because he disagreed and did it after the attack against iran to release the hostages. can you talk about that? >> it was a difficult period at home. i don't think that i even know the raid was going to take place. i was in law school and around the house, not living there. it was a very tense time. i think i remember my father feeling just awful physically. he maybe had a case of gout. the raid happens. it failed. he then disclosed that he told the president that he does not agree with this and if he does it, you are clearly not listening to me as secretary of state so i will resign. he was probably believe in one

sense but hurt that his word or his counsel as secretary of state was not capturing the president's ear to the point where the president was following his advice. and, -- but, it was a tough period. he moved on. >> it is an interesting case study. the president wanted his best advice. he wanted the best advice of others. sometimes he would listen to the secretary of state and sometimes he would listen to the secretary of defense or white house counsel. to resign because he did not listen to you -- >> i think that was a factor. but, on an issue that was very important to my father. in my office, i listen to a lot of people. >> and you hope they will go away once you make a decision. you were resistant to becoming a lawyer. >> i had a very well known

lawyer father. i think there was a certain rebellion in every child whose father is well known in a profession to do something else. >> what did you think you would do? >> i was not sure. i worked in west africa after college working for an oil shipping and transportation company. i had a hell of a time. i traveled all over west africa learned a lot and ultimately came back and decided to go to law school. >> why did you decide to do that? >> i think there was a lunar pol e. i respected my father. that clearly been a -- had been a very intellectual life for him. i think in many respects i shared some characteristics of his. i did it and i was glad i did it.

i was fortunate enough when i got out to go talk and get a job. >> you went to seattle, too. >> i worked for bob for six years. who had the job i have now. he was the third district attorney in 40 years. my wife and i, she really felt it was time to be on our own. her father was one of 15 kids. i had a lawyer family that was ever present. i think we both had an instinct that we should go somewhere, raise our family and have an adventure. seattle was for us at the time that adventure. we moved out before microsoft it. hit. it was not the dynamic city that it later became. in the 16 years i lived out there, seattle has changed as much as any other city in that

time. period. microsoft, amazon costco -- >> you went from being a prosecutor to being a defense attorney. you were a highly regarded criminal defense attorney. lots of prosecutors do that. do you become a prosecutor because you know it will equip you well to be a defense attorney? >> i did not. i did not have a desire going to law school that was going to be a defense attorney. i finished my stint at the das office and move out west. i loved criminal law. it took some adjustment to go on the defense side of. . being a defense lawyer is also one of the most satisfying an important roles i think lawyers can play because you have in your hands the future of a man or woman or a company. it may mean the company's survival, the liberty of the man

or woman. typically, the resources you can bring to bear to defend your case are not as great as the resources the government brings to bear to prosecute. i think -- when you are sitting with someone trying to get ready for something you got to do in court, or to understand a witness and what they are saying and how they feel -- it is very personal like you or me. you don't have the luxury of four or five detectives going out and doing things. it is very hands-on, satisfying but i would say between the two i think being the manhattan da or defense lawyer -- the da is a fantastic job. >> you decide you want to go back to new york. perhaps there were other personal considerations. you, hwo hwho had zero political

experience, zero. >> when i was six years old i handed out flyers for lbj. >> when you were six. practically no political experience. you decide that you are going to run for a very important political office in new york city. does that take what? >> i always felt when i was a young assistant da, as i bet everyone in my office does today and everybody who is graduated from the office, if i could be the manhattan district attorney, that would be the best legal job in the world. it is in office unlike any other prosecutor's office in the country. we are in manhattan first of all. it means we are dealing with some of the most complicated financial, international cases. >> jurisdictions of wall street and --

>> as well as a serious and violent crime. there are more areas of prosecution in my office then i think there are anywhere else. >> more powerful than the attorney general of new york? >> no. it is not a question of powerful, it is a question of the substance of work. i love the prosecution. the job of a prosecutor although it sounds trite, it is not to fight dirty and win, it is to do what is right. i will tell you that that is what you are told when you come. that is what i tell the young assistants when they work for me. that is what i think the bureau chiefs instill in their lawyers. there are not many jobs in america where you go to work and what the boss tells you to do is do what you think is right. obviously, you are guided. that is a part of omission. it is -- powerful mission.

it is intellectually interesting. >> you have something called the prosecutor of -- prosecutorial discretion. >> our ability to decide what the charges. how to plea bargain -- >> perhaps this person did it, we don't have the evidence to move forward. >> or even though we know the person did it, there are factors to rethink the severity of the charge or whether you should charge at all. that is a lot of power that is given typically too young lawyers out of law school. that is what i think -- why think it is so special. these lawyers are not doing what the lawyers and the big firms are doing. they are not trying to be the best document reviewers. these are specialists of people. they are specialists of getting witnesses to talk to you. witnesses do not come to court because they have a subpoena.

my witnesses come to court because i was calling them up and trying to make sure that they knew i cared. and it is very much a people business -- jury selection argument. all in all, that is a very satisfying way to spend your time as a lawyer. very satisfying. >> let me put this in context -- you were reelected. there was a time during the midst of your first term people said they was no way in hell you would be reelected. fair enough? >> a few? >> you never doubted you could explain the actions and decisions that i have taken? >> to run for the das office, i did not know if i could win. i felt i was the best person to do it. bob in the end did it. i think i ran a good campaign with ideas with substance. i think that is why i won.

there are always going to be very difficult cases in one's tenure. attorney general holder has had his fair share. i'm not comparing myself to him, but in manhattan we have the intensity of media scrutiny on our cases as probably as any other office in the country -- federal or state. there were a series of cases some in which bob indicted which were tried in my term, that resulted in acquittals. then, strauss kahn was arrested and indicted. >> when did you first know he was arrested? >> probably within an hour or so. [indiscernible] >> we have taken them oofff a plane and have taken him in. he's in prison. or in custody. >> there were folks who were very critical and i come to

understand that's their job and that is ok. i really felt very comfortable in my first term win or lose for running again. i felt that what the office was doing in terms of modernizing the office, doing powerful prosecutions, including sex crimes. very cutting-edge method of going after gangs and guns international crime -- i felt we are doing well but there are cases that cannot be debated and run off. >> at the moment, it did captivate us. it was tabloid heaven. the so-called -- they thought the press was convicting him beforehand. all in front of cameras and all of that. are they right?

>> the das association which i was president right in the middle of that -- we issued a motion that we did not believe that, what we call perp walks, were appropriate. there are others who strongly disagree, but i do think -- >> rudy giuliani is probably among them. >> i do not think they are necessary and i think they can be demeaning. ultimately, what i think you want in the courts is to have everybody who touches the system feel it is respectful even if it is tough. and, if you have essentially tawdry photographs or cheap shots, that i think can erode the public's perception of whatever the word is -- the importance of the institution.

>> what would you do differently if you could do it over again in this case? >> i might have conducted a per limitary hearing. >> which is? >> in new york state -- there are reasons i did not -- new york state has a very unique set of laws that relate to what happens once you are arrested and in jail. in a nutshell, if it is a felony, you either have that case indicted -- the grand jury hears the evidence -- within five or six days depending on whether a weekend is included or not. if you have not gotten the indictment before that time, the defendant is free. he is still charged but free on bail unless the defendant agrees to extend that date. there is a pretty tight timetable in which to make judgments. there was certainly a whole host of questions and issues about his -- the extent of his wealth.

whether or not the complaining witness was being reached out to in efforts to try to -- i am not saying he did this but the rumor mill was filled with it. people were trying to talk to her family. a preliminary hearing in that same time period and a judge determines there is probable cause, the defendant still stays in jail and the next court date is over 30 or 45 days. the reason we did not and i did not is because we did not really know that much about his actual individual wealth and reach. and because there was real concern about putting the complaint and on the witness stand in a circus. grand jury testimony is not like a public hearing. it is to a grand jury and in secret. i really think we handled this

case as controversial as it was as prosecutors, the right way, making the right judgments when we found information that could only have come to light through passage of time. we didn't stop investigating. we kept on working. we found there was excellent tory evidence which we medially turned over to the judge -- we immediately turned over to the judge. -- to the judge? >> to the fence -- the defense and the judge. then, ultimately in early august or middle of august, it was very important to me that we had done a very thorough investigation before we issue any kind of decision on what we were going to do. we have to follow the process and make sure we investigated everything we needed to understand what had happened. i think the case is a teaching

moment for me and our assistants and perhaps others -- you arrest people on probable cause more probably than not and that makes sense because you typically have a trial before you arrest somebody if somebody says that mantle my wallet -- man took my wallet. before you take a case to trial you have a burden at trial. you have to convince every juror beyond a reasonable doubt that that this person is guilty. if we don't have an abiding faith beyond a reasonable doubt in knowing what happened then i think it is our obligation to not go forward with the case notwithstanding the anger and upset that can cause. >> is that what happened? >> yeah. we moved to the court to dismiss the case. >> are you saying you don't

think you knew what happened in that room? >> not without a reasonable doubt. there was clearly sexual contact. the dna proved it. whether it was forcible, forcibly compelled sexual contact or not was not something -- we looked at a lot of evidence -- we were able to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that it happened. >> here is an interesting story. during this time he resigned as director of the imm. suppose it was as he said. was this a terrible injustice to him? >> i think the way -- i don't believe it was a terrible injustice to him. i believe, with all respect to him and his ex-wife, the reason we were dealing with this was

because of things that he put into play. we would not have had to deal with any of it if there had not been some sexual -- >> if he was not in the room. >> no. frankly, as other information came out over the course of the next seven or eight months about matters outside this investigation related to him, i felt even less that we had treated him poorly. >> people discover a lot afterwards. did you have a plea? >> there was no treaty, no exhibition between ourselves and france. i don't think we do to this day. certainly at least -- >>he could have gone and never come back.

this was a case that took time to sort through and i think we got it right. >> my last question about that. a grave injustice to her if in fact things happened as she said them but it did not go far because other aspects of of her life experience. >> i think we did not intend any disservice to her. i think it is fair to say that the attorneys in our office when they first met her were absolutely convinced in her truthfulness. >> these are smart people who know what witnesses are like. they believed her at the beginning. >> a number of other facts came out and no one i bore you with them or criticize her, but they were substantial enough for us to believe her credibility in testifying in this case was so compromised that we ourselves do not know exactly what happened.

>> let me make this larger. because of your experience and because you make decisions that caused this question to be raised we now have dna evidence and a lot more. it has released a lot of people. you are very much in favor of that. what percentage of the people you think that are convicted -- is it 5%? >> i would not venture a guess. i would say less than that. >> less than 5%? juries and judges get it right at least -- >> there is no study that could scientifically answer that question. if you ask a lawyer to be critical, that lawyer would say 50% of the cases that are tried are unjust. my own experience as a prosecutor, defense lawyer

prosecutor again and civil litigant -- i think the prosecutors try to and get it right the overwhelming majority of times, but when i ran for office and was informed by being a defense lawyer, felt it was very important that the manhattan office be a national leader in this issue of conviction integrity. there is nothing more upsetting to a lawyer than understanding that decisions that had been made by you or others in your field were wrong and resulted in the conviction of innocent people. so that was -- the innocence movement appropriately shocks the legal system. >> it started with the innate. -- dna. >> an office as large as ours and being a major prosecutorial office in the world i thought

we needed to be transparent about how we work going to not just review cases which is what half the equation -- reviewing cases where there has been convictions or allegations of innocence. but, teaching is more important. teaching the lawyers on the front end what to watch out for in those cases where error of judgment was likely made. witness id cases, confidential informant cases. issues related to identification procedure. we have spent a lot of time in our unit working with the front end. i believe there was some skepticism and upset when i started this unit in our office and i think -- >> i'm no lawyer but thank god for the legal profession i don't practice. things that seem to be most frequent -- flagrant -- when

people have evidence that they know may contribute to innocence and simply go for careerism withhold it. >> there is very little -- that is worse than that in our business. >> let me move to the impact of technology. as you might imagine -- on the positive side you now have access to data and police -- bill bratton was here -- have access to fax at your command. -- facts at your command. it ought to help police work and prosecutorial work in terms of reaching the right decision. explained to me more how it makes your life easier today and when we look at the phenomenon

of how the computer has given us so much more than we ever imagined. >> it is a two-edged sword. i will start by saying the biggest change between practicing criminal law in decades past and today is the impact of the internet because every case, charlie, that we have whether it is a homicide or domestic violence case or rape or economic fraud, much of the evidence will come from handheld mobile devices e-mails facebook postings, photographs. every case is now infused with this kind of evidence. that is a blessing. our challenges to be able to have people that are confident to know how to find it and use it and an office that is confident to review these items and make sure we are getting the right evidence off of them to

not only convict the guilty, but exonerate the innocent. on the flipside, the internet is obviously very dark. a third of our felony cases are now cybercrime cases. it is a tsunami. >> a third of your cases? >> that is cases that relate to identity theft. >> a third of them? >> yeah. it has changed our practice significantly. the unfortunate reality is that people not just here but abroad have morphed from being criminals in one endeavor whether it is selling drugs or snatching chains on 42nd street -- they have gone off the street and into identity theft because it is safer, cheaper and. and you have a very intelligent

group of criminal players who are in eastern europe russian speaking, who have been instrumental in buying and spying and selling the identities that are stolen for major stores and banks. it is an international problem. >> why russian? >> i think it is technical. it is the schooling. it is an international business. it is not only borderless but it is international. one of the things i have come to appreciate is because it is international, our office needs to do it. that means what other major cities should we be in partnership with trying to identify what attacks are occurring on our residents that are similar to the ones on theirs? is this person in eastern europe hitting both of us? we opened up a close

relationship with the city of london police. we share investing -- investigatory information. there was one case that involved new york actors and english actors. this is the wave of the future. it is international. it is everywhere and i'm not trying to be dramatic. it is a lot. we have not won the war on cybercrime. >> there is this -- google and apple. [laughter] yes. they can now encrypt and they don't even know how to access the information. >> once apple and google said in their most recent upgrades to their operating system is that they no longer have a key. we used to send them the phones and they would take their key, unencrypted, send it back. we get the data and we deal with it. they no longer have that key and

market their phones. they said several months ago we cannot assist law enforcement. >> did this come of the snowden business? >> i'm sure it did and concern over the nsa. i don't diminish the importance of right to privacy. i don't want the nsa looking at my e-mails but where i strongly disagree with that is that is not what we are talking about. it is not the das office trying to go into your e-mails. we have to get a warrant from a judge. we have to present probable cause that on this device there is likely to be information related to this crime or that crime. the judge has the review and sign it. >> before you can request this information from google or facebook or apple, you have to have a judge say it is appropriate that they ask for this information because it is

relevant to a criminal investigation. >> might be relevant. this is potentially of huge importance to the hundreds and thousands of cases around the country. we just had a case that i heard of where there was a series of drug dealers in what looked like a drug deal. one guy was videotaping it with his iphone and somebody made a noise to the left. in moves the phone to the doorway and there was a guy with a gun who shoots the iphone holder dead. you see the iphone drop to the ground and that homicide would not have been capable of being made if we were unable to get the movie on the iphone. today under the new operating system, we could not get that video. >> because the only person who has a key is the holder of the smartphone. >> evidently. >> does apple or google or anyone else show any movement to the argument you are making or

they are saying it is privacy? >> they are facing an international marketplace. they are successfully marketing themselves all over the world. i look at this through the lens of a new york city prosecutor. they are looking at it through the business lands and political lens of snowden and the aftermath. as i have said, to not be able to get into these phones i think it is swinging the pendulum too far because the victims are actually going to be apple and google's own customers who are going to be victims of crime and they are not going to be able to get access to information on these phones that may relate to how they got ripped off. >> let me transfer this not to apple or google, but to facebook and wanting access to somebody's facebook, which i assume you can

get unless they take it down and that stuff. are there issues? >> there are. we again use a search warrant. there is one case of that is a litigation right now. i will not comment on the pluses or minuses, but there was a 99 page affidavit that was submitted by our office seeking authorization from the court to subpoena and search the facebook files for several hundred peoples facebooks. we litigate against twitter separately. i guess this whole conversation speaks to the fact that technology is changing. how we gather -- >> you need new rules? >> they need to be updated. the evidence is not going to be on notepads anymore. it will be on twitter accounts and facebook and iphones and ipads. it is a new world and my

commitment is that our office is going to be capable and up to the challenge. ♪

> marijuana and how much marijuana you might have had and when it should be prosecuted. the brooklyn da who you met -- does he have the same position as you do? >> he does. >> what is that position? on marijuana. >> the reason why i did not adopt the brooklyn district attorney's position -- he was first to say i will not prosecute these cases. >> for the possession of so much marijuana? >> i have for years taken the

position we ought to be decriminalizing it but the state has not done it. i felt my job was to get the police department to come on board or hope i could so they can have about -- there can be a five-county solution to the problem. ultimately, those five counties came together and we are no longer prosecuting these low-level possession cases. that is because commissioner bratton met with us and talked with us and we finally figured it out. i don't think we need i don't think we need to have possession of small amounts of marijuana a crime. >> it will be reflected in the legal system as well. are gangs a big deal in new york? i mean organized crime, not youth gangs. let's start with youth gangs for

minute. like an l.a., do you have that problem? >> we do. when i started as the a, i started a violent criminal enterprise field that will focus on gangs and guns and violence. we developed what is called a crime strategies unit. the article chad brown wrote talks a lot about that unit which essentially the idea is to have our investigations informed by intelligence in our office and to have that intelligence shared with the assistance to our building these cases but we have to get that intelligence we have to make sure it is readable and pushed out to the right folks. we have taken 17 gangs down in that -- in manhattan over the past four years. that means indict and arrest. the results has been very positive which is to say the homicide rate the shooting

incident rate, the shooting victim rate in manhattan has decreased more than the other counties. i think it is because we are doing -- we have been doing this very proactive work. that kind of gang typically is somewhat between 13 and 19 years old. >> does the level of crime in a community have anything to do with the da office? >> i think it can. you have to be careful if you are claiming you eliminated crime because of it comes back, you own that too. >> i meant is it really all the police or as of the police and the prosecutors? >> it is 3 -- the police, the prosecutors and the community. when all three are working together, that is when you were ill see the greatest reduction in crime and enhancement of security. our office is no longer a defensive office. we now are just as -- we are

investigating affirmatively. we are gathering intelligence, sharing intelligence. we are not waiting for police officers to bring us cases. >> organized crime -- it is not what it was? >> there is organized crime but it is as we see it relegated right now to drugs sale of prescription drugs, numbers -- betting. it is nickel and dime stuff compared to the era of homicides and serious violent crime. >> the whole thing of crime lords -- >> i am sure there are organized criminals that are doing more damaging stuff than i have described but we don't see it the same way that we did in the 1980's. >> how does the drug world changed in the last 10 years or

15 years in terms of the nature of the drug trafficking, in terms of who was involved, in terms of what products are most popular? >> i think two trends in the last several years are ones that would focus on. excuse me. one is prescription drugs. the sale of prescription drugs -- codeine xanax -- that has become a huge market. that is of real concern to communities all over the country and certainly in new york. that spikes and continues to be high. heroine has made a comeback in new york city probably because it is cheap. i think it got cheap because people were buying prescription drugs and heroine was available in quantities that did not cut the market. >> crack cocaine? >> as an ongoing problem -- drug

problem is the longer there. >> why is that? >> hopefully, because people understand it is a killer. rthathat era when crack hit in the 1980's, it really was amazing. it is almost as if a virus hit new york. people were getting infected with this virus which was addiction to crack cocaine and incredibly violent behavior was popping up all over the city. >> do you have the tools to do the job necessary both in terms of resources, financial support and the kinds of things you think you -- give you the tools to do what the people elected you expect you to do? >> i do. during the bloomberg years, mike was a great mayor and partner with us and to me. our tax dollars were cut, our

budget was cut each year for several years during my first term. ultimately, we have been able to restore that budget line to where we think it should be. the right base. that in combination with fines and other furniture's -- forfeitures that we obtained through cases, -- >> that is a very interesting point. if i had not read about you -- the fines you collect. if you sue a financial institution and they pay a fine, you have discretion as to how that fine is spent. >> it depends. it is more complicated than that. to summarize, depending on the nature of the partners and the forfeiture, a certain percentage of dollars do come to our office. and we can spend those dollars under -- on the federal side --

under very strict guidelines which we have to submit a spending plan to the federal government and they approve it or don't and we can spend the money on many things. on the state forfeiture cases it is a statute that is not as defined but we need to invest all those dollars into law enforcement issues as well. i think we are doing some great stuff with it. we have committed to give $35 million to help end the backlog of untested rape kits around the country. that was a tragedy. the testing of those rape kits in places as far as oklahoma and california will reveal new york defendants. >> the level of domestic violence -- up or down? >> it is up slightly. if you would ask me what my focus was and say domestic homegrown violent extremists -- >> homegrown terrorism.

>> antiterrorism financing. >> what does that mean? >> money that is moved to front terrorism activities here or there. >> foundation or whatever. >> third, domestic violence. domestic violence is a very significant problem and it is one of the areas where i feel we have the most work to do. we opened a family justice center last year in manhattan. the family justice center is a place where a victim of domestic violence can get both criminal -- talk with a prosecutor about what is happening -- at the same time get services like child care for her kids and emergency phone and funding. it merges those parts of that person's life at that point in time when they are leaving the home at a time of great danger for the woman typically, who

have two or three kids into and she does not know where she will sleep at night. that was a big help we believe to service victims of domestic violence but we still have a long way to go. >> the more attention it gets, the more we realize it is more prevalent than we know. >> it is probably in every income group, community. it is shockingly pervasive. >> the most satisfying aspect of your job is the belief that you are representing the community in putting in due process and justice. >> and preventing crimes. we spend a lot of time and money on crime prevention strategies. we have 10 centers in manhattan that we have started for boys and girls between 12 and 18 years old on friday and saturday

nights. we have -- we hired professional trainers. we also have basketball -- volleyball and soccer and lacrosse. >> the idea is to provide a place for the community to be. >> and educational counseling. that is crime-fighting to me. i think the da's fighting crime is not what you just do in the courtroom. it is my job to encourage my team to develop every strategy that is going to drive crime down long-term. some might be hardcharging gang cases. some of that may be reaching out to the immigrant community to tell them what to watch out for so they don't get ripped off by someone who tries to prey on them. some of that may be working with the kids in the community. >> what is the fastest rising thing -- you mentioned cybercrime. it is a third of the crime committed.

what is the next largest category? >> i am not sure i can say what is the next largest. it will be some kind of larceny. there has been an explosion of thefts of ipads, iphones. that is -- manhattan has a huge percentage of those citywide cases. there is a lot of money and people with devices here. >> a graduate of law school and member of the bar -- i don't know this. crime is committed. a decision is made. there is probable cause to arrest first and then -- cop comes down. >> interviewed by the assistant. determines will we have and don't have. we make an application to

determine the application should have bail or not. if we ask for bail, the assistant goes to court and asks for bail or send a note. if that person is held we have to either indict him or her within a number of days. if we don't indict, they are out of jail. we have six months to try most felony cases. >> to start the trial? >> very roughly speaking because there are exclusions for motion practice and this and that. it is a fairly fast-moving practice. i think what i love when i was a young assistant when i got used to it is to sit in the agreement -- arraignment part. it is a little bit like you are juggling and you are spinning plates and you are doing all those things at once and try to keep your head about you. to be careful and thoughtful and fair. it is -- people who do that and adjusted to that, can find that

fastening -- fascinating. >> of this is a teaching moment for me and the audience -- when does a grand jury common to play? >> in order to charge someone and prosecute them to trial for a felony in new york you have to present the case to a grand jury and a grand jury has the vote what is called a true bill. voted to indict you for robbery or whatever it is. the grand jury may decide not to indict you in which case they baited no true bill. that is when you need to go to a grand jury and present evidence to 23 jurors. >> only evidence is presented by the prosecution? >> grand jurors can ask for witnesses to be called and sometimes do. the defendant may testify with his lawyer or her lawyer at her own choice.

-- their own choice. they have to waive their privilege to do that. the grand jury process in new york is much more robust than it is in the federal system. in most instances where to put witnesses on live, not hearsay. if there is a robbery, a sex crime or complicated fraud, we actually have to find the people to put them in the grand jury get the evidence in. the grand jurors eyeball the witnesses. they ask what is this -- ask questions. we decide to indict or not to indict. it has to be 12 out of 23 jurors. probable cause is the standard. >> it is only for felonies? >> only for felonies. you can also indict misdemeanors which we do from time to time. we do that really because we think the case is complex that we want to take it to the

supreme court were we believe the resources -- >> the process works well? >> i think it works well. i'm aware as we all are of the events of the last several months. >> ferguson and here. >> am open with sitting with the governor and others to talk about are there ways to make more transparent the decision to of the grand jury's. ries. >> it seems to me the public is informed. frank hogan had this job for how long? >> 32. bob had it for 34. >> you were elected when? 2010. 32 years. that would be 2040. how old would you be?

>> i will be old. i don't look at bob -- he is one-of-a-kind. he was a mentor to so many of us. the wonderful thing about our office is when i came in to take it over, i inherited a phenomenal office. i had to do things to change it as anybody does but my job is very simple. i inherited a phenomenal office and my job is that i lift the bar a little higher before i pass it on to another person. >> thank you for coming. cyrus vance, the manhattan district attorney. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪

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>> i'm john heilemann. >> and, i'm mark halperin. "with all due respect" to john travolta, stop touching my face. ♪ >> on the show tonight, money, motives and movies. but first, muslims. barack obama, not a muslim -- not that there's anything wrong with that. but, there might be something him him politically wrong now with scott walker. he says he did not know president obama is a christian. if you are keeping score at home, scott walker still does not know whether president obama loves his country or evolution is real. walker is not backing down and his fans on social media are cheering him on. john, is scott walker in a