and i said to him, well, you know, what do people say about that? he goes, oh, the prosecutor's always complaining, saying that we're out resourced and it's not fair. but it's just the way it is. because that's the price of insuring that a poor person gets the same amount of justice as a rich person. here, for every dollar that goes 23450 law enforcement -- goes into law enforcement, incarceration, there's probably about five or six cents that goes to representation of poor people in terms of legal rights. so, you know, fundamentally it raises, i think, the discussion here, a very good question. that it comes down to really a question of resources. sheldon, let me ask you. in the stories that you try to tell, there is a moral there. you do talk about the death penalty. you do talk about -- and obviously there's a

sensationalism that comes with it. what are you trying to communicate about the justice system? is it just entertainment or is there something that's more than that? >> you know, at the heart of it i'm trying to tell a good story and keep the readers turning pages if they're flying across country. but i do try to sneak in a little bit of gentle, social commentary. i think if you get up on a soapbox, you lose effectiveness. somebody was pointing out to me not long ago that i've actually written books that deal with homelessness, that deal with corruption in the church. "death penalty" was a book that i wrote. the book that just came out, "perfect alibi" has a whole story line involving massage parlors here in san francisco and how young people from asia are being exploited. and, you know, somebody said to me, i read this whole book and

realized you had covered that, had done it defendantly, and then i realized you were making a point there. so i try not to beat my readers over head, but i do try to get some of that in. because i think that's important. if you're writing books about lawyers and about crime, you know, there are victims. and i do try to set the world right at the end when i possibly can. and that is, as i said earlier, the advantage of writing novels as opposed to trying real cases. the other point i would make -- and everybody's kind of touched upon it here a little bit. lawyers are not portrayed, in many cases, particularly positively in the media. and a lot of that we bring upon ourselves. but i would also point out that, you know, we all operate in an environment where you have to deal with the cards that are out

there. aties cuss finch -- atticus finch didn't have to deal with a 24-hour news cycle. tony serra didn't have to deal with bloggers in his career. i think what's going on in new york city where the head of the i.m.f. was arrested for doing some untorrid things in a big hotel. i found it ironic last night that eliot spitzer was interviewing people talking about these sorts of activities, and that cycle is going on and on. if you want to play a drinking game, you know, who wants to take bets of when we're going to have the first appearance of gloria allred? it's inevitable. i'm getting off the point a little bit here. but at some point i think it was around the time of the o.j. case where you had this confluence of a big public figure, it was a juicy trial, and cable news was

just becoming a force. it changed the environment in which we operate, at least criminal system operates. because it's not just cases anymore, it's entertainment. it's a whole media frenzy on big cases. and i don't think that's a very good thing, but that is the environment in which we operate. and lawyers have to deal with that now. >> a very good point. we have some questions from the audience. i'm going to ask the first one for paulette. in taking tony's essence, who he is as a trial lawyer, how does you tell that story in the book? paulette's book is for sale in the lobby and also at green arcade books here in san francisco. how did you do that? you used your art, obviously,

and you used writings. but how did you tell that story? what was your hook? >> well, i am not a particularly cerebral person. the king that connected me with tony to begin with is that i connected with his energy at the advice relevant level -- visceral level. i felt his energy. and that's how i could translate it, if you will, into my own sense of emotions, the compassion, the rage, the passion, all the various faces that he has. and then in court he acts out all the roles. so you get the full gamut of the human condition going on. i connected with tony at that visceral level. and then i went to a translation

process and a sort of distilled, if you will, process of putting it into context. and i was there in many of the trials, the trials that i was present in. so it is storytelling, but it's storytelling from the gut rather than from the head which i kind of call window shopping. i wasn't interested in window shopping tony. i wanted it to be his energy. i wanted it to encapsulate a life force. i wanted it to show the great range of his humanity which is the full spectrum and extremely difficult to put on a page to say the least. >> the next question i have is for both john and tony. you both agree that the criminal justice system doesn't work, particularly for poor people in

the criminal justice system. what would you do to improve it? we'll start with you first, john. what would you improve? this is an imperfect society that we have. we know that. what can we do to improve it? >> gee. you know, i don't know anything about the criminal justice system. but i think you need to start out in, you know -- we need to have income redistribution in the country. i mean, it's crazy. and if you do that, you know, in an important way, then a lot of these problems are just going to get fixed by themselves. they're fundamentally economic problems. we used to have 90% taxation of, you know, very high income individuals. we don't do that anymore. i meek, god, dividends and capital gains are taxed at 15%.

that's just incredible. it's an incredibl incredible st. -- steal. so that's what i would say. >> well, it's a subject matter that's ripe for hours of discussion. but very quickly, we litigate in the criminal form too many times of actions and behaviors. so the first thing is, take out all the so-called victimless crimes, all the so-called drug or drug-related cases. can you place them in medical forums or other social forums. secondly, mandatory sentences have to go out. thirdly, grand jury has to go out. fourthly, the informant system has to be eliminated. the police powers, which are ever increasing, have to be at least dropped or minimized. fourth amendment, fifth

amendment, first amendment rights have to be given more strength than they have, more resources for the defense because, yes, public defenders and good lawyers who are on the panels, they are defending most of the people who are accused. and they lack the resources because ultimately prosecution with unlimited resources and defense with very, very limited resources. the deeper issues are where the jurors come from and how they're selected, whether or not judges are curtailing due process in court. reform, reform, reform. and it can only come from the inside, from us, the lawyers. from the judicial process. and from those activists who are interested in reforming the system. but we are in grave crises now because the judiciary has been swallowed by the executive and the balance of powers is sad lay miss. [applause]

>> we're going to have to bring the panel to a close in a few minutes. we were just asked if there are any closing thoughts that you have for the audience, before we close it. >> i keep following tony. it's not fair. you know, the system is only as good as the people who are operating within it. and it's only as good as how the resources available to it can be used. and that's not an easy fix. that's a long-time issue. and i don't have a good answer for that attorney i am hopeful we can try in some manner to level the playing field a little

more, at least so that the attorneys in my fictional world have it a little easier. but more important, you know, i have it easy. i write stories. we met the gentleman who is on death row for a long time. you hope at the very least you can avoid serious, serious mistakes. and allocating the resources to make sure those mistakes don't happy think is a very important thing. >> my view, be more activistic, have more courage, where there's manifest, protest it. everyone should choose an issue. everyone then should be behind that issue and strive for change. the first thing is identify. and then to demonstrate. and then to do actions. and maybe, you know, i'm old and

i'm thinking how the 1960's sought to reform things like war and racism, and they took it to the streets, and they cried out loud, and they demonstrated, chanted, boycotted tax. we have to wake up! we're in a slumber because life is fat in the united states. and we're willing to surrender constitutional rights for our own, you know, image of self-protection. and terrorism abounds. and isn't the police force, you know, wonderful to protect us? that's all era. and what we have to do is point at what is wrong and seek in every fashion or address it within the circle of your own ability to communicate. [applause] >> my book is called "lust for justice" and the word lust imply a certain passion. i think that what is missing

over the decades as i have lived is exactly what tony is saying. the dissident voice has become either silent or is yawning itself to sleep. and we can all do something about that. i wrote this book because i wanted tony's dissident voice to be heard. i wanted the art that i did of him showing his passion and his aliveness to be seen. i thought the two of them together gave a bigger picture than just one alone. and we're all capable of in some way voicing our passion, voicing our lust for the injustices that we are all subject to. and we are all subject to the law. and, therefore, it's important to get this terrible imbalance at least started pointing in the right direction. [applause]

>> john? last word. >> ok. i'm not going to say anything about social justice. i have a thought for you. go out and rent the movie "to kill a mockingbird." it is a really, really good movie. and it's a really sophisticated movie. you know, the script, you know, you can't get any better. the producer, the performances are wonderful. every bit of that movie -- when you look at it, try to look, you know, into the actual scenes what they're doing. it's fascinating. it's all shot on a sound stage. this movie is made at the same time that they're making -- what was that huge thing in the sand? oh, "lawrence of arabia." right? [laughing] the same time they're shooting "to kill a mockingbird."

they're doing it all on the sound stage. there's a reason for that. they're doing it in black and white. you know how they had to push to get that through the studio, to make a black and white film when everybody wants color? they finally invented technicolor and all of this crap and these guys say they want to do "to kill a mockingbird" in black and white? and they're going to shoot it on a sound stage? these are very, very smart filmmakers. so i suggest you go back and watch it, and hopefully think about some of the things that i said about it. and the time it's shot. you know, the beginning of the 1960's and what's going on in the country. and i think you'll find it is a greater experience than you remember it. not because atticus finch is the smartest guy on the block, but because the movie makers are the smartest guys on the block. [applause] >> once again we have all the

books by our novelists here and our writers here in the front. or you can find them on amazon.com. i'd like to thank mary mcdonagh murphy, who joined us from new york via skype, and john -- john is actually a descendant of the first chief justice of the u.s. supreme court. paulette frankl, "lust for justice," tony serra, and sheldon siegal. so before we take a break, i do have a surprise. a few years ago, i guess six or seven years ago, i met an amazing artist. i was visiting his home. and he had created this wonderful sculpture. i immediately recognized it as being clarence. it turned out that he had

created a number of just amazing sculptures of trial lawyers. and he went on to do one of clara fults, the first woman attorney in california and became the leader of the public defender movement. and just by happenstance, he called me and had this idea of encapsulating one of the greatest trial attorneys of our times. so, bill? is he here? this is not a magistrate. [laughing] -- not a magic trick. >> i've never met tony serra, so i have to make use of the internet to get a sense of who he was and the imagery. what clearly came over was his passion for justice.

and in some cases almost a rage for justice. and initially when i started the imagery with the clay, i tried to show this passion for justice, this rage. but then i had a conversation with jeff about tony serra. and another element came out, his great heart, his deep generosity, and his respect for those he defended. so i've tried to incorporate both of these things in this piece. and i depicted him as i would see him making his plea to the jury on behalf of his client. i hope tony likes it.

[laughing] [applause] >> we knew this would be tremendously embarrassing to tony, because tony, you know, doesn't like to be recognized in any way. but the reason we did this, tony -- and i want to thank the trial lawyers association or the northern california criminal trial lawyers association as well as stuart hanlon. we're going to also have an image of you -- a sculpture of you, in our trial room to help inspire the next generation of

attorneys. but this one is yours. [applause] so thank you very much to all of our panelists. we're going to take a five-minute break and then come back with our next p >> so many people here. this is the third and final panel for those of you who have stayed. this is going to be an incredible discussion. leading the panel, this is the chief attorney of the public defender's office, matt gonzalez. >> let me talk about how we decided to have a panel as part of this year is just a summit on the death penalty. san francisco is often known for being a large city, in this

case, we have a unique history with the death penalty. during his reelection campaign of 1999, terrence hallohan said that they would not seek the death penalty for any offense in san francisco. he was reelected by a close margin a few years later, and she took the position that she would not bring any death penalty case. and she was reelected with the same conditions as part of the reelection campaign. harris was elected to be the state of the new general, and gavin newsom elected george gascon to be the district

attorney. when asked his position on the death penaltiy, hy, he said he wouldn't rule it out. this raised a lot of concern among opponents of the death penalty who thought this would be a step backward. he has written against the death penalty, and adheres to san francisco values. san francisco has not had a jury return a death verdict since 1989, which was 10 years before he said his office would not seek the death penalty. we thought this particular issue wanted a discussion and we are pleased to have a palace here today.

let me introduce them more at length. geroge gastcocon has had a long career in law enforcement, and he works for decades in the l.a. police department, serving as the director of the office of operations in charge of patrol and detectives and special operations. he is considered to be an expert in matters of police accountability. john thompson spent 14 years on death row, and after his verdict was set aside he was then facing life in prison. he was fighting for a retrial that took place four years later. he was exonerated by a jury in

less than 30 minutes that found him not guilty when he got his retrial, and it was largely the result of the police department not turning over what would have been -- evidence in his first trial. the united states supreme court reversed the verdict of the jury in this decision. he has found an organization called resurrection after exoneration to help other people seek justice in their respective cases. to his left -- this is the executive director of california death penalty focus, where she works to abolish the death penalty. she did preside as the warden

over several executions. natasha is the death penalty policy director for the american civil liberties union of northern california. she previously worked as a deputy public defender in alameda county, and was a staff attorney with the california task force on criminal instructions. she is also working on the effort to abolish the death penalty in california and pursuing the goal of reforming capital sentencing procedure. before we start with the first question, we have a short video. i have been told that this is a video from the former warden of the mississippi prison.

>> it is clear that the execution will take place and something happens. they may not come out and say that they did this, but they will tell the victim -- i am sorry. and then they say, i did this. and i leaned down to whisper in his ear, and i thought i could reach them because i wanted to make certain that he is at peace with themselves. i said it is not important for you to confess to this crime and is not important for anyone in this room. the only thing that is important is that you let your god know the truth. and he looked at me and he said -- i am at peace with my god.

how will you be with yours? >> do you think that he did this? >> i do not know. >> this is terrible. >> the former governor has come to the conclusion that this boy was probably innocent. we are good friends and have remained so, and the one thing we talk about when we get together -- let's hope that he

was guilty because the idea that he signed the warrant and i signed the execution on an innocent kid is something i would not want to have to deal with. >> it told us there was some kind of test -- what will i do? >> he said this? they tried this out? >> they just told me this morning that they would kill me.

[unintelligible] >> more implications for my personal religious background. i remember when i executed him, when i left that night to go to the press conference, my wife wa