publica reporter. >> they were politically divisive ads and not necessarily aimed at one candidate or another. imed at sewing divisiveness. >> watch the communicators on c-span 2. >> now, a discussion from washington journal. this is about 45 minutes. minutes piece last sunday night. >> question one is was there a constitutional violation? >> in his first semester, professor is teaching criminal law. >> the first statement unlawfuly obtained? >> the irony isn't lost on him or his students who know that he is a convicted felon and that less than a decade ago was an inmate at the federal correctional institution in illinois. >> you're a professor at one of

the finest law schools in the country. is that something you thought you would be able to do? >> no. it makes me laugh hearing you say it out loud, because there are days where it doesn't make sense to me and i've lived it. so i can see why it doesn't make sense to hardly anyone else. >> host: an excerpt on what was a 14-minute story. we want to welcome shawn. thanks for being with us. guest: thanks for having me here. host: so tell us your story. guest: my story starts with me standing in front of a federal judge as i'm being sentenced to months in three federal prison foy my role in five armed bank robberies. and then i go to prison and find that i have a love and aptitude for the law. i start writing briefs for other prisoners, the supreme court grants two of those

briefs and i get out and go to law school and become a law professor at georgetown. host: i'm going to ask you the same question steve asked you. 38 hours of interviews for a 14 minute piece? guest: yes. they're very in-depth there. host: what were you thinking before you decided to rob the banks? guest: i wasn't. that's the problem. i was 21, wild, and reckless, and imma tour. i had kind of spiraled downward with both depression and drug and alcohol use. but the big thing was i just didn't think of the consequences. i just was a reckless foolish young man. host: where did these robberies take place? guest: all around rural nebraska caught?d how were you guest: caught?

guest: i don't know. the f.b.i. caught me and they found $150,000 directly traceable to the bank in the trunk of my car. host: then walk us through the transformation that you went through. you're in a prison cell. and then what happens? guest: i get a job in the prison law library. when i first start working there all i do is just hand out books. the reason was those books when did pull them off the shelves were very big and thick and intimidating. and it felt like they were written in another language. but then in june of 2000, the supreme court handed down a that i and every federal prisonner in the country thought could lead to a sentence reduction. so i started studying the law and prepared a brief for myself and sent it off to court and that was the start of my legal career. host: you are now married, father of two children. guest: daughter and son. host: and your wife is studying at catholic university? at s she as in law school catholic university. host: when did you decide to be

a lawyer? guest: there were a lot of people who told me i should go to law school. for every person who said you can go to law school, i had probably a hundred lawyers tell go ou'll never be able to to law school. even if you can you'll never be given a license by any state. host: so you can speak about this from a very personal point of view. what can you tell us about your 11th years in prison guest: well, i would say that i learned a lot while i was in prison. t for the last five or six years i was just warehoused. and by that i mean, the first five years i had made pretty substantial change in my life. i had to have responsibility in part because i was representing these other prisoners and i had really grown out of a lot of the immaturity that i came to prison with. then the last five years i was just kind of stuck there.

the reason is our prison systems do not reward a pursuit of excellence. no matter how much you change in your life, no matter how successful you become, it esn't matter to the prison system. host: do you know the percentage of those in prison come out and go back into prison? guest: it depends on which system you're talking about, whether it's the federal system or some of the state systems. but the system. host: do you know the percentage of those in five-yea rate is anywhere from 45 all the way up to 75%. zphroo so our prisons are not producing great outcomes in part because, again, prison is not the place for personal growth. at least to how prisons are constituted in the united states. host: have your son or daughter asked you about your time or do them to? guest: we've had discussions about it. my son came to an event that i did last year, with the federal judge that sentenced me. that was the first time i had

seen the judge since the day of sentencing. and my 7-year-old son came and listened and asked a few questions. but for the most part my kids, they don't care what dad did prior to having them. in some ways i've kind of been reborn with my wife and kids. host: what was that like to be with the judge who sentenced you? guest: i've never had any animosity. he gave me the lowest he could at the time under mandatory federal sentencing guidelines. i used to think that my sentence was -- there was noth wrong with it, but that's in part because i compared it to all the sentences i saw in federal prison. and what i tell you now is for most crimes, if we're just looking at deterg that individual person from commiting new crimes, sentences over 10 years are way too long. host: our guest is shawn, now an associate professor at georgetown university school of law. we are dividing our phone lines

among parties. we also have a line for those who have served time in prison. you can also send us a tweet. guest: there's something fundamentally incompatible about saying on the one hand that we are the land of liberty and on the other recognizing that we incarcerate our citizens at a greater rate than any country on the planet. or at least the ones that we can get accurate statistics from. host: the numbers are on the your screen. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i want to begin by there was another story in the "washington post" about a supreme court law clerk who also grew up here in washington. so all the odds are stacked against her but she somehow made it to become a law clerk in the highest court here in our country. so your story and her story are both very admirable. i wanted to ask about these educational programs for reintroducing these prisoners from the criminal justice system to society. and there was a lot of pushback. i believe there was some financial aid that they were giving out to prisoners so they could learn a trade or a skill so they can hopefully get another job when they reenter society. but naturally, americans pushed back against that because they

just viewed it as us giving money to people who are convicted felons. and on one hand there is some validity to that. but on the other hand, it's sort of what you mentioned with people are damned based on their prior lives and they're just trying to make it again in society. our country gives second, third, fourth chances. and i just want to get your thoughts. but the reality that people aren't really supportive. guest: thanks for first bringing up the story you were talking about, is tiffany wright. i served with her when i clerked for the d.c. circuit and she is now clerking tor justice sotomayor and has a remarkable story how she got there as well. to answer your question, i agree it feels strange to give prisoners educational opportunities and job training

considering they have committed crimes. t that view is also very short-sighted if what we want is that while people are serving punishment is for them change their lives around and have job skills and job training, so that when they come out they aren't commiting new crimes of endangering the public safety. we want, eally what spending a little bit of money on the front end help those people when they get out. it's going to save a high we wa spending a little number on the back end when we don't have to reprosecute and reincarcerate that person. the institution has done several studies on this. of incarcerating one person for one year in prison is anywhere from 30,000 to 80,000 a year. of it's very expensive and dangerous when you just warehouse people for decades, kick them out to the streets and then wonder why a miracle doesn't happen and they don't

have success. ost: the book lawman, my story of robbing banks winning supreme court cases and finding redemption. he's also the founding partner of the website prison profess sors.com. tell us your story, sandra. wiveragetsdz -- caller: my story is not as dramatic. i am a twice convicted felon over 22, 25 years ago. drug since gone to rehabilitation through a charity program over 20 years a happily have lived useful and sober existence since. a happy life. and today i'm in the legal profession. i'm a master's graduate and i

would like to go on to law school. at this time i'm a family mediater and i see all the time that the family goes through eone's ess of som conviction, and the family either flourishes in the change to that convicted felon's life or either falls with that felon en there's no outreach, when there's no link between what you've done to what you could do or who you could become. when there's no link to that, when there's no hand saying here if you're willing, here it is. without that, i certainly would -- i don't know. i would probably be dead at this point. but through the grace of many people that have encouraged me to go forward and -- i've had a

lot of doors closed. interviewed by people that just loved everything, loved my credentials but the moment i told them honestly before this interview closes i would like to let you know i am a convicted felon but since been awarded clemsy years ago -- and even through all that i ave been turned down for jobs. housing even. i applied for an apartment down in the keys some years ago and they told me i couldn't live there because i was a convicted felon. host: i'm going to jump in. thank you for telling us your story. we'll get a response. guest: this is part of the problem with the criminal justice system. we don't incentivize people while they're in prison to make the right changes. and then our punishment scheme goes on forever. i think people naturally think

that when someone serves time in prison and they're done, the punishment ends. but the punishment really just begins there. here are 3 to 4,000 collateral convictions. be denied jobs, employment, federal benefits, the right to vote, and thousands of other things. it creates a system where people that have felony conviction ks then never really truly assimilate back into society and get on their feet because we put so many hurdles in their way. when i was released from federal prison i had never been on the internet, never seen an ipad, an i phone, an ipod. these sorts of little things like training for computer skills could have cost me jobs. and if that would have happened i would not be sitting here today. so we need to take a more longer term view of what we want from the criminal justice system. because right now where we send people to prison and make it

more likely than not that they will get out and commit new crimes doesn't really benefit anyone, tax payers, crime victims, or the prisoners themselves. host: this is from debbie. god bless you. guest: there is this huge trial penalty. in part because congress has created a lot of federal laws and written them very broadly and gives prosecutors the discretion. and when they have these mandatory minimums they can basically stack charges upon someone so that if they do go to trial there's a huge pement. i'll give you an example. i have a friend in federal committed adam, almost the identical crimes i did. no one was hurt. he only difference between his

case and my case was i pled guilty case and my case was i pled guilty he went to trial. i had a good defense lawyer he did not. i had a reasonable prosecuter he did not. i received a sentence of 12 years, three months, adam received a sentence of 215 years in federal prison for exercising his right to trial by jury. ost: from patrick. next up is jared. tell us your story. caller: hi, c-span. my story about nine years ago, i had a few drink and i went in to knock nd i tried on the neighbor's door, the person's door, to see, you know, because it was winter time here in minnesota it gets awfully cold, and there was no answer. so i seen their car. i ended up taking it and i ended up getting caught. in the a few months

county. in here in minnesota it's like a year and a day. so i spent one day in prison. well then i ended up straightening out my life. but i also wanted to say this ain't the land of the free because where you have 5% of the population but 25% of the prisoners of the world, that is ot land of the free. host: thank you, sir. guest: i agree with that. that's in part because we have too much criminal law. just -- for just the federal system alone there are over 5,000 regulations and statutes carrying criminal pement. it's hard for me to conceive of 5,000 things a person can do that are so egregious that it would wasn't actually putting that person in jail or prison

as a punishment. we have too much criminal law, we have too much discretion in the hands of prosecutors. we don't fund indigent defense sufficiently enough. we have all of these procedural protections in the constitution. but if you don't have a lawyer that can weaponize that and trying to uphold your rights in court, those rights don't mean a great deal. so, again, we really have to consider what we're wanting from the trying to uphold your rights in court, criminal system. if just punishment is all we're after and we're not concerned about public safety and rehabilitation, then we have the perfect system. but if we want better outcomes, people coming out of prison and ading law-abiding successful lives, then we really need to change things. host: you have used the term a couple of times ware housing. how did you spend your days and how were you treated by the guards? guest: i spent my days in prison reading a lot of legal

books. deal re weren't a great of programs for people while i was inside. to give you one example, the prison i was at had a really great welding program. people were learning how to weld. this was a skill that when you get out employers don't necessarily care about whether you have a criminal background. if you can do the job they'll hire you. and i had friends that were coming out making $25 an hour welding -- out deal of programs for people while of is for prisoners that's kind of the gold standard. and a new warden came in, changed the program, took the welding program out, and replaced it with a -- an associate's degree program in business management. we all know that when people get out of prison the first thing people want to do is hire them to manage their business. these were the kinds of decisions i saw in the federal bureau of prisons all the time that made very little sense. and it's no wonder that the

reresidivism rates are so high for people coming out. host: where did you serve? guest: i served in a federal prison in illinois. host: let's go to bob. good morning. caller: hi, professor. i'm a -- one of the greatest advantages in this country as far as i'm concerned is opportunity. i would like to find out whether you've had any studies people tell us whether like hispanics or blacks who have gotten out of prison and risen to the level you have. guest: thank you. of people. one of my partners or prison professors, cofounder served 26 straight years in federal prison. while he was in prison he got a

bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, wrote seven books and became a blogger for huffington post and forbes all while serving at 18 different federal institutions. michael now has been out for ree years and manages $3 president 5 million in properties. he goes to speak at prisons and conferences all over. i have another friend named dwayne who graduated from yale his law , received license from connecticut, and who is doing work on public defense and parole and will soon be his law doing the phd p at yale, and he is an african american man. the problem is we just don't have enough of these success stories coming from any race, in part because, again, the prison systems do not reward any sort of pursuit of excellence. and we don't insent vise prisoners. california has come up with a

new proposition where it said we are going to insent vise prisoners to take programs and better their lives so when they ome out of prison they are not commiting new commiting new offenses. i think that's the approach that most jurisdictions need to ake. host: you were not alone in robbing these banks. what happened to your colleague? guest: host: they are all they're all doing various things and i like to say you don't have to be a georgetown law professor to have success coming out of prison. so they are all doing various jobs and have not gone back to prison. i'm just very proud of them ticks are he stats out. so bad. and they too have managed to overcome that. host: here is a tweet.

uest: i have mixed thoughts. i have not seen enough studies to determine whether or not it actually works in that people with felony convictions are employers.red by i'm not convinced that that -- if we are putting the question on the employers. application, pushing the question down to the interview process. if that's the case maybe that's not the way to handle it. i just don't know because i've not studyd it enough. what i would like to see is corporations come out and say we are going to hire people with felony convictions, and getting businesses to come out and affirmtively do that. i think maybe another way to ban the box legislation. host: the book is called lawman. my story of robbing banks, winning supreme court convictions, and finding redemption.

welcome to the program. caller: i wanted to say good morning and thanks for having me on. i have a question. i was just wondering, i did four years here in maine state correctional facility for possession of oxycodone. when i got up there, i never had a criminal history or nothing. i don't have a violent history. i grew up in a good family all that stuff. i even hired a lawyer, paid cash, all that. didn't go through the system and have them pay for me. so they -- i get up there, i take the plea deal of four years. i kind of got sand bagged. i got up there and there's serial sex offenders everywhere, all through the prison systems and they're doing nine months and a day to a year-and-a-half, two years. i don't understand why they would hand -- these are pills that the government ol loud

doctors and pharmaceutical companies to hand out and then they get in hands of somebody like me, 18, 19, i'm 32 now. i don't know how they'll let a sex offender out on the street and then they don't care it seems like. then put them right across in portland city here, right in the city of maine, right near a high school. and just set them out when they get out. then they allow them to live near schools, in portland they put them near a boys and girls club. guest: i don't know how things work in maine, so i can't speak about that. but i tell you that in the federal system in most states people who commit sex offenses are punished incredibly harshly in the federal system it's usually a mandatory minimum,

sometimes 10, 15, 20 years. greatly. e punished the question is whether or not those punishments work. and one of the things that undergirds sentencing in america is this belief that if we punish one person harshly it will deter everyone else from commiting that crime. the problem is i don't think gr the question is whether or not those punishments that actually happens. it doesn't happen because the people that commit crimes are young men who don't think about the consequences or they're people with drug addiction, alcohol addiction, mental health, impulse control. so these are not people that were able to weigh out the consequences. but even if they did they would have to learn, then they would a 500 page guideline manual that lawyers

and judges misapply every day in federal court. and to think that someone would actually do that and take into punishment the a 500 page before they commit crimes, i've never seen it. in 11 years in federal prison i never met one person who knew how much time they were facing. so this thought of general deterrence i just have never seen any ed of it. host: did you have any interest in the law punishment before as a teenager? guest: i did not. i couldn't have named a right in the bill of rights when i entered federal prison. host: i will share a couple weets. guest: i think that's right. i think that in this counterry we've made the decision that we're just going to punish. and we only think about the in terms of incarceration. and we don't think about all the punishments that follow

once you have that felony in te and stigma. i was denied an apartment as recently as three years ago when i was clerking for judge brown on the d.c. circuit. the apartment complex called and said we just can't rent an apartment to you. and i said i'm soon to be a lawyer and clerk on the second most important court in the country. i think you can trust me. the response was i don't know what clerk but felony conviction is an oosh salute bar here. so no matter how much i transcended what i did in my past, i will continually be punished for it forever. and that's part of the reason why we don't have much success with people being rehabilitated in the country. host: how did you end up at georgetown? guest: when i was finished with my clerkship, i applied for a teaching fellowship there, a place that helps courts of appeals. we take cases on appointment. usually the clients are

indigent litigants, criminals, dchts, people going through the immigration system. i was at georgetown for two years there and then i applied full-time teaching position at law schools over the full-time teaching position at law schools over the country and georgetown was the one that said yes. host: and your criminal record was not a hindrance. guest: in fact, i think the faculty at georgetown view it as i can bring something to the students that most law schools don't have. which is experience inside the criminal justice system and out. so i've seen it from the inside, i've litigated cases from the outside. host: you mentioned something earlier. you're in prison, you come out and you see an ipad, you see the web, you see e-mail, you twitter and all this new technology that is out there. what went through your mind? was it twitter and all surreal? guest: it was overwhelming. i'm not one that has a great deal of anxiety but the first 0

days out of federal prison, i was consuming 5,000 to 6,000 calories a day and losing weight just because i was overwhelmed with choice. i remember one day just standing in a wal-mart, in the aisle because i needed some tooth paste and i was not used to an entire wall of choices. so it was a big hurdle for me to overcome that. i got a job working in a place that helps lawyers all over the country file briefs to the u.s. supreme court and the woman who was training me, we would type in information in these forms, she would often say just cut and paste. i didn't know what that meant. when i thought cut and paste i'm thinking paper and scissors and had no idea because i was computer ill lit rat. and it really hindered my progress. host: our next caller greg republican line. good morning.

caller: thanks for taking my all. you cited figures of federal incarceration figures from the southern poverty law center. my problem is i can't see where you and the mainstream media can use the southern poverty law center as an objective go-to source for these kinds of figures. the hate center has me on its watch list. ok? just because i'm an evangelical christian and i support james dobson and the family research council that he founded and the american family center. these are at the heart of main street evangelicalism yet i'm on their hate list just because of who i am. the federal figures you cited, i wonder if they're artificially high because the cases are being tried in federal court instead of the local courts around the country. host: thank you for the call.

guest: those figures are not just cited by the southern poverty center. those are figures that almost all the nonprofits use. everyone recognizes. i don't think anyone in the government would disagree that we have a higher incarceration rate here in the united states than almost any other place on the planet. but going to your other point, there is no group of people who should be more for criminal reform than christians. christians should understand kind of grace and why that's important and why that is missing in the system that punishes people for things they did for -- punishes people forever for the worst day they've had, the worst month, or the worse year. we need to have a little more forgiveness for people who commit crimes, because if he if we don't we'll have this

perpetual system of people in and out of prison forever and it leads to just more crime. >> in addition to his book, shawn was featured on 60 minutes last week. it's available on the website. another question that steve not only robbed one bank but you did it how many times? guest: five . host: after the first time what were you thinking? guest: after the first time i just spired further. one bank but you did it how many times? guest: five . host: after the first time what and alcohol to try and forget what i had done.use i make no mistake, i had a good family who taught me right from wrong. i knew what i was doing was wrong. the remorse and the guilt was i. ake awful. so i turned to drugs and alcohol to get through that. host: how did you meet your wife? guest: my wife and i are from the same hometown. a sprawling metropolitan of

2500 people in nebraska. my wife became friends with my mom because my mom worked for her father, and my wife and i started writing and corresponding in prison and became really good friends through awful. calls rned to 300 letters phone and visits. i got out in 2008, 2009. this was the height of the recession. no one was finding work let alone the guy that just did 11 years in federal prison and my secret n marie is the of most of my success. host: good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking our calls and discussing things with us. mine as two-part question. looking at the prison industrial complex from the corporate perspective. there's great incentives for corporations, some of whom may e convicted felons themselves,

to profit from the growth of private prisons and the need for prisoners to keep that business going. perhaps you can discuss how that may impede prison reform and social justice or criminal justice reforms. guest: well, between the law enforcement lobby and the lobby for all these private companies that feed the mass incarceration criminal justice system in america, they are much more effective lobbying group than prisoners are. so it does impede some of the efforts to make criminal justice reform. but i'm not necessarily convinced that private prisons are as awful as people tend to think they are. if you did change the incentive structures and required them to treat prisoners better and evaluated their performance by the reresidivism rate of people coming out, i think private prisons could be a good thing.

but as they're currently constituted, the incentive is for them to treat people badly and have them come back time and time again because they have to fill that bed which then gives the company a profit margin. host: next, st. louis. a former inmate himself. caller: my name is rodney and i -- what my point is i had served 12 years in the missouri prison. en i came home, i was trying job. rt looking for a what's gone on now, you know, i'm unemployed and i'm trying to find a job. host: how long have you been out of prison?

caller: i've been out close to years. douff skills to be applied to any particular position or douff skills to be applied to any particular position or positions? guest: i basically have experience in warehouse, fork lift. host: what would you say? guest: i understand. it's really hard to overcome that felony label. and you probably received very few job training and actual life skillswhile you served those 12 years in the missouri system. this is the dilemma prisoners face. i think when people view prisoners they don't understand why they revert back to crime. but a lot of times it's not that the person wants to revert back to crime. they cannot make it because they cannot find employment or a place to live. again, that's why we need to focus on people the day they

come they cannot make it because they cannot in the pris getting them to take programs and understand that they need to make serious life changes so that the day they are released they're ready. host: if our audience wants to get more information on your work, one website is the clarity and criminal law review. you said, tolerating unclear in the criminal arena has always been problematic because of the threat to liberty posed by unchecked prosecutorial discretion. guest: i'm not the only one to think that. i would tell you that the biggest believer in what you just said right there was

justice scleia who said we allow congress to pass these broadly-worded laws, and he says the fuzzy leave the details to the courts to be sorted out. he says that causes all sorts of problems for the criminal justice system. and he was a big believer in that we needed to make clearer laws and require congress to make the hard choices, rather than pushing it off to prosecute rgs and the courts about how to define the contours of our united states criminal code. host: chuck from springfield, oregon. welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was convicted of a felony in 1982. i went to prison, was sentenced to five years. i just put in for a pardon in 2015, with the state of idaho. my hearing was on the 5th of 2017, this month.

and it was 12 days ago i haven't heard anything yet. but what would my legal options be if i am denied a pardon? i haven't been to prison since 1984. i haven't been in any trouble. guest: unfortunately, i'm not -- not aware of what the options would be for the state of idaho just because i've not studied that state and its laws. for most pardons you either have to go to the state governor, state pardon board, or the president of the united states. in your case, if it was a state conviction you would have to get that from the state of idaho. but, again, this raise it is issue about we do not incentivize people even when they get out and lead a law-abiding successful life, to overcome that felony conviction. florida, for example, if you wrote a bad check for $300, 25 ars ago, served a few months

in prison and have led a law-abiding and successful life since, you are precluded from voting, forever. and we do not -- again, centivize people to do the right thing and eventually overcome the stigma of being a felon. host: our last call from right thi new jersey mfment liz, good morning. caller: good morning. i've enjoyed your program today. adult literacy teacher at a state prison here in new jersey for almost 15 years. i think that one point needs to be brought out, that we are doing more ware housing, even in states like new jersey, which are more progressive. than we should be. a chance don't get to improve their academic standings and their -- get their high school diploma, at

least. you're almost ensuring that they're probably going to be back with the exception i've noticed the time i was there that men who were paroled after about age 230 have a much lower -- age 30, have a much lower reresidivism rate than those paroled say between 19-29. host: thank you. guest: post secondary education is the great equalizer. when prisoners come to me and returning citizens come and ask what can we do to kind of get past this? i always tell them education. the more education you get the more likely people are willing to overlook your felony conviction. but you also raised a good point about how people age out and the re residivism rate is lower for people coming out of their 30s and 40's. this is the exact reason we

don't want to impose 20-year sentences on 20-year-olds. the reason they have committed crimes is probably because their brains have not matured at the level necessary to process what the consequences are of their actions on others. but they probably will by the time they're in their 30s and 40's. people tend to age out of crime, but if we continue to incarcerate them when they've aged out of crime we're not really increasing public safety. we're just ware housing people. and almost all studies have indicated the longer one spends in prison the less likely they are to come out and be a success. host: your book law man my story of robbing banks, winning supreme court cases, and