it was not the first edition. that book is still in print, so there's still additions ongoing. he was an early edition she inscribed the john grisham best wishes her pearly. it is a prized possession. i have a place for it on the wall and today i will add it next to this award here. not that i have two earlier comment team signed copy of "to kill a mockingbird," i have two kids. i love to collect old books and they're constantly bickering about who gets wet. they have been worried about who gets a copy of "to kill a mockingbird." well, now i have to thanks to you. thank you all for this award. [applause] >> thanks, john. appreciate your remark.

it's now time for a panel discussion comparing the two books from exploring their place in medical literature in their impact have moderated by david baldacci. we ventured is panel has appeared dalia litwack, contributing editor at "newsweek" and senior editor at slate where she writes this supreme court dispatch and jurisprudence that has been a guest columnist for "the new york times" op-ed page. and also, rosenbaum, the john wellen distinguished lecturer in law and director of the four mama, culture and society in law school in himself the author of several high regard novels. i'll turn it over to david at this point. >> i want to add my congratulations to john. i was one of those literary minded astute judges who picked the compassion of a book that was not deserving of the word. it was a stiff competition, but the judges agreed and we went

over the books in detail at john's book rose several obvious that. it was a book that was an only reasonable terrifically entertaining and deals with issues and away i think that makes everyone or should make everyone who read the book think about it. in a shameless plug, there's a poster back there in october next month at yale university to feature highlights another iconic figure in american literature, mark twain. it's a fundraiser in the museum. judy p. coble joined john, myself on stage at there. if you're in that part of the country want to go to it, please do. all funds go to the mark twain museum. we can celebrate writers like john grisham and harper lee, were doing something wrong. john has agreed to be uppity can participate if you want stuart can just listen. if we get things wrong, let us know i'm sure. i have a serious question here.

i think we should have a free flow of dialogue. i will call in any one person to panel to answer. feel free to jump in. i like this question and i am going to start with it. i was the lawyer portrayed in popular fiction changed in the 50 years since atticus finch? atticus finch as the lawyer rheostat on time ugly sometime in our lives and been accused of a really bad crying because he's the guy that will be there for us and he stands for what it appeared and seems to be ideal but it's hard to understand. so the question how was it changed since atticus finch? [inaudible] >> please go peered >> well, for one thing, atticus finch is a flawless carrot here. for many people who read "to kill a mockingbird," that is some of the complexity the book

you have a character who is too good at the end is going to have his own son prosecuted for the voluntary manslaughter of the most evil man in all of alabama. overly righteous. and now we see characters with much more complexity. kerry nurse who have flaws, who are in fact using the love with many john grisham cared terry's in this quality are accusing the case as a way to redeem themselves, as a way to find themselves through the law. atticus finch was quite clear he was as a father, who as of the time legislature, who he was as a native son of alabama. you know, if you look at our today, the characters are as lost as their client and we find them the struggling divorce in real human struggles in that makes it a huge difference between the last 50 years,

characters with much more texture and much more true humanity. >> morris. >> from what i have seen is the campaign against others, especially trial lawyers by the political right in america in the u.s. chamber of commerce and others finding its way in fiction. back in the time i started practicing law, we didn't see lawyers condemned as lawyers and trial lawyers. they were honored people. in fact, we do at a capital murder case in the country, the person usually an agenda to defined as lawyers in town would be appointed at how to volunteer to rep sent the person as it was in this case here. i think the legal profession is really condemned today and also i speak to a lot of law student around. i always tell them that if they

read henry the sixth, david reid that if tierney is to prevail coming you must first kill all the lawyers. in the first part of that is omitted today. i think john grisham has helped put it back in place. >> i might just add them maybe it's a hybrid of the two points that have been made, but i think there is a sense that lawyers in fiction today are working against immutable machines in the way they didn't used to be. one of the things you don't see anymore is lawyers who field that their firm is a good place to be, lawyers who feel that the government is a good place to be. there is a sense that there is leviathan structure that is fundamentally corrupt. i think that goes to some of these points about real

questions about the integrity of the legal system. but i think in addition to always have a drink in my hand, in modern fiction, everywhere has a drink in their hand, male and female. but i think they are also just very, very good and frustrated and broken in helpless. i think it goes to a sense that, you know, the legal system isn't respect dated ratified the way it once was. >> i'm going to try to put a positive spin on this. >> that would be helpful. >> over the last 50 years -- actually, i think one of the really good and positive attribute of fiction in the timeframe that we are talking about is an appreciation understanding of the legal system. it is a complex but very critical part of our life in this country. it is the foundation for our

democracy. and to have authors who understand the encoded in the context of real-life situation makes it appreciated, but more importantly, it is an educational tool. i find that those who read the book who are not lawyers come away with a much deeper understanding and appreciation of our legal system. and it is pretty good. more so and in many ways we can be critical of it because we expect so much from it. as we should. but by the same token, i think we are -- we benefit a great deal from the honesty that surrounds the purpose for the legal system. when you think about the use of juries as well, you understand

that this is our system. it is not somebody else's system. we on the system. and to the extent that it is a system that judges and passes judgment on very complex and sometimes life altering situation, i think what we have learned from the book is that it is better to have it than not. >> well, that covered about the other nine questions i had my piece of paper. you'll get more commands. up, ulcer with you again worked this way. the follow-up question that i have, thrillers and legal thrillers in general are very popular with mass audiences. even though a lot of people have disdain for the legal profession, i think we've seen that. they are fascinated with that world. we see that with movies and books. if you could talk to why you think that fascination, aside

from the fact that we exhibit the legal system can would've thought of the legal system, so many people on a broad basis want to read books and watch movies about it. >> well, particularly the ones that we choose to exemplify -- they are game changers. the arcane changers for societies, for the way we be ourselves. and they, in many cases, when you see an outcome that goes against the grain, what preserves the institution hss, you want to root for it. you want to save yourself coming back this country. that's our country and i am proud of the fact that in this environment, in this society, you can still root for the underdog and when. it is the only place that the

president of the united states has the possibility of being tried. you don't see that in other countries, not the head of state. if it does happen, it's a rare occasion. if you choose to break the law, you are just as susceptible to be tried if anybody else. this is the statement that chesterfield smith may miss the former president aba is that no person is above the law really rings true in the movies we see and the most important thing is that even without means, there is a preservation of civil liberties and civil rights in the system. >> well, legal narratives, like all novels, legal drama is our particularly american cultural touched down. they are very much like legal dramas are very much like the american westerns in terms of

the public fascination. westerns, as we now come to take place in the prairie and two with lawlessness, but are essentially about the search for good and righteousness to do what his chest and to make things right. and the legal system is a natural location trials for good versus evil. you see coming in now come the cowboys on horses and use the lawyers striding and courtroom, delivering summations. you know, there's even movement of courtrooms. john nation on transgression is the master of having people do interesting things including port glass of water. all of a sudden some of this idea that there is an action that's taking place. but it is an action that is the same kind of dramatic tension that there's some injustice that's taken place and the audience can't sit still until some resolution takes place.

in the corporate setting does it in a way that is much more closed, but it does that with the same kind of dramatic tension and excitement to anyone who has had to come -- and, it really is a page turner. and you know, who knew that something like a legal trial could become so fascinating to american culture that even during the day, all television soap operas are off, lost their places in favor of judge judy and judge alex and the people's court. obviously, there is some consumer demand. to see human resolution is a conflict and to be able to make distinctions between right and wrong. people are obviously wanting for this. they're not actually seen him a lot and and they see in daytime tv and in reading david and john

the. >> i would probably double down on the spaghetti western and say it is also the morality play. it is the religious treatise. i think to the extent we have a church in this country is the supreme court. should the extent we have a foundational religious text as the cost of tuition. and i think sometimes at our peril we look at the same time substitute for religion. i think this is morality. and this is the trial, i think even csi in hunting down the criminal and he did have about head until he confesses is all part of an art about morality. and we hope that this is a system admin the top sins of a beneficent god is the next best thing we have is a beneficent

judge who will do the right name and make moral choices and vindicate justice and make a world fair. so it just seems to me that i have always bad and maybe it's because i cover the supreme court, i think we are the most religious secular society in the world. we pretend to not be religious, but we revere the law in place of religion and so it seems to me that that arc retrace over and over, even on judge judy, even on nancy grace, even on law and order, that is the art of some system that is going to make the world make sense and make justice prevail. >> when i was in law school, really in the old pieces and i was struck with how the history of the united states has been decided in many ways after the constitution by legal cases, chad scott, each was what made the distinction. i think that still happens today. i mean them were just got the witness and the troy davis

situation and i don't know what is going to be the next step. president carter came out of posted the death penalty and we saw all the imagination that went into that. and the could be the beginning of the end of the death penalty in the united states hopefully. and then you have, you know, i guess reality television with the case anthony case and nancy grace it's amazing. but those people are in it for the soap opera effect, too. i think the u.s. supreme court do you cover, waiting for every decision, whether it is roe v. wade or whether it's the right some energy to have counsel. some i think in many ways it is the legislative system that we see acted out in court. >> you know, it said that fiction is only bound by plausibility. people can suspend disbelief, but you have to have audit, not that it didn't happen but it

could happen. it seems in popular fiction that the eagles have gotten bigger, conspiracies gotten broader and what people are willing to believe might happen at least in the fiction situation has gotten bigger. i guess the question is, i'll start with you, morris, the sad reflection on the legal system or society as a whole that they will accept anything that could happen and maybe in real life more so than population might have accepted that being possible 50 or 60 years ago? >> i think it has a lot to do -- i'm not sure if that's really true. i mean, my favorite books are italy and the odyssey. i don't have to tell you that a lot of disbelief in those. i still think there hasn't been any books written since then, no respect you and john. you can go back and finally her stories there. when i recently read cleopatra, that was affirmed. i do think though with the

advent of reality and talking heads in with the too many commercials they can make war heroes into cowards. light was on the presidential election if you spend the money, this truth then can be suspended but disbelief. i am really proud that we have writers and in fact, if there was any way, i think i would be voting as a panel member and i think i told ken that is because i don't know how you got a hold of john's book, but i sent you one. i said let's give john a lifetime achievement award because you can take any of his books and for the contributions they made for the cause of justice. >> i think i am also going to fight the hypothetical if that's possible. i think that if in fact a case

that fiction and just the enormity of the kinds of things that john writes about this seem like they can't possibly be true are in fact true and books that look like this can't possibly have been. i had the great fortune of reading this book this week while i was trying to cover doing a contrary database for slate. and can you imagine toggling back and forth between a fictional work about a possibly innocent man being sent to his death by judicial system that prosecutorial system that just don't care and watching it happen in front of your very eyes. and they matched the point that i literally couldn't remember from day to day is this week went on and i confess i didn't have too much sleep, but i couldn't remember what i had read the trial transcript and

what i've read read from the compassion. i think one of the things john does so well as he takes these extraordinary question. what if you got a state supreme court justice and turn them into things that seem like they are beyond belief and tell you watch the supreme court. that very case? it seems to me that problems have gotten huge in the real problem is that readers suspending disbelief. it's trying to prove to readers that this may just happen. i think that's the real problem with facing. >> it is true that we are living in a deep breath and needed culture, where people no longer feel shocked by any name. would've been a a shock list, shot or society. cnn very shortly within an hour or so after the fall of the world trade center stop showing

the two buildings falling down. i do remember for the first hour you saw at the time. now you never see it anymore. somebody must've called cnn and said cut it out. the more you show this, the more you make people desensitized and this needs to be outrageous. it needs to be atrocious. they cannot be sent dean as if you saw in a film. i do think the culture has made us much more cynical and much more willing to believe anything because we are really no longer shout. what we do it, john grisham novels, i think it is true that once you're there you're getting much closer to what morris dees said about conventional narratives, about good, evil and morality plays. and in that sense, the legal system with all due respect to make good friend robert grey is not featured in its best light, that it is a perfect setting for a cynical culture to look as dolly said said at the legal system as machine and to demand

the ultimate rabbit, no good can come of it. want to get an index number and become part of the system, you can never leave. and that is the perception that we all have about the legal system. it think it fits into a cynical culture where we don't believe in institutions. we feel everyone has failed us. god has failed us, government has failed us and our judges lawyers as well. >> i'm going to see but i cannot do that particular observation. but i think each one -- each panelist as broad a dude that i believe is true. they think by the way, it's a good question that you asked. we have changed as a society. we are never going to be the same. not just because of things like 9/11, but because everything is real-time. and so, you see the underbelly of the problem or a conflict

immediately. there is no time to spin it. there is not a lot of time to wait and recast it or do some revisions history on it. it is there. it is right in front of us. people are a lot more -- we say cynical. i think it's just more realistic that this could happen. i think you can draw it. interesting scenario, set of facts, as an people will say, that's possible. i mean, i can analogize in my mind of the person that to something i saw or just read about on the internet. it is not that far out anymore as it used to be. i mean, it was interesting. i saw an episode of the twilight sun, which was a sitcom that one

time. that is not crazy. that was really -- that is like somebody made that in a shoe box and put it out. but back then, it was are you kidding me? that's really fantastic. we are -- but the desensitization history. we really are in a much more real world that when things are real-time, the way we analyze problems and the way we look at circumstances is so much different than when we first went to a mockingbird first came out. over the years, we have learned that anything is possible. >> sometimes it's almost a race to the bottom because one lament i hear the publishing industry is what is the ability to five

years ago doesn't necessarily throw people anymore. we've come up with outlander situation although the word comes from always existed as always existed and tell a story about people and situations that are under pressure and high stakes further and makes people care about what's going to happen to them. this gets to the next question. in both the compassion and "to kill a mockingbird," there'd are issues that they can how that connects to social justice. there is a line in the book front "to kill a mockingbird," were atticus if he didn't tell tom robinson. in the segregationist of structure. what role does faith play in mourning for social justice? robber, we will start with you. >> i think you have to start in

the middle. >> they either gave you too much time to think or no time at all. >> well, you know, weary feet is culture. i think it has a lot to do with how we view our role, particularly lawyers. there is a very high expectation that notwithstanding the opportunity to take advantage of the situation, that there are certain principles and ethical standards and that people have faith in the fact that you will act upon the for the preservation of justice. and i ain't buying a march works. there are clearly exceptions to that rule is there are situations that have bad results that resulted prosecutors doing

that thing, defense lawyers not doing good things. judges being in different two things. that changed the outcome and affect people's lives in a very adverse way sometimes. but when you look at that and the totality and that's what i think the book does, or the stories do if they put you in the position of saying yes, there can be bad that can happen, what principles that we stand for as a country and that we expect our lawyers to adhere to involve a degree of faith that once given is usually transformed into a just decision

an opportunity for us to write wrong in this country. i am large, e-mail, i must be the eternal optimist on this panel. but i think that is why this system has stayed intact as long as it has vis-à-vis other systems around the world. >> you know, i think it is beyond faith. it goes to broader notions of morality. it is not just that atticus tells scout that he can't go to church if he doesn't represent tom robinson. he tells her a number of things. he says they can't hear you. i can't have you do your chores. i couldn't walk down the street. i couldn't function as a son of this state. it could represent the top of the legislature. you know, law students are taught to achieve the correct legal results.

they are not to think about fundamental distinction that common human courtesy and decency. that is the atticus is a battle. he transcends what he learned at law school. he went beyond what you taught him. and he says, no, i understand what the correct legal result is, but it's more important for me to do what's right. i think that idea is also what drives so much of the fiction of the john grisham characters i think about what my favorite books, the rainmaker, you know, these are people that are tireless, energetic crusaders, morris dees of the real world who just do the right thing. but we don't teach law students to do that. it is beyond faith. it's about asking them to go beyond what the law is and do just fight for the right to become the most righteous crusading cause.

that is why these characters stand out. that's way real-life heroes like morris dees stand out because they are not doing whatever else is doing. they are going beyond what everyone else is doing. >> i do think it's interesting that atticus is a man of faith -- is a man who goes to church. in the confession we have another carrot there is -- if you care or sudoku to church are the lawyers. and i do think it goes too now i'm positing trunk atheist lawyers, what a nightmare. but i do think it goes a little bit to the generational shift, where i went to law school not that long ago and religion is something you don't talk about. religion has been completely decoupled from that the practice of law and the ways we think about the love, i ain't in ways

that are very profound in terms of the effect they are having on how we practice. i do think it also goes to the idea that lawyers are outsiders now. the legal system cannot at the end of the day deliver you the kinds of outcomes you might seek from a religious system. >> morris. >> when i was born in alabama in 1936 and read "to kill a mockingbird" in 1956 that came out? whatever, i was just out of law school. i graduated in 1960. and i didn't read fiction. i read just a fact because it was the life i knew so well. ..

they took me off the job sunday. [laughter] but i don't think him i've tried actually over 50 cases myself and it is a very dramatic thing to me. even though i now have probably spent more time in unitary fellowship in the synagogue than i do at the baptist church, but i still appreciate my beginnings. i don't think i ever close an argument in a case that i don't talk about the fact that the

jury is sitting temple of justice justice and i use that idea that you earlier stated and trying to get them to understand that that is what this whole justice system is all about. there is no question that we have 40 lawyers and thank you for your kind compliments but i get credit for a lot of what other good people do and they have all types of faiths and beliefs. i think by the chagrin of some of my own employees especially those that don't work in the legal -- who snuck in there in the middle of the night and that offended me greatly and a lot of people, my neighborhood thought i was doing something sacrilegious. i see the church that i go to is the southern law center and i go there every day and i start worshiping on sunday morning. [laughter]

>> atticus finch was a lawyer from the south and many of john grisham's characters are from the south. how is the lawyer particularly the trial lawyer perceived differently in the south and in other regions of the country? thane i will start with you. >> because i am in northern jewish guy. [laughter] clearly my area. let's start with that guy. [laughter] well, david, look, you know, and i'm saying this now is a northern jewish guy, you know the southern lawyer is a more flamboyant character. you know, frankly perry mason is humorless. you know we don't even know what he likes to eat, you know. he is an l.a.. does anyone realize that he is actually an l.a. and the kind of

car he drives is all pre-l.a. law? but matlock, now there is an interesting guy. there is a guy who sued tells you a lot. there is a kind of wisdom of fulks inés and one can see that in the dramatic presentation of the lawyer or not the corporate lawyer staring at ox is of discovery material or securities and regulations at the courtroom wisdom of how to relate to a jury, how to function as a human being as opposed to eight cog in a machine are a cultural perception is that the southern lawyer just does it better, is more interesting at it, more likable, more winning, more like us and i think the presentation of you know yankee lawyers is you know that they are more mechanical, more thorough, less presenting their own personal style, and get when you think

about other aspects of greek -- great fiction, richard wright coss native son, the chicago portrait but again you just have to sense that he represented communist. you don't get a sense that was that matlock that ate hot dogs all day? there something about southern lawyers. they are off watching a baseball game. they are more human to us and they become for that reason much more interesting characters in our. >> robert. [laughter] >> he actually never pass the bar. [laughter] >> but he has a good job. >> his best moment was in the south. that is our point. that's my point. >> that's good. >> it has always been i think the case that if you are going to try a case in the south, you had better get somebody from that town to try it with you.

and it was always the case that the northern firm would come in with two partners, three associates and for paralegals, and they would take up that half of the courtroom against this southern, down-home lawyer who's tire looks like it had yesterday supper on it. and a few buttons missing off of the shirt and maybe mismatched socks and the like, and he says well, i'm just going to try to do the best i can against the army that is sitting over there. and the jury got it all in that one statement. it is david against goliath was always the set up. and it was always fascinating. it always warmed our hearts and it always gave us this idea of

the underdog, the southern lawyer who was uncouth and very little sophistication, had to go up against the wall street lawyers. at the end of the day ended up with the verdict and they were always scratching their heads. how in the world that happened? and when you saw the jury, listening to the lawyers, they were always, when the southern lawyer was talking, would talk about experiences they both had. and you would get this nodding of the head. yes, that is exactly right. the northern lawyer would get up and say well this is a very complex case that involves all these different things, and the heads would go the other way, like i don't think so. but we have had a great -- this has been a great cultural experience i think in talking about the law and depicting

lawyers. and it is a great example i think that you raise when he do you do that about the differences to culture professionally in our country and how you can get the same legal education that have but have a whole different outlook. >> i grew up in the south and when i went into court with baldacci ahead to bring another southerner in there with me because he did not count and i got used to be called mr. baldwin over and over and again by the judge which was okay. >> i have two quick responses and i will try to make them quick. i think one of the reasons we are so fascinated by the southern lawyer is because it is a portal into talking about race. it is really just an incredible god-given device to talk about these huge, huge issues of attention -- the tension between law and mob values and what a community thinks about itself and what a community values and there is simply no better way to

do that than to map it onto a southern lawyer and sort of let it on school. i think that is one of the reasons both of these books are so good at talking about something that still, all these years later'sis, we can't talk about a week and write about it if we have a southern lawyer to life the way. the other thing and now i'm speaking as the jewish canadian on the panel in my vast experience living in charlottesville which is kind of the south. i think it is not just north-south. i think it is bigsby city, small town and i think this goes to something the robert is saying that is so fundamental, which is and i think it is one of the reasons the confession is such a powerful book. dig city lawyers are very different creatures than rural lawyers and this is a book about a bunch of people who all know each other. their kids play football together. they have known each other all their lives. they have repeated relationships

with each other over and over and over and you will see in the small towns, that is how the bar functions. it is a very different thing than how the bar functions in big cities where you may or may not ever see the person across the court from you ever again. so i think this is a really interesting and i think powerful way of talking about people who have relationships with each other. not just north-south. i think it has a lot more to do with communities where there are repeat players who have stereotypes about each other, who have long-standing trust issues and out issues but also friendships. i think that is really what i think lights up in this book is that these are people who both love each other and hate each other because they all live on top of each other. >> if you watch the watergate, you might remember a guy named richard nixon but probably sam irving would stand out in most peoples minds is the hero and that book.

once i had a case in lincoln and the lawyer of my cocounsel said they are not going to give youth a southern accent out here. i said let me try. and so we did the case, and i think one of the things that i picked up from other small-town courtroom lawyers who are my heroes that i have watched is that they are great story tellers and they will tell stories. those stories resonate all over the united states, not just in the south. this case was against the aryan nation and i have a brilliant jewish boss and partner richard cohen. said he really, he went to the best law school in columbia and all that stuff. he always says those words that i need to know and all the objections and all. but during the case the lawyer from the area nations, people who had eaten up innocent people

going by and try to take the compound it away from them in idaho. i got subjected to every time i tried to get evidence and i just kept on going until the judge gave up. ended up with a substantial verdict and the lawyer for the area nations walked out in front of courtroom in talks to the president press and said that richard cohen is a great lawyer. visas not know anything about law. all he does is tell stories. [laughter] i think the storytelling is a big -- and i can testify that it works all over the united states. you know, this matlock character is from somerville george and he is one of the greatest lawyers you will ever ever know. and just a quick notice i might. i think that first of all, there's a move to close the courthouse door and when i go to speak to the law students at

alabama, i get to indoctrinate a little bit. i've done this for many many years and i was tell them he will walk down the hall to the moot courtroom as that is probably going to be only courtroom you are going to get to see. when you get out of law school you are going to put on your best preparation. you are going to get everything ready and stand in front of the, you are going to make your opening statement and you are going to say, may it please the arbitrator? [laughter] unfortunately that is the case. that is really the case but i just think we have got to really fight to keep the courtroom door open and as the -- a special in civil court is to shut the courtroom door because corporate america does not trust the jury. and i gave a talk once, you don't need to go to law school to learn, but just watch the movies. i said well let's take -- what do you think of the movie "to kill a mockingbird." how many of you all learned to

going to courtroom and represent people's rights? all the hands go up. i said what he think about philadelphia? they said that is a great story appeared. i said well we have a trial on that today. when that lawyer signed up to that law firm he signed a binding arbitration agreement. i think it is important that these lawbooks emphasized that theme and keep the idea that we need to have a jury system. i get asked this all the time. do you know what the sixth amendment is? that is the right to a jury trial. what about the seventh amendment? some of you may know what it means. i'm sure you know what it means that it's the right to a jury trial in a civil case in a matter of $25 or more. that is just lost on most people here in washington d.c.. thank you. [laughter] >> among the many other things that are lost. we have a couple of minutes left. i would like to open up for

questions for the panel. does anybody have any questions? >> there are lawyers in this room and we have no questions? >> can we get a mic? >> when the talk about these two books "to kill a mockingbird" and the confession, i was just drawn between the perspective it coming from a little girl and her friend and looking at her father being the hero and all and then on the other side in the confession where you see procedure and practice and the football player being railroaded basically by giving his confession, the way the police were able to lie to him about these things. i'm just wondering, they have got to process, but in the larger legal issue, seems like due process is being taken away from us. due process for instance the

drones killing people overseas and american citizens without due process. i just wonder if we could talk a little bit about that? >> wow. that is a fundamental issue to the integrity i think of our justice system's due process. i don't know that -- we are in a very complex fights for civil society in this world. i don't know that you can make it all whittled down to due process, so i don't want to try to do that with the drones and the like, but, but let me take your point and expand on it just this much. i think you hit a nerve when you say we may be putting due process in jeopardy.

acus if you don't have that, then all of the other pillars in the structure of the justice system fault, and that is a critical element. it is a lynch pin, so you have hit it might even be the achilles' heel of the justice of them -- system. if he can't be assured that you are going to be treated fairly with the rules that we have set up and if they are followed carefully by police, by prosecutors, by judges, you get to where you should go. you may not like the outcome but you can say, i got a fair day in court. and that is important. if there is any way that anybody takes a shortcut to avoid a person getting that opportunity, then the system has failed. >> thane. >> well, that is the tricky thing about the constitution,

right? the question is you know who does it apply to? and there are people who are in this room and certainly in this district who would say that the drone campaign is outside the context of the constitution just like guantánamo bay is. that is the fundamental question that we have all been wrestling with for the last few years, which is you know, is that only limited to these very sort of insular domestic settings of two american citizens, the type of things have become legal thrillers or what happens in the wider world when you know, nations decide to avenge crimes committed against them? i think that is -- the reason we have the patriot act is because everything in it would be otherwise unconstitutional. i mean that is why it is called the patriot act, so that everyone feels like you have to be a patriot to support it and if you don't support it, what's wrong with you?

the warrantless surveillance act. these are things that would otherwise be unconstitutional, so we have taken steps or the government has taken steps to find a way around the constitution. the more complicated issue is when they start to tell you that it is constitutional, but it would be so much better for someone with was just very honest. this is really really unconstitutional and that is why we have the patriot act. and then it would be a much more on its common sense conversation and then people could say, yes of course the constitution doesn't work in areas of terrorism so we have these things that are called the patriot act. at least most of the country would at least have a conversation about what is really happening instead of the fiction that we always are comporting to a strict adherence to constitutional standard when we don't. we did it for the japanese in world war ii. we did it for people who had communist affiliations in the 1950s.

we don't do it for pedophiles today. there are certain people for whom the constitution doesn't apply and they are on a separate tack -- track for justice and the question is that justice and let's be honest about what we are doing. >> i think i would just add that your problem is compounded because it is not simply that we are losing our rights. we are losing access to due process except people don't know and don't care, and i think underlying your question is this very much harder question. one of the bad things about the supreme court reporter when you try to say oh my god i'm setting my hair on fire, they just change the pleading standards. have you read it ball? you get glassy eyed stares, people going on screen saver. that is a problem because you know, it is not just mandatory arbitration and it is not just statutes of limitations and it is not pleading standards. it is always incredibly boring

jargon ways in which americans are less and less free and they don't know it. and i guess you know, i would just say that one of the things that fiction can do is make americans know it and care about it. in ways that even i as a journalist feel like i am scraping to do largely unsuccessfully every day. so it seems to me the real challenge is to convince americans that it really really really matters to them that their cell phone contract precludes them from going into a courtroom and i don't think we are doing a very good job of that, you know just talking about those things. >> i am going to pass on all of those due process issues. i only went to two years of law school and i didn't take the bar exam. two years undergraduate and i was out of there. i am not much into that law stuff, but --

[laughter] i just want to say this as a parting shot more than anything, that fiction is great and "to kill a mockingbird" is great but the book that john wrote, the innocent man, is just as great and it is a real-life situation. i hope that this committee will consider books that are nonfiction too. who would not be moved by my life in court? so many books. those are the books that are rise rise to the level of confession or to kill a marking bird. >> we live in a rare fried atmosphere when we talk about united states supreme court and the supreme court said many states but for trial lawyers like me that have tried cases in different parts of the country i see the cords, the working cords where the working people go and where all people have to go to try to resolve their disputes confronted with overwhelming issues. most of them are economic. for lawyers it is very expensive to practice law.

technology has changed so dramatically and i don't have love books and common sense and some people he can talk to and investigators and things like that. today the cost of practicing law whether you are a big or small firm is an enormous one as are the versions that face our trial courts all over the country. i think one of the challenges for us as lawyers and for us to write about the law is to try to address the issues that are beginning to overwhelm the courts, which is why they go into arbitration and mediation takes years and years to bring a case to trial and the cost so much money that most people can afford it. businesses don't want to pay it. so the economic issues are pressing to the point where, in the states i have tried cases, major problem is people that have no lawyers. they call them pro-say. is just an enormous problem. people are not represented by lawyers because they can afford them and lawyers can afford to give their practice over to representing those people who maybe can afford them. it is an overall issue that i

think we as a society need to confront. our courts are wonderful and our system is the best in the world but the access to what is consistently getting more narrow because it is too expensive and because the judges are absolutely overwhelmed with the volume of litigation and the onset of gross a litigant is taking everything away from the legal system and turning courts into kind of a dispute resolved ayers that don't have the time or the resources for it. i think lawyers, lawyers as a profession and those who are otherwise involved and writing about lawyers or the court system need to try to give as much creative thought is possible to trying to make, trying to make the cords accessible to people, trying to give people access to the justice system, which really does function better than any other system in the world. >> does anyone want to comment on that? >> i want to echo two things. one is that when we look at how

we fund the institutions that preserve the way of life that we have, the democracy that we are, we think it is very special in our society. you don't do that by shortchanging the courts. and they are and should we the weakest branch of government because they should be nonpolitical. but to take advantage of, to put them at a disadvantage where only those who can afford it have access to it is not american and it is not the way this country ought to think about itself as preserving this democracy that we have. the second thing is, i think i'm disagreeing with you a little bit. i think we have made the system and accessible and we are at fault as lawyers and judges. i think there are things that are not that hard that people should be able to resolve without the courts and we have

to make that accessible to them in ways where mediation and other reforms of dispute resolution help people take the burden off the court. it is not that complex, and empower them to understand and learn about their problems and help solve them with the guidance of professionals as opposed to saying you have to put your entire life in the hands of a professional. so, we are an evolving society and i think we have got, we have got to help and make sure citizens not only have access to justice, but maintain the independence of our judiciary and our profession. as critical elements to a system that holds others accountable, because once you lose that, it is not going back. that is our job as guardians of the constitution and as trustees for justice. >> anyone else?

our panel time is over. i would like to thank the panel for participating today in thank you for coming here. [applause] john t. want rebuttal time? [laughter] >> i am worn out. >> i want to thank the panel as well. is a great discussion. i i shouldn't recognize renée grisham. thank you for being with us. i want to thank alabama law school staff, susan newman brook, rebecca walden. a wonderful event. thank you all for being with us. we are not going to have a wrist -- if you are exhausted now is the time for a glass of wine. we are adjourned. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> are watching 48 hours of

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