..

>> next, and a panel discussion hosted by the bar association in new york city, thane rosenbaum argues that revenge and justice and not be true least those of ideas and contends that our core system would better serve victims of crimes by acknowledging their feelings of vengeance and take that into account in the education of criminal cases. this is the adenauer and 20 minutes. >> welcome, as you come into the forum on law culture and society spring conversation. and this one is very different for us, and part because we are being hosted with the book many of the city bar association. of course, we have c-span. how cool is that. so you're all a part of this, and rare privilege or year. we have very interesting, a

distinguished group of special guests, and i will introduce the berkeley and then we will set up the theme for the 9mb in the conversation. starting off to my far right is one of america's best known criminal defense attorneys. his most recent success and one of the classic once, the celebrated benjamin brafman, the defense of dominique strauss-kahn. everyone please welcome benjamin brafman. [applause] and this woman to my right, very lovely, kathleen hogan domaingyy that look at, but she is thegqgy toughest prosecutor in new yorky state.gygygygygygygy she was actually just recentlygy selected as the best prosecutor in new york state. she is the district attorney for warren county up in lake george. it seems like a mile area, but they have crime. nobody messes with her. and so she is here to discuss this book. if you know anything about the themes of this book, the role of the prosecutor is a huge part of

what the vengeance story is about. and so let's welcome kathleen hogan. [applause] a man he generally needs no introduction when it comes to a legal affair, the hon. denny chin, who is now on the federal appeals bench for the second circuit. prior to that he was a federal district judge in the southern district of new york. also the first chinese-american appointed to the federal bench, both the trial court in the appellate court. for many of you, you may remember him as the sentencing judge in the case of bernard madoff and we will definitely be talking about that. ladies and gentlemen, the hon. denny chin. [applause] and last on our far left on my far left, good friend of ours here at the forum, an

internationally best-selling author and political scientists. you may remember what his first book was truly a national sensation, international sensation by hiller's willing executioners, ordinary germans and the holocaust kaj and then you follow that up with some are reckoning. then he followed that up with what is considered the definitive book on genocide, worse than war, which we have also made into a pbs documentary of the same name, worse than war. and his forthcoming book, a book about global anti-semitism that comes out in the fall. please welcome. [applause] now, we are a long table, as it looks. i am not actually seated, but i am in the middle. it is april still and only a few weeks with mr. it's sort of looks like a last supper of sorts. but i am in the middle.

i have long hair. i am a jew. i teach at edges of university. i think you know where we are going. i fully expect to be betrayed tonight, if not worse than that. these are for my friends, and this will be a very challenging discussion and a very provocative discussion. we are here today because of this book, this provocative title, "payback: the case for revenge". it has a blood red cover, jacket no less. it is written by come as far as i can tell, maniac, an absolute sociopath, and i think that when this is over we should find this thane rosenbaum subject and to true mob vengeance. but the book does have a number of provocative themes, and it tonight will really belong to

our guests to challenge those themes. it has already received a fair amount of attention on npr and the number of other outlets, bbc. and is partly because people feel that even the discussion of revenge is unseemly. it is barbaric. it is primitive. it -- you cannot actually have an honest conversation about revenge and the united states. immediately it harkens back to a primitive past. it is when the world. leighton and, before we became civilized. but the book's claim is that vengeance is a healthy motion. is biologically necessary, is coming in vashti's is also very much for the evolution of our species. and we are a people that are wired.

brain circuitry for retaliation, for fairness. we simply cannot tolerate injustice. we cannot in tolerate the wrongdoer getting away with murder. that is one of the delors of the revenge film. vengeance is supposed to be filled with shame and condemnation. no one ever walks out of a revenge from saying, this is disgusting. as of vengeance. people actually saw land and won't leave until justice is done. they won't go anywhere because they know that they're wrong must be righted. and this is something that has sustained the human species regeneration. biblical people understood this. the ancient greeks understood this. aristotle said, if you cannot get mad from receiving moral injury and requiring measure for measure a payback, then that is a sign of deficient moral character. there is something wrong with you if you actually experience

moral injury and if you just walk away as if it does not bother you. now, the legal system, we pay special attention to it in this book because vengeance really speaks to an emotional experience, the cut budget experience of getting even, of knowing that you have confronted the person who has a new arm and have judged him to say, i need to -- we have to settle the score. just deserts must happen. payback is due. and this is so essential that we forfeited is when we joined the world of the enlightenment and the social contract and we said that the government will take over the responsibility of prosecuting and punishing crimes and the question in this book is, well, is the government doing that? why are people walking around saying that we live in a world of injustice if, and facsimile this system is doing its job? why isn't it that the legal system gives us an oorty

to mike as victims and opportunity to simulate the revenge experience, to give them an emotional release of having the satisfaction, the true sense of vengeful satisfaction that i confronts you and i need to have my just desserts. there is a debt owed to the society, and they're is a debt that is the to the victim and that we only seem to be concerned about the debt that is up to society, and we drastically short changed the payment that is otherwise do. so that is the opening themes, and i will just off, and we are going to have a full conversation here, so you will see, the cameras would go back and forth. one caught in the book, which i think is perhaps all of the most controversial claims, justice and vengeance are actually identical, that they mean the same thing, we have been deluded, due to being told, we want justice, we don't want vengeance. we never want vengeance. the first chapter i talk about examples of where people say this, but it seems disingenuous.

it seems like they need both but only saying one. let me just -- to -- the quickest and the debt is one from right after september 11th when president george w. bush announced and addressed to the nation, possibly before the fbi, this is essentially before the shock and all that would eventually visit the iraqi in as guest -- afghanistan people. variation apercus and seeks justice and not vengeance in the country applauded as if that is us, that is the way america rolls. we are not vengeful, and then we bomb the hell of another country . it seems vengeful. not seem -- maybe it was the same. maybe the justice was vengeance. just last week president obama in the immediate aftermath of the boston marathon bombing announced? he said monday locate these people, nothing favorable to say about these people. he said, they will eventually feel the full weight of our

justice. and when the first bomber was killed, there was dancing in jubilation in the streets of boston. today, we are still deciding what kind of justice he received , there is some sense that what will be just will also feel vengeful, will experience the emotional satisfaction of getting even and do justice at the same time. let's start out by saying, what about this idea that justice and vengeance are essentially the same, but we spend so much time with verbal gymnastics, historiography trying to say we are not vengeful, it's only about justice. anyone want to start? >> i will start. >> okay. i thought you would. >> as the only other volunteered you on the panel, i think you are as always brilliant in your riding and it is one of my favorite authors. if you have not read second-hand smoke go out and buy it today and read it.

it is brilliant, and this book is brilliant. is an academic, intellectual exercise that is challenging but not practical. justice and vengeance are not the same. vengeance means a lot of different things to different people, and justice is supposed to be administered fairly, and partially, and uniquely set to the circumstances of the case, and i just want to make one observation. vengeance is not always going and killing the person who comes to family. i recently appeared at a holocaust remembrance day ceremony where one of the survivors said her vengeance was, she has great grandchildren who are being raised as proud shoes in the state of israel is an independent, strong nation. so, to her, vengeance against the nazis was surviving and showing that they did not kill everyone. so vengeance in your book is, you kill my child, i should be

able to kill your child. >> no, actually, that is not true. vengeance is also a form of restorative justice demand in the case of that holocaust survivor, if that is what made her feel even, who is it for me to say that is not her sense of the venice. may not satisfy the state because the state may want to have its own beauty are burdens to achieve, but i don't have a problem with even apologetic this course if, in fact, the victim feels avenged. >> but the victim, being the central controlling figure in the criminal-justice system is the worst person as a practical matter because they are so emotionally wrapped up in what happened to them that there are times when what they are insisting on is just not appropriate in a civilized society. as a criminal defense lawyer who was a prosecutor, i have done this for 37 years. victims have a part to play. they get a part to play, but you cannot let someone whose family member was just hurt decide how

and when the case should be resolved. they can participate to some degree, but the decisions have to be made by jurors and by judges and by district attorneys. >> expedia district attorneys, what do you have to say about that? >> i think we are making a mistake picking at their current model -- they come in all shapes and sizes and have all thegs reactions to being the victim of crime. for instance, i am speaking to a child victim of sexual assaultgq and sexual abuse, the child isgw wants to stop. that child has no sense ofgqgy revenge or anger.gqgs they just wanted to stop.gy and the parent of that childgs feels remorse.gs how did i not see what was goinw on?gy how did i not protect them?gs so which is much moregs internalized and they are muchgs more hurt.gsgy they're not at the level of wanting to a tear them limb fros limb and put them in state prison forever.gs they're more concerned principally about their child.gq i think to bins point on thegw

difference between -- you weregs talking a lot in the book about the word revenge, and revengegw implies irrational anger. and everyone was very careful that you cited to talk about justice. i think the reason for that is what been stated.gg we are all going to be part ofgs the system. do any of us want to be the victim of events? seven not. if it implies well we all seem to think it does, which is irrational anger.gy but if it is a rational system,y has been described, where there are rules and regulations,gy newton's third law of physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.gs we will get our just desserts in a logical, rational system. ♪ -- >> okay. >> i want to agree with professor rosenbaum. i disagree with much of what he says, but he is always provocative and gets you to think. and i think that there is a whirl for vengeance, for revenge and a vengeance in the justice

system, although we may call it something more polite. we call it retribution. there is a difference between revenge and vengeance and retribution, but they are similar in many ways, and i think they serve similar functions. fain writes in his but that the law lacks passion. the law lacks a motion, justice is neutered. and i disagree with that. any trial lawyer will tell you that trials are great promise filled with emotion and are very much has a role for promotion in the law. you cannot decide what the law is based upon feelings or emotions. you have to look at the cases and the statutes to decide whato the law is, but there certainly is an area of the law where it is important for a motion to come into play and sentencing is certainly one of them. and i don'think, by the way,

that victims are relegated to the back row of the court room. it is true that they cannot be equal partners with the prosecutors, but i think prosecutors give them great deference. they want their input on the federal side. we have the crime victims' protection act. the victims have a right to speak, not just at sentencing, but that other parts of the case in the madoff case a number of victims wanted to speak at the guilty plea. some of them objected to my accepting the guilty plea because they wanted everything aired out, and that is something that you hear victims say from time to time, but they are given an opportunity to appear. they're given notice, and, you know, i think that the judges, the courts, the prosecutors take very seriously what they have to say it. >> thank you. >> from his own presentation and

from the things being said here, you might think that there is a rather vengeful maniac here, rather in during know he is, presenting a book that is filled with fire and brimstone and not very reasoned and nuanced. in fact may is extremely reason the nuanced. and he could have dispensed. you may not agree with me here, but he could have dispensed with the word revenge or the word of vengeance or vans and so on and made a plea for a victim- centered justice system. and that is really what the book is. it is a plea for the victim center justice system, bringing the victim is in -- and in giving him or her a full second of the controlling interest, not necessarily an equal interest or an equal say with the judge and others in the system, but a full say in the system, and he works through the various reasons why this is a more appropriate way to think about the justice

system and all that is lost by not doing it and, in fact, the book is so reasonable, it is only in the last three pages where you might think he is arguing for something a outside the bounds of the law, but the book is so reasonable that when you read or at least when i read it is seems to me to be such a powerful challenge to the way that the system as currently constructed, which is not victims entered, which victims often feel cheated or not satisfied or that justice is not done. i would think that people working within the system should feel themselves very much on the defensive and that they are the ones in need to respond and justify what they do and not -- and the thing is not the person who needs to be in the hot seat. >> if i make. >> can i just -- i want to respond to something that you said before. you will be the perfect person to respond. you said, and i love when he said this. you said, irrational motion. right. but you know, for the natural

history of our species that is exactly not true. revenge was the most rational of all responses. you know, we did not have card rooms for the natural history of our species. tribes, families to mike case handled themselves in, and they did it with incredible exactitude an incredible measure for measure. the law of italian, eye for an eye, let's tell the honest. recede in deuteronomy. this is not a call for irrational blood testing is on the contrary. this was a plea, call for fairness and exactitude. let's get it right. you are not entitled to more than an eye, and you're also not entitled to less than nine. and that was an incredibly deliberate, rational enterprise, not -- i know that we may say it implies crazy people running amok with machetes and but on the contrary, tribes, families, individuals knew, if i go beyond

even, if i sell the debt on fairly, if i pay back to much there will be recycled vengeance and it will start a blood feud. and then we won't be able to resolve this. so for the natural history of our s be resolved it completely being rational because what would be irrational would be to take too much. think that currently w irrational or only promotional and motivated, and people really want to be cautious about saying that a relationship to the application of the law because, as the judge said, we want a lot to have reason. we want to follow along, but there is that passion that is important, and i -- we were speaking before hand. i think it is important for everyone to know what really happens in a criminal case because i don't know whether concept that victims are not included has come from. and in every prosecutor's office, we do not have a case if

testified. they are critically important to us. we call them, and we interviewed them before grand juries. we get all the information that we can from them, and we stay in contact throughout the case to tell them what the next that is, to tell the house is going, to tell them what the judge's rulings are, and to get their input on what they want to have happen. now, sometimes in that domestic violence arena you can have someone who is hardly victimized who once the maximum in the beginning of the case and changes their mind throughout the case. so we take that into consideration command our plea offers are controlled by them, we certainly incorporate what they say in the way we handle the case. >> my response to that, and i am not a prosecutor. wonder whether it is more possible to engage in the kind of victim centered prosecution in your county.

for instance, a longtime assistant district attorney, senior assistant district attorney would say that is is that the kind of thing that we can do in a much larger setting. because most victims do not report that they feel that they are participating in the process. most victim groups feel the exact opposite, marginalized, trivialized. and she is right when she says victims are brought in to testify, but it is sort of a creepy lake. i mean, the case is called people versus jones. new york versus jones. you know, commonwealth versus jones. jones is a bad guy. you should know this. it is never victim verses jones. the victim is merely a witness on behalf of the state because the crimes committed against the state. the victim to is the best evidence of that crime. that is hardly in powering. if anything, that is marginalizing. that is selling them, you are

here to play a role for us. you're not here to represent you now, kate may feel differently if she may practice differently, but most prosecutors do not feel that they are representing the victim. they're representing the people of their state. >> can i make an observation? as i was reading this book, it was sort of like amusing to me because -- when i read with my citizen, father, grandfather, a private person had on, i said, this is cruel. you know, this is our should be, like the wild west. you do something to someone i love and i got there and shoot you. and many years ago, but many years ago i represented when i was trying to learn how to be a cross examiner, the only place that you could do that was in this massive organized crime trials that the native the time comes six months trials were you cross-examine 200 people, and i was representing someone who was caught by is on a mission to be in by the acquisition of the government, a professional killer. and he was very eloquent and very elegant and very

professional. and he was a very interesting man, and remember one day he was telling me an anecdote about someone who he had not killed, but been severely. and the man had done something that warranted a severe beating. i will spare you the details, but he looked at me and said, some people just deserve a beating. and i remember thinking to myself, he's right. and then i said, but the difference between he and night is i am civilized. i am a law-abiding citizen. i use the system when i need to. i work in the system, and when i read the book i admired the scholarship and the brilliance, as i always do and everything and i have read that he has ever written. i have read everything you have ever written, but as a citizen i like to commend it was interesting demand outlook discuss it. as a criminal justice expert, if

i 37 years doing this every day of federal, state , prosecutors, defense lawyer, it is just impractical. just as not work. and we are getting better on both the state and federal level in involving victims in the process. and i started out, you never even spoke to a victim. now there are statutes. there are rules. abcatwenty cases in the last five years alone with a plea offer i was trying to get required the victim of proving it before the district attorney of the united states attorney would engage in those discussions and in many cases when i came into court for sentencing i was never afraid of what the government prosecutor would say. i was petrified of what the victims would say when they stood up, and i have had sentences' enhanced on the moment because of the drama of a victim impact statement that caused the judge does, very frankly, i was going to do this, but when i now realize how many people here claim desert, have

to increase the punishment because i think that is appropriate. that is what the judgment by retribution. retribution is, you factor in the damage that was done into the equation. you cannot let it control the outcome, but easily factored into the equation. >> this is a great thing. sentencing is a really complicated, difficult process. it is the hardest thing that judges do. a lot gets factored in, and if you are simply to let revenged control everything, it would not work. >> but let's do a case, one that everyone knows about. let's talk about bernie madoff. and i will tell you, all the people on this evening's conversation, judge denny chin is the only one in the buck. figures in the book quite prominently. i talk about the broad madoff case because i was fascinated. i got a front row seat, by the way. it was pretty cool. i wrote about it and get to see

the whole process unfold. and the lawyer representing bernard madoff made the following comment that all the newspapers picked up after sentencing. this is a 73 year-old man. seventy-one at the time. and sentenced him to 150 years. you do the math. and his attorney said, well, you know, this is ridiculous. this is capitulating to mob violence. mob vengeance. and judge shane responded. he said, on the contrary. he said, this is a perfect example of justice, not vengeance because the victim came to the court room and they relied on us. it did not seek vengeance. but the reason the defense attorneys said it was vengeful is because the i cannot stay in jail until -- he is not going to live 230 years. obviously there was a components

to this sentence that was it -- punitive in nature and eventual in nature. he listened to the police of the victims. you went beyond what the prosecution had even suggested. you went beyond that, and it made people feel good. so why not just say, again, this is justice and a vengeance. >> the prosecution did ask for 150 years. the probation department had recommended a sentence of 50 years. the defense counsel in the madoff case address some of the issues that we talk about today. specifically said that there is a desire now for mob vengeance. specifically said, we do not seek an eye for an eye in the justice system. he said vengeance is not the goal of punishment. and certainly those words carry weight. but i think -- i did incorporated vengeance, but,

again, calling it something else. >> why call it something else? >> well, trying to be more polite. i don't know. but -- >> okay. >> it is now in a court of appeals. now even more polite. but i think at least a couple of the concepts that are covered in your book, making victims feel better. i explicitly said that. that is not one of the traditional goals of justice, but it is the ability -- you know, you are reflecting their moral outrage and helping them vented, to some extent, by doing that. the other concept is the punishment and proportion to blame worthiness, the just desserts concept, i specifically had that in mind. in fact, that morning as an ten and turn out to go look up retribution. my turn came back with some case lot about just desserts, and that was part of what i wanted to do, and i thought dominating

less than 150 years will show some mercy. that was not the message that i wanted to send. i wanted to to punish. >> when i hear this, i think, okay. you had a court go off and inform you -- clerk often inform me about retribution. hear this and say just desserts in that case is exactly what an eye for an eye is. you said, i cannot -- i have to give you -- have to somehow approximate the damage they caused. you did not kill people. you destroy their financial lives. but that is why i said a few minutes ago, did not really disagree with you. i think the concept is there. the purposes behind it all there, but there are differences between revenge and retribution. revenge, you are letting an individual inflict punishment. the individual retaliates, motivated by anger, by his own personal standards of morality,

laura's with retribution it is the state, the government doing the punishment, and with -- in accordance with standards that congress or the sentencing commission has established. so it is in some ways a form of revenge, but it is a measured, logical form. >> can i say something? and i don't want to lose my criminal defense lawyer stripes on c-span. i am going to say something. >> skip this then. >> inconsistent with my normal position, but you know, i have enormous respect. i have appeared before him many times, and every sentence he has ever imposed, whether i agree or disagree, was well reasoned and backed specific. he did his job and he continues to do his job. in the case of bernard madoff, many people in my colleagues in the criminal defense bar think good lawyers, seasoned veterans,

we talked about it, and there is an element in that sentence as well, your honor, that was a statement, a public statement, and it was a statement not for general deterrence because i think that if he got 50 years no one will do a crime that would get them 50 years. the case was unique in its magnitude and the desperate state it left hundreds and hundreds of people in, charitable institutions, number of very prominent people lost everything. you know, it really kill a lot of people, including his own son who took his life as a result of the shame. and i think what the court did in that case, it did not matter whether was 50 or 150-2015. matter to the world. and i think what the statement, it is not that we have revanche year, but what we have is a horrific crime, and the court is going to give you the maximum sentence that i can under our law for the following reasons,

and that big that speaks well of the civilized society. the right defendant, the right set of facts, and the sentence is imposed for the right reasons. none of the victims in that case got their money back because bernard madoff got 150 years. all they wanted was their money back in for him to be punished. life in prison is a pretty serious punishment for non capital offense. >> but, again, i here you're saying, okay. the sentencing was a public outrage to. i think -- is so interesting to listen. it seems that still we back away from calling in revenge. we just so object to using the language. i here public of rage and say, yes, the sentence is legally correct and also morally correct. >> people wanted him killed. there are people who threaten his lawyer's life for representing him. that would be revenge. people wanted to kill in.

>> let's just be clear. the c-span audience and most of the people sitting here, our guests are talking about as if revenge means individuals get to take justice into their own hands. the book never says that. the book never says that. i never -- i never encourage until it -- vigilante behavior. what i say is the legal system has to do a better job of not shortchanging yes on measure for measure justice. and we will talk about that as second. 96 percent of all cases are plea bargain, criminal cases are plea bargained. that means all -- the vast majority of criminals are being under punished and actually receiving less than they deserve in the words of the judge, less than just desserts. and if individuals are forfeiting that right to a self-help, wish they had another generation's, and if they're paying their tax dollars in good conscience to say you function, you, legal system with programs and judges and prosecutors, you

serve as our surrogate proxy avengers, then the legal system needs to do it, and if it doesn't, then what danny said, there are things that i see in the last several pages that would give prosecutors a heart attack. but up until that point, i am saying, no, vigilante justice is not what i am proposing. i am simply saying that we don't need to run away from vengeance. we don't have to treat it as simple because it really in many ways is identical -- identifying i thought, you know what, he is saying both. it is very difficult to say one and not the other. he wants to appear -- i am a judge, and so therefore justice is what i provide, not vengeance. >> but when he said polite, i think the real issue is proportionality. is the fact that the revenge is not -- it is -- and you have indicated that. saying that it would be proportional. >> vengeance is not justified if it is disproportionate.

>> to make that decision of what is proportional? >> the judge estimates that. >> i never said judges should. i say that they should. they should do a better job of it. >> so if you are saying that there should be more proportional punishment, then i am with you. i am with you completely. let me give you an example of where we do falls short of the mark and it is a statutory problem. right now in new york law, if you are a driver and you run into a car pull up five teenagers, the maximum that you can get on that politicking has five young lives is five to 15 years in state prison. if you possess child pornography , the maximum that you can get on a count of child pornography in new york state is one and 1/3 to four. those are statutory limitations, in my mind they are not proportional to the conduct, so i completely concur with you that there is a wide swath of people who walk into the court and say, areou kidding me?

five lives extinguished and the most that he can get is five to 15. why? and we are advocating to make changes, but there are statutory limitations that are not proportionate. >> and the most famous case in the united states about what happened in the aftermath of that was the case of emily netflix, number of years ago. it is in the book. but a woman whose son was sexually abused, and she did not realize until the opening arguments that the abuser had already been in prison for sexual molestation, but he had been let out of prison because a psychiatrist team to to be fit. then he went back up on the street and went back to work with her son and some other person. she came into the courtroom the next day and took out a gun and shot him five times until then. and then she was immediately indicted for first-degree capital murder in the immediately there were some

spaghett money. oprah was raising money. everyone was raising money for defense. she is not really a murderer. she just simply could not live that could not trust the legal system to do the very thing the you said. and she wound up -- she actually was sentenced to 20 years in prison. she with grace and humility said , i did what i did and this is what have to do. this is what i did, and double the prison for. >> that is not a good story. >> a just result. as a just result in the sense that she was found guilty, but her reasons for committing the crime were factored into a sentence and she received a sentence of of the 20 years for taking the life. >> that itos because while the book does not encouraged vigilante is in, that is exactly what happened in that case. she was not satisfied with the system. she took the launch around san -- on hands and then that the present. how does that help any of us? think will was just discussed is interesting because in the state

system child pornography can be one 1/3 to four and in a federal system child pornography, depending on the number of images, depending on the edge of the children, john mandatory minimum ten year prison sentence and maybe a 15 year prison sentence. >> or life. >> coming up to life. so i think what we need to understand is that each of us here worked in the system could come up with horror stories and cases that are the exception and not the rule, but on balance, on balance i think this system works. does not work perfectly because it is run and operated by human beings, not machines, but on balance it works. prosecutors throughout the country have between 85 and 90 percent conviction rate. the people who are committing crimes, despite my best efforts, they are basically getting convicted when the evidence is there to support a conviction, so i think the system worked pretty well. >> are not a lot of people getting away with murder. >> let's go to up danny and we will come back.

>> it sounds to me like there are different underlying conceptions of justice at work here, and soak it would be interesting to talk about, particularly thing for you to talk about your underlying perception of justice because the word revenge throws people off. this is the kind of notions and responses that you have here. and you have a much less -- much less vengeful in the conventional sense of that notion of what it means. so what does a just system, what does justice look like in the legal system? the second question then is, whenever any of us think it looks like, what other practical, what are the best practical ways to get to that result? and there are also differences. and i found it interesting earlier the you seem to say both that what david is proposing is impractical, bringing victims into the system, and that we're already doing a good job of it. >> what i think is impractical

as allowing victims to control the outcome of the system. we are trying our best to involve them, but involving them is different than allowing them to control because if you can allow them to control, you don't need a prosecutor or judge. you don't need me. let the market out. >> but it does not say that. anyway -- >> well, just briefly and then i want to move on, but just briefly, my conception of justice is one that is ultimately fair. people deserve to be paid back what they are owed. that is the whole notion of proportionality. there is a measure for measure a sadness and fairness but i also think that the dignity of the victims is also, the reid the mitigation of the victims as part of the ferris process. that before the law the victims should be central, should be primary. and instead we have a system that is very trivializing a

victims. very patronizing. i know kate probably is offended by that, but it is patronizing. come in and testify for us. victims are the only party in a criminal case not represented by their own counsel. >> they are. they're represented by me. i represent the people of the state of the york, and that is, in an adversarial relationship command a victim is to i'm advocating for on behalf of all of us. so there is -- they are represented in the courtroom, and their voices heard. the amount of resources that we want to get to these victim's right away to try to make them all, to help them psychologically, financially, we start right from the beginning. this is a pamphlet for my county, and this is the state crime victims board pamphlet. and it is not that they are being demeaned. in the least. just the opposite. priceline other so many victims' groups, gay, white victims groups, and there are so many out there, and there will be

watching c-span, they're going to say, oh, c'mon. that is just not my experience. it is not my experience. by volume. share resources and volume. men and district attorney's office processes over 100,000 cases per year, maybe more than that. that was in my day as an assistant district attorney. 100,000 cases, an assistant to the district attorney who is handling sometimes 50, 60 ( alive cases. a limited amount of time and effort, and when you say that you want a criminal justice system that is proportional and fair, eight days. what a plea-bargain is at the end of the day in most cases is a recent judgment of what a proportional sentence should be for that person who committed that crime under those circumstances. you cannot have a flat rule that applies to everybody because every case is different. and when you look at the people who do this work, it is not just , okay. we will give you two years. there is generally a reason, and

if the maximum sentences five years and a person gets to, the victim in that case and the weather they are involved in the process are not, ultimately they will get the same result. the person will go to jail for hurting them. and if they go to jail for hurting them without having to testify at a trial, without having to go through the uncertainty of a trial, and there is 70 in the proceedings are over, there are many victims. there are many victims who would prefer that, the victims' groups who are out there who tell you differently, and that you cite, they are in jurisdictions in my judgment that have massive criminal justice systems where many times -- kate is lucky. she is a reasonably small community where you can do this. in manhattan, brooklyn, our city, the bronx, it is almost impossible. >> i should point out also that in the federal system when it comes to plea-bargain, the parties did not come up with a sense -- the sentencing decision

is still left up to the judge. all that the government and the defendant can agree on other charges to which the defendant will plead guilty. in most cases. there is a limited exception. seventy and there is sentencing and advocacy. a judge is not bound by the plea agreement. >> you know, and a booklet of the interesting anecdotes is the case of a rock, which you know is neither a friend of america nor a model of human rights. but their legal system is interesting because they -- the victim actually sits with the judge. and when the case is over and a punishment is to be administered the judge will routinely turn to the victim and say, well, would you like? "would you like me do? here are my parameters. what do you think. now been would say, and he is right, there may be an overly emotional person who will offer something up and the judge will listen and say, not doing that, and i can't do that now won't do that. tell you what i will do. so the victim has a full level

of participation. you know, the norwegian killer of the 77 children that number of years ago, to me that was a model of what i am talking about. seventy-seven kids, 77 lawyers representing each of the kids paid for by the state cannot just the prosecutor. seventy-seven autopsy reports for each of the kids. seventy-seven opportunities for those private attorneys to address the jury, to address the judge. a true opportunity to put those victims on center stage. photographs and projected images of the children during the guilty phase of the trial, not just sentencing. another would seem like a nightmare to three of you at least, but -- >> i don't think a defendant can get a fair trial if the victim were sitting next to me at the bench. but with the jury think? >> well, i am just saying, just to give you a sense. >> that same sentence in the

case of the 77 murders that they would have gone of the system works the way our system works. >> but you don't see the difference? why you keep -- you don't see the difference between the mere fact that they get the same outcome. you don't see the difference of getting 77 people an opportunity to confront in a direct way of lives that were taken because of this relaxed? >> and i think it is emotionally helpful for them to have that moment to read your book points out that many victims, even after they have that moment still feel helpless and don't feel as if they have been avenged. i am not certain it works, but that is a terrorist case. that is an individual case. you cannot do that on a mass scale. and, to be honest with you, you know, talking about a woman having the right to sit next to the judge, i said, i take our criminal-justice system over that criminal-justice system, despite its flaws because chances of a woman is probably

the niece of the judge in that country. and when i mean sitting. >> i'm sorry. the guy said that wrong. i meant when actually comes to the sentencing, there is a consultation in which, tell me what will make you feel avenged. tommy what you think is measure for measure. there is -- i talked about in the book. >> what does that mean? an eyesore and i, for life, what if it is a rate case? what is appropriate? >> rape cases are fascinating. >> rate is interesting because we have had this trouble even from the book of genesis, from literally the very first book of the bible, the rate of vojvodina no one to spend time talking about it, but is played out in the opening scene of the godfather, which is just fascinating. the godfather, you know, there is that opening scene where bottom sarah, the undertaker comes to him on the date of his father's -- of his daughter's wedding. in any gets decillion cannot refuse a favor of such today

commander tells the story about how his daughter went out on a date with two guys. they beat her up, try to take the advantage of her, so they beat her up. the police captured the two guys and they were given a suspended sentence. and he then says famously, i turn to my wife at that moment and said, if you want justice in america one must go to the godfather which, by the way, is the worst indictment of the legal system ever. america's finest movie. >> that what he says. >> and then he says, then there is this line. so the fis system as a tommy what you want to do. he is so embarrassed. whispers. it wanted to kill the boys. the dow father says, this i cannot do because your daughter is alive. and so this question is always there. by the way, i am not so s aife of a rapist is not the appropriate measure for measure punishment. i don't know, but what i do know is this. i do know that when you say some rapists go to jail.

if they're going to jail not for rape of reckless endangerment and there were supposed to go to jail for 15 years but instead of the jeff five, no victim is happy with that.icm is happy,utt may well be the appropriate verdict in that case for reasons that are unknown to us because every case is fact specific. >> and there is the presumption of innocence, and we have to prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. so as he is saying, the victim may not be happy with the outcome, but if you can ensure a conviction by plea-bargain with a lower number, then you have at least taken a predator out of the community and incapacitated them for a time. >> the you have not necessarily punished them commensurate with what the victim would do. it is interesting when using a presumption of innocence. this is another area of what the 40 to discuss. as part of a problem that our system is accused sensitive. the constitution there, especially the fourth and fifth,

and six amendments are designed to protect the accused. remember, this is one of the things i speak in my class is about, and 80's in payback. here is something that people generally don't think about. we offer presumption of innocence for all people who are accused of a crime. now, we don't actually follow what is logical. if the accused is presumed innocent then the complaining witness is present -- presents to be lying. one of those -- one presumption must be cancelled out by another. we presume that the complaining party, the victim, is action . and i am wondering whether anyone -- >> i don't think that is true. start of presuming that the victim is lying. you start off not presuming that just because he is sitting there has been arrested and been charged that he has done something wrong. >> that is a presumption that we make in this country. >> but if repairs in the victim

was lying there would be the defendant sitting in the courtroom because they have been arrested because somebody believe the victim. have been indicted because the grand jury believe the victim here. >> and then when we commence the try we say you are presumed innocent and that therefore the reason that you are here presumptively means that you are here under some false reason. >> un no one else in this room would like to live in the system where the accused to prove that there were innocents because that is impossible. >> i'm just wondering the month three of the lawyers here, no one thinks -- it is interesting the u.s. saying this because your the one defense attorney here. i would have thought you would say the system is really rigged against my client. >> the system is. this is not rate. rig is a bad word. want to be careful. and i am generally careful. red means something wrong. >> not rate. but stacked against the accused. the know why? because my adversaries of person. it is a state of new york of the

united states of awe we have thf innocence, most people come into a courtroom as prospective jurors but the person sitting there and don't think that they were picked up the yellow pages for the distinction of being named a defendant in a criminal trial. most people talk about the presumption of innocence. i have to tell you, once the person is in the realm of the courtroom, it is very hard to convince a jury that the person is not guilty. you work really hard in cases to try and accomplish that. i don't think that the system is necessarily fair because the police are on the other side. the fbi, with extraordinary resources, and then you are standing there, and there's nothing more frightening and to suddenly have the united states of america against john doe. and the whole country is against you. and what if you are really not guilty? we just had a man in solitary confinement for seven days accused of sending ricin to the u.s. state senator in the president of the united states. seven days later that throughout the charges and released them. do you know why?

because his defense lawyer, god bless her, for seven days believed him and ran around the country trying to prove that this is a terrible mistake. it is good that that happens on occasion. if you are presumed guilty they would just hang him for what he did or allegedly did. >> judge, the system, too harsh in the sense that it provides protections for the accused and therefore the victim feels left out of the process? >> i don't think that it is correct to look at it as providing protections for the accused. i really do think it is providing protection for everyone. that is the duty of our system. mistakes do happen, but as i was saying earlier, it works, most of the time. i think these are dramatic cases that you have discussed in your book, and they are awful mistakes that have been made, but for the most part it works pretty well. >> i was thinking when i was listening, the eighth amendment, which she now prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, or other

things as a in the book is everyone knows what that means. you cannot torture someone. you cannot in fact cruel and unusual punishment. no one ever says, did the conduct of the wrong york, was his actions or her actions against the accused in any way cruel and unusual? we ask that same question in the same way. we protect, obviously it becomes part of the case. the prosecution itself. >> we do on sentencing. at sentencing much is made of how much the defendant made the victim suffered. >> absolutely. how heinous the act was, the impact and the cruelty. >> that is the sentence that ben referenced where we get the judge so convinced of the wrongness of the defendant's conduct that the sentence is higher than what the judge initially anticipated. >> do you have anything to add? have a question for you. >> so, let's go beyond -- sorry. in american courtroom and let the world. you know, you are a political scientist. have written books about the holocaust and genocide,

definitive books about both. what is -- what does revenge look like among nations? nations are permitted under international law to retaliate, reprisal. no, i mean, i find this, again, the same levels of confusion. after the holocaust we have the nuremberg trials. winston churchill and henry morgan of said, why we have a trial? what a waste of time. what a waste of everything. why not just the and not see and cannot see. that would be the most efficient and morally correct thing to do. the united states and russia, by the way, an international tribunal, and we will judge the nazis that way. on the streets of paris simultaneously collaborators are being strangled in the street. nobody said, oh, my god. how come we don't have a trial? both ideas seemed like they were justice. also revenge. what most of the nazi war

criminals who were prosecuted in nuremberg ended up dying or spending their lives in jail. they essentially were punished, but we conducted the trial. but in the same regard of the same way that we treated, you know, say a terrorist. could have easily been -- i talked about this. get easily been kidnapped and brought back to the united states to stand trial. shot in the head and everyone said that is justice, but isn't it also revenge? does injustice look like or trust? why is "payback" sitting in guantanamo bay and he still has not had his military commission included. and then you have os be shot in the head. they both seem bins full. please turn that off. >> i will put it in a provocative way. the dirty secret of the discussion we're having of the justice system here is highlighted in international

relations that much more witches, when a crime is committed, whether it is against an individual or one country against a group or against another country, there is no way to make it right unless, of course, someone steals $5 you can give that back. there's just no way to make it right. we are all in the business or game or rita of trying our best to do the best that we can't figure out how to make it as right as one can while acknowledging, at least or cells that is never going to be right. and you have a lot of trade-offs and a lot of things to consider. i am really quite surprised by my colleagues. they speak about the system as if it is imperfect and everyone knows that, but it is pretty good and we do a great job of walking that tight rope with the wind blowing and the seas coming up underneath us, and we don't fall off and we sort of end up at the right point despite all of this. ..

have taken a variety of paths forward to try to do their best to negotiate this impossible task of making things right. sometimes they put them on trial in a very formal western procedurally oriented system. sometimes they have mission such as in south africa where people with these -- get the perpetrators to speak the truth about what they did and if they

get the satisfaction of having their story be told publicly. in rawanda's they had a process hundreds of thousands of perpetrators would virtually no legal system resort to a form of long-standing form of tribal justice where the village essentially served as prosecutor, judge and jury of the people in the village who have committed the harm and that includes the victims being part of it. there are a variety of ways that are all imperfect and woefully imperfect when you talk about transgressions on a fast scale but i submit that only brings to light the many imperfections that are less wearing perhaps, less grand in scope when you look at what goes on in our legal system in this country. >> can i say something in response to what thane said a moment ago? as someone who has grown up in

the home of survivors and grandparents who were murdered in auschwitz, i was very happy that they had a trial. i won of the world to see what had happened. i didn't want to go out in the street and start shooting not cease even though i would have felt good if i had a chance to do it. i wanted the world to see what they did. the trial of bachmann everyone wanted to kill him but the fact that there was a trial in the representative group of victims that have the right to confront him and he was ultimately found guilty and hanged, was it done in a justifiable way through a legal system that worked? yes, if you go out and shoot someone who tried to herd a member of your family, but then what he accomplished if you accomplished and what are you saying to your children and their children? we are all going to become vigilantes because that is what it is. so, are you saying that what we did with osama bin laden was

wrong? that we should not have shot him in the head and than he should have been brought back to serve trial just like eichmann? >> i will tell you one premise that you cannot dismiss. we have no idea what happened in that room. you have the navy s.e.a.l. who had three seconds in a dark room with enemy territory making a decision when he was wreaking -- reaching for weapon and a weapon and someone shoots him in the head i'm not going to second-guess that guy because i didn't have the guts to put on the armor and go in that room and try and kill him. that's a different case. if obama osama bin laden had been captured on the street and brought to united states it would have been a big colossal horrific spectacle that would have just glorified him. that is what should have happened. >> the israelis have the same experience with eichmann. they would have had the exact same experience and put them on trial. >> they grabbed him. they kidnapped him and brought him back. they were going into a dark room

and they didn't know what they were going to expect. they weren't arms. the agents who went there to kidnap him brought him back and put him on trial specifically so holocaust survivors could have a day their day in court, to have their moment. >> and 9/11 the had their day in court with osama bin laden. >> the person who put the bullet in osama bin laden's head had one minute to react. >> i understand the order from the very beginning. >> i've read so much about that i tell you, if the order was just to go in and kill him, okay but under the circumstances in which he was killed based on everything i've read and everything that has been written i'm not certain the kids who were in that room who had to decide whether or not he was going to kill them or he had to kill him. >> lets take questions from the audience.

can we get a microphone? do you want them to come up front? they will fall in behind you i'm quite sure. >> by the way i have to take issue with one other thing that you said which is the book said -- [inaudible] >> i have read that but it's good. it's not quite as good. >> we will have to have this out afterwards. >> thank you guys. yes sir, your question. >> civil litigation in new york city is a method by which i seek proportional justice with people who have been victimized and i represent the victims directly so i hear-somethings about the criminal justice system that are very different and some that are very similar in concept. but i am uncomfortable with the

idea that if you go to a shoot them up movie and the hero shoots up the bad guys, i have always felt disgusted by that and i think part of the reason came out with regard to the discussion of the revenge in the case of genocide. i read the hatfields versus the mccoy's section and in huckleberry finn i cringe. there is no closure like in the movies in real life and i think our claim told it better than the movies do. so my question is, can we learn something by the truth commission or the forgiveness processes or the village reconciliations, or even the christian model of simply forgiving people, and bring that into the criminal justice system. i'm not sure there's any hope for bringing any of those principles into the criminal justice system.

>> anyone? >> he said it better than i could. >> okay, we will take another question. thank you. >> here is an actual long-time district attorney in manhattan. >> i have my question for my good friend thane. the cases i did agree with you 100% that the prosecutor for excess of 30 years i have always felt that i do represent the victims. the difference between me and them is thane gets paid a little more but my being -- that being said victim centric system and the practicalities of that and the questions are threefold. as a prosecutor you have a responsibility for the victim but your responsibility goes beyond that of a victim so here are three areas i would like you to address. the victims relative is murdered and the victim is willing to forgive the rudder and once a

case dismissed. that would be one scenario or the other scenario the victim has been picked pocketed and wants to pick pocket his hand cut off for the third scenario which i think kate alluded to is the very fact that in the jury system with human beings and imperfection one often sees half a loaf is being better than none. that the dominion system going to trial on a case which is very weak and will result in an acquittal in putting the person out in the community. those three scenarios are things that i and i'm sure kate has had to deal with on a daily basis. how does your system factor in those three realities? >> the book is very clear about when it comes to dealing revenge it also has restored dimension. when ben earlier said you go off and shoot someone, i've never said that. people can defined vengeance in their own terms.

it's tremendous if they think they can get revenge done and ultimately restore that. on the other hand of course i think kate would say it's not enough for me with kate saying i'm very happy for you victim but the people of warren county have elected me to do a job and i have to do that. with respect to number two absolutely. in order for revenge to be justified it has to be proportionate and cutting off the hand of someone who is a pickpocket is not proportionate. >> in some societies it is. >> but again it's not justified revenge. you can call it whatever you want and say that's clearly disproportionate. there's a whole chapter in the book about the way in which under sharia law throughout the muslim blog there -- under the color of law that we would not accept an anyways being proportionate. just because someone calls it measure for measure doesn't mean we have to call it measure for

measure. your third is you know, i just don't, i think it's patronizing to tell the victim of go you don't know. you will feel a lot better later. this is the kind of thing this book is responding to. very well-intentioned. >> joel you are one of my heroes and incredibly well-intentioned but ultimately patronizing and i don't know how many prosecutors have been victimized. how people feel so smugly about what we should be doing in very and very few people have actually been victimized. and say i can totally understand why someone needs to be satisfied. >> measure for measure i think we try to provide that in the criminal justice system and i'm a criminal defense attorney who has -- i was so angry if i

could've caught the person i would have tried to beat him to death with a baseball bat which is the only weapon i own but the police came and you know that was told? i'm a big shot lawyer and a former prosecutor and thought i was going to get real treatment. he said mr. brafman we have 20,000 burglaries and the hope of recovering if any of your items is a ridiculous thought so forget it. did i feel good? no. did i understand i live in a city that has 20,000 burglaries a year? yes. >> by the way this john almond over here, david who is my editor on this book so you can blame him. mr. david herman. thank you david. [applause] >> there's a contention being made between the state of the law. richard duchenne is the state and revenge is the role of the individual. last time i checked i thought it was the individuals who made up the state and make the law.

on a particular case you were talking about bin laden and perhaps a more relative case here has to do with a targeted assassination against an american citizen who were not right to american courts and the ways that may or may not be questionable. i was just wondering in te of w distinctions follow true in a case like targeted assassination of an american citizen and? >> does anyone want that? >> in all the i don't want to take it on for so many reasons and i have other questions. all i would say is i am interested in that question because i was just interviewed the other day about the tsarnaev case and i said you know all of a sudden tsarnaev is going to be in federal court and he should receive the full complement of the constitution but the more

you give them them constitutional protection that more al-awlaki fathers going to say it you have to be kidding. you shot my kid in a car in yemen with a drawn and this kid in boston gets the full poply of constitutional protection. where's the constitution for my dead kid in yemen and? >> you know what the problem with that is? we are living in a different world than the world all of us grew up in. for the last maybe, the first 20 or 30 years of our lives if you read "the new york times" today you will see their there are bombings and suicides in terrorist acts in every country that you can mention and these crimes are of different dimension and i think we are we are trying to figure out how to deal with them and sometimes we get it right and sometimes we sometimes we don't but it's an evolving process and i think we are trying our best under very difficult circumstances. >> we might at the same time given both of those rep remedies achieve justice so they look very different.

that is all i'm saying the book is that we should just be honest that the drone strike, if we think that's just us and we think that's vengeance and whatever trials tsarnaev gets in federal court in boston he will probably receive the death penalty and when that happens it will look a lot like what happened in yemen. yes, a question. >> i think the reason we don't want is we are simply human and human trait in psychology as cognitive dissonance so it makes you feel better to rationalize it and not call it revenge. i respectfully disagree with you in two respects. one is you manage to avoid it beautifully with grace. you say all right measure for measure but there has to be another limit. so you said it's different for every person that i would like your personal opinion. there has to be an upper limit when it comes to torture.

there has to be an upper limit and the last thing is to talk about in hardwired. i say that is an instinctive natural and -- so you might be hardwired to do other things and the whole purpose is easier because you are afraid of the law or because you are whatever you want to call it that that's the purpose of civil society. >> but i never said you have to act like a maniac. >> but when you say hardwired. >> what is hardwired is that we as a species unlike the animal kingdom we insist on fairness and retribution and punishment commensurate with the crime. we cannot tolerate watching people get away with murder for watching people get away with highway robbery and that is essentially what i'm talking about what i'm talking about the idea. with respect to the first thing, look i don't want to talk about

torture but it's not torture. but i think there are questions in terms of yes there are upper limits in their lower limits in it many cases the same thing we all feel when something is under punishment we feel morally -- unless something is overly punished why is it we feel like we can't trust that sense of moral repulsion and in some degree that is the standard and that is how the threshold is met. as us take a few more questions. thank you. >> i wanted to thank the panel for coming today and give us the benefit of their experience. i wanted to ask judge chen in a civil context, when a plaintiff comes and brings a case that has an issue that seems fairly relevant but it's probably bringing the case in order to punish and either monetarily by

dragging them through a trial or an enterprising law firm that is fishing for a class-action suit, how do you deal with an individual trying to use the system to get revenge? >> well, litigants use the system all the time to try to get revenge. in the civil context there are privileged lawsuits that are brought and you have to deal with them on a case-by-case basis. if something is patently frivolous and brought simply to a hopefully the court will step in and do something about it. bringing a lawsuit to punish someone is not necessarily improper. you can seek punitive damages if someone does something really really bad. it's appropriate to bring a civil suit to punish in the way that you can and that is to make the person pay a punitive damage. so sometimes it is appropriate. it's when litigants try to abuse

the system that the lawyers should ask for help and the judge should try to step in. >> we will take one more questions and then we have the reception outside and a book signing. for those who want to buy a book you may actually read it and enjoy it, or not. >> i did read it and enjoy it and i think it's your best book. i have one thing that i like about it in general is to talk about popular culture and it fits in with all kinds of other references. when i was reading the book i thought the movie 42 which i saw last weekend. it's a little bit out of legal context but really in a moral context they wanted to ask you what your feelings are about the jackie robinson story which you don't have to see the movie to know is someone who went through the worst possible treatment you can possibly imagine and stood there and took it and eventually he was known as a hero for that.

do you see that as a good thing, bad thing, cowardice? >> it's a great example and a great challenge to the payback theme, right? remember this is how we are going to do this every comets for howard hardest thing you are going to have to do is to be able to respond and this is the way it will be managed. those ideas are equally compelling. you have no idea how many radio shows i have appeared on in the last two weeks were either christ is being quoted to me or gandhi is being quoted to me. it's endless and i have heard that before,, oh really quick ciphered gandhi, yes. there is no virtue. there is moral cowardice when people deserve to be punished. there is nothing moral about it. we make it seem like there's a virtue and everyone is so comfortable talking about what

christ would do. we don't have a clue. people are so smug. i say in the book we shouldn't speak for jesus. we don't know. he never had a daughter raped in may murdered and they never had his wife killed and never went through the holocaust era genocide. we don't know what he would say and by the way good christians ts untry believe we should retaliate against the taliban. i don't know percentage basis oh no turn the other cheek. 9/11, hopefully they won't do it again, we are turning a cheek. that is christ's sermon on the amount and that is the book of and that a member christian saying as a christian nation we can't respond. but that is morally unbearable. that is impossible to do. that's the kind of facial gymnastics that you can't ask anyone to do. it's just simply to turn the other cheek. in response to your really great question, those other stories

are equally heroic beaches they show restraint and true restraint but they are not models for how we treat others. they can possibly be the templates for how we deal with wrongdoers. before we take, this was produced by the form on law culture and society bayer executive producer. aaron. she is somewhere around here. if you're watching on c-span, we have an annual film festival next year from october 18 to 25th and we have a short film competition. we do a conversation series and this is our second for this year. there is an earlier one on the fall on same-sex marriage. check us out on line, check out a program mean take a look at our highlight for them on law culture society.org. i think my editor david purvin but i also have for research assistants who happen to be here three of them want their name

acknowledged and one doesn't but i'm going to do it anyway. it's megan rockwell, kate moore and aaron rector back there. i thank them all because they are incredibly invaluable. [applause] the forum law culture society has great stuff but it's not cheap. read the board of directors and donors and i want to acknowledged them. we have bob hallway and joanne loring and pete rossi is here. i hope i didn't miss anyone. aaron, did did i? i want you leslie thank this incredible panel if true conversation for the ages. thank god c-span was here to archive it forever for posterity event. thank you all. [applause] there is a reception after. please stick around and have a drink and food. there is a book signing.

and janet dayton. [inaudible conversations] for more information visit the author's web site thane rosenbaum.com. >> the system of mass incarceration is so deeply-rooted in our social political and economic structure that it's not going to just fade away or downsize out of sight without a major upheaval of radical shift in our public consciousness. now i know that there are many people today who will say oh, you know there is no hope of ending mass incarceration in america. no, no, pick another issue. just as many people were resigned to jim crow in the

south and would say yeah, yeah that's a shame, it's a shame but that's just the way that it is. so many people today millions cycling in and out of our jails today is just unfortunate but in an alterable fact of american life. i'm quite certain that dr. king would not have been so resigned. so i believe if we are truly, truly to honor dr. king, if we are to ever catch up with king, we have got to be willing to continue his work. we have got to be willing to go back and pick up where he left off and do the hard work of building on behalf of people of all colors. in 1968 dr. king told that the kids the time had come to transition from the civil rights movement to a human rights movement.

meaningful equality cannot be achieved through civil rights alone. without basic human rights, the right to work ,-com,-com ma the right to shelter, the right to quality education. without basic human rights he said, civil rights are an empty promise. so in honor of dr. king and all of those who labored to end the old jim crow, i hope we will commit ourselves to building a rights movement and mass incarceration, a movement for education, a movement for jobs, not jails. a movement to and and all of the legal discrimination against people, discrimination that denies them their abusive -- basic human rights to work, to shelter into food. what must we do to the guinness movement? first i believe we got to begin by telling the truth, the whole truth. we have got to be willing to admit out loud that we as a nation have managed to re-create

a system in this country. we have got to be willing to tell the truth in our schools, our churches and our places of worship, behind bars. we have got to be willing to tell the truth so a great awakening to reality of what has occurred can come to pass. because the reality is that this new caste like system does not come with signs. there are new no whites only signs anymore. there are no signs alerting us to the system of mass incarceration. in prisons today they are out of sight and out of mind. often hundreds of miles away from communities and families that might otherwise be connected with them. and the people who cycle in and out of these prisons typically live in segregated impoverished communities, communities that

middle-class and upper-middle-class folks rarely come across. so you can live your whole life in america today having no idea that this system of mass incarceration and the horrors it reeks even exist. so we have got to be willing to tell the truth, pull back the curtain and make visible what is hidden in plain sight. so that in awakening can begin and people can begin to take that kind and creative constructive action at this moment in our history surely requires. but of course it's a lot of consciousness raising isn't going to be enough. we have got to be willing to get to work. and my view that means we have got to be willing to build an underground railroad for people,

an underground railroad for people who want to make a genuine break for real freedom. people who want to escape the system and find work, find shelter and be able to support their families. find the true freedom in america today. we have got to be willing to open our homes, open our schools, open our workplaces to people returning home from prison and provide safe places are the families who have loved ones behind bars today. how do we create these places? one thing we can certainly do, we can begin to admit our own criminality out loud, our own criminality. the kunis the truth is we have all made mistakes in our lives. we all have. all of us are sinners. all of us have done wrong. all of us have rocha and the law

at some point in our lives. if you are an adult, you have broken the law in some way in life. some people will say oh yeah i am a sinner, i had made mistakes. don't call me at criminal. don't call me a criminal. i say okay, maybe you never experimented with drugs. the worst thing you have done in your entire life is to be 10 miles over the speed limits on the freeway, you put yourself and others at more risk and harm then someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of the living room. but there are people in the united states serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses. the u.s. supreme court upheld life sentences for first-time drug offenders against an eighth amendment challenge that such sentences were cruel and unusual

in violation of the eighth amendment and the u.s. supreme court said no, no it's not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a young man to life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense. universally known with the country in the world does such a thing. so we have got to end this idea that the criminals are them, not us. and instead say, there but for the grace of god go i. all of us have made mistakes in our lives, taken wrong turns but only some of us have been required to pay for those mistakes for the rest of our lives. president barack obama himself has admitted to more than a little bit of drug use in his lifetime. he admitted to using marijuana and cocaine in his youth. and if he hadn't been raised by white grandparents in hawaii, if he hadn't done much of his illegal drug use ap