this guy was a homeless guy, so they arrested him. they brought him before the court. hank gave him a $25,000 bail. he did not have $25,000, so he sat in jail for eight days, and he came back and pleaded guilty. this is really the regular person that is symbolic of ordinary justice. there is a woman who has five kids. she is a nurse. one beautiful spring day she is sitting on the stoop, and she is reading of friends hair, and the police say, do believe -- she is braiding of friends hair, and the police say, and you realize there is a no loitering sign, and she offered to get off, and they arrest her. they bring her before the judge, and they give her a $25,000

bail. she is never given an attorney, and she sits in jail for eight days. she has a relative take care of her five kids. eventually, she comes before the judge. the judge says, we will give you a couple hundred dollars as a fine, if you plead guilty, and we will call it a day. she says ok. she pleads guilty, and she thinks to herself, i will never pay the fine, and she gets the guy who also pleaded guilty, and they have a big party. they thing, this is all over with, and a couple minutes -- a couple years later she applies for public housing, and she is rejected because she has a criminal record. she had been loitering that day, and she is not eligible for city housing, so she ends up leaving try and moving to virginia. this is the problem with the

ordinary in justice. there are collateral consequences, and we end up paying for them as taxpayers. we pay for them because people cannot get a federal grants for loans for school. they go on welfare. they do not get to go to their jobs. these are the hidden cost we rarely see. why do they love him so much if he was doing these things that are against the law? the bottom line is when hank saw of lawyer cared about the client, he would make an effort to help that lawyer, said there is one woman who is a prostitute, and she had a lawyer who keeps doing her case pro bono. she keeps getting arrested for prostitution, and each time he tried to get her help, but when

no one was looking, that is when the worst thing happened. there is a guy who is the town drunk, and his name is john casey. i met him, and he was drinking an enormous 10 of the year. it was of vero -- enormous can of beer. it was unfaia barrel. he was thrown into jail. casey walked back into the court and says, what happened to my case? the judge says, you pleaded guilty. casey walks out. people ask me, when do you think is the worst case of ordinary justice then clearly when people spend decades in prison, those kilmeade. to be innocent in prison and to

have a community who thought -- those kilmeadl me. to be innocent in prison and to have a community who thought you were guilty, but there was this guy, and no one stood up. there was a line of public defenders in the first row who could have said, where is jon casey? nobody stood up, and that is one of the problems of ordinary injustice. they become so worried about their own interests that they stop thinking about the people they are supposed to be protecting. >> we should have invited that judge to come to see what he would say. last year, our reporter went into a courtroom -- nez reporter went into a courtroom, and he

sought -- a reporter went into the courtroom, and he saw the judge. he saw hundreds of people waiting for justice every day. what he did not see was a lawyer, so he took it upon himself to study it and write about it, and i am going to let you tell what happened. >> unlike judge our common and the judges in dept. 43 j judge bauer -- unlike judge bauer common the judges in department 43 are borden. there is no one to make objections or advocate for the people who go to these courtrooms, because they have never had them there. there is no lawyers, so what happens is i go into the courtroom, and i hide behind a broad-shouldered deputy so the judge does not recognize me, and

i listen and watch. the judge comes in, and everybody rises, and the judge goes through the speech she gives to the defendants who have been waiting all weekend in many cases to get out because they are there for public intoxication or failure to appear for a warrant, so they have been picked up on the weekend. i will exaggerate. she comes up and goes, you are here charge, and you have the right to go to counsel. i will do the deal for you right now, and if you want a public defender, you can get a public defender. let's go. then what happened is a long line of guilties. guilty, guilty, guilty --

incontinent -- not guilty. no continent. guilty, guilty, guilty. i am an amateur, but even i am saying to myself, what is going on here famines -- what is going on here? i go to many of these courts and see exactly the same thing, so i start to ask what is happening, and basically, historically, the public defender's office has never put anyone there. it is almost like a client agreement between the two not to spend the resources. the reason i was there in the first place was because san jose had become like las vegas. what we were looking into were these public intoxication charges, and if you do not know, you can be arrested for public fear intoxication if you're so drunk that you are a danger for

yourself or others, and it is up to the police officer to decide whether you fit that description. i was looking at the civil rights lawsuit alleged police were misusing the slot to basically clean up the streets common so we asked out of -- miss using the law to basically clean up the streets, so we asked how many people have been arrested for intoxication, and they got back to me and said, 5000 a year. he said that is a mistake. he said, you put a 0 on the end. i called him back, and said few double check this. we were curious about what was going on in san jose, and we started to lookin into these

charges, and we also started to look at other discretionary crimes, the kinds which police are the arbiters of whether or not you reach a probable cause, and we found out san jose was busting people right and left for public intoxication or resisting arrest or disturbing the peace and all sorts of crimes, and the racial disparities were off the charts when we compare them to other cities. public intoxication, there were 57% latino people being arrested. we have 3% latino people in the city. where were these 5000 people going? they were going to department 42, where the woman judge was going guilty, guilty, guilty, incontinent. we started doing a series of

stories. i keep hearing these depressing stories about how you're dealing with budgetary cutbacks, but when we did our story in the public defender's office, there was a wave of embarrassment to say the least, and within a couple months, the board of supervisors added $1 million a year to add lawyers in a lot of misdemeanor court rooms, and starting monday, i believe they are going to start putting lawyers in the apartment 42. -- in department 42. [applause] >> id raises an interesting -- that is really incredible. this practice has been going on for years and years of not providing lawyers.

it is a sea change, and because of that, there will be thousands of people who will get counsel. one of the questions i have is as a journalist, how are you able to work with defense attorneys or public defenders to bring like to ordinary in justice salmon -- bring light to ordinary injustice? amy has written this book, and a cup of book award. -- it got a book award. [applause] how can defense attorneys or people who work in the system make that known and worked with journalists? >> i generally bring everybody out to lunch or to a bar or to

both. journalists and police officers have this classic cold war, and there was even a cold war between defense attorneys and journalists -- certainly between prosecutors and reporters, and i find if i write a story they cannot just come back and say, this is wrong, and this is wrong. if they are faced with the fact i have busted my butt to get everything right and have gone to them and really tried hard to represent my view points, then they do not have an argument about going to a bar with maie. we have people whispering to us, and that is part of the dynamic, but i find once you develop a reputation for trying hard to understand all the things you

people learn in hastings and asking stupid questions over and over again -- is there a police called in continent? -- plea called in continent? if you ask the questions, eventually they explain. even the judges in santa clara county who were giving the colloquies, and the judges who would turn to defendants and say, i would like to get this resolved today, which basically means to plead guilty or no contest, they talked grudgingly. >> watch out if you ask someone out for a drink. i know in your study one of the things you found was there was a tremendous amount of pressure that came from the judges. can you talk briefly about that? >> sure. does this still work?

>> one of the things we found that was very disturbing in our study was that nearly three out of four offices reported they had been pressured by county commissioners to cut costs. a good example of fat was recently reported -- good example of that is that it was recently appreported sacramento was planning to cut a third of their budget, yet their caseloads are already at twice the number of the national standards permit, so you have got that kind of economic pressure. there is also another type of pressure that comes from the pressure that comes from the lack of professional