When should life sentences be overturned? Judge shares how he decides

Episode Notes

Transcript

Lee Rawles:

Welcome to the Modern Law Library. I’m the A BA Journal’s Lee Rawles, and today I’m joined by Judge Frederic Block, author of the book, A Second Chance a Federal Judge Decides Who Deserves It. Judge Block, thank you so much for joining us.

Judge Frederic Block:

It’s nice to be here again. Lee, I haven’t seen you for a long time.

Lee Rawles:

It has been a long time, long time. Listeners may know that Judge Block has been on two previous episodes, which I will link to in our show notes if you want to go back and hear them. I mentioned to you when we were off the air Judge that this to me feels like a trilogy. The first time you and I spoke was in 2012. It was about a memoir you wrote called Disrobed. Then you wrote a book, crime and Punishment that talked about the process of sentencing and how you decide sentencing. And with this book, you are basically taking another look at sentences that have been handed down and deciding whether or not the court should grant mercy. So I would love to hear what pushed you to write this and how did this project begin?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well Lee, you know it’s interesting. I wrote my first book, as you know, when I was 78 years of age. And don’t ask me what motivated me to do that, but it happened and then you and I became like good buddies over the years and here we are 12 years later and you still can’t get rid of Judge Block. I’m like haunting you for the rest of your life. I hope I’ll be able to write another book when I’m a hundred years old and we’ll be able to have another chat like this. I’m looking forward to that. Stay. Well, I’m going to do my best to be there and I hope to see you there at that time. In the meantime, what has happened is that Congress in 2018 created this incredible piece of bipartisan legislation called The First Step Act and you know all about it and it has changed the sentencing landscape in the United States of America.

Lee Rawles:

And I do know all about it. But for our listeners, what did it change?

Judge Frederic Block:

So we were sorely in need of significant reform legislation in the criminal justice system basically because we have in our country this enormous mass incarceration problem, we have 4% of the world’s population and 22% of its prisoners and Congress, both conservative Republican, Democrat right across the aisle, they all recognized that something had to be done to deal with our mass incarceration problem. So that was the reason why they enacted this incredible bipartisan piece of legislation at a time when Congress was not doing a lot of bipartisan legislation and it really, we got 87 senators voted for it, I think 350 Congress people voted for it. And out of that came this dynamic change in the sentencing laws and in the reforms that were so necessary in order to deal with this inappropriate mass incarceration problem we have, which is an international embarrassment to the United States of America.

In that statute, which contained many provisions dealing with things that had to be corrected like our drug laws were antiquated, the crack cocaine guidelines were antiquated and mandatory minimums had to be adjusted. And there’s so many things that had to be done to be able to effectively engage in rehabilitation for those people who were in prison. So they had a meaningful opportunity when they got out of jail to live law, ab bodying lives in that statute. There was a provision which then gave district court sentencing judges such as myself, the discretion, the obligation actually to revisit previously imposed sentences and to accept the application by those who are incarcerated who were asking us to take a look at their original sentences and see whether or not they should be recalibrated for a number of reasons. And as a result of that, we now have these motions Every day in the federal courts they call compassionate release motions and the prisoners are asking the district court judges to recalibrate their previously imposed sentences and where appropriate to reduce them and even let them out of jail.

So we now have had a slew of these motions throughout the United States of America. And to date me and my colleagues have granted relief in over 5,000 cases and reduce prison sentences and even let people out of jail. So I got a lot of these applications and I was really struck by the fact that they were compelling. The first one I got, which is the first chapter of my book, was the one dealing with Abna Louima. Now, I think a lot of people remember that horrific situation in the late nineties when this police officer shoved the broomstick up the rectum of ab louima, an innocent Haitian and caused a, I guess at that time it was the most violent type of activity on the part of a police officer. And he was convicted and sent to jail for 30 years. His name was Justin Volpe, and 22 years later he made this application and I got the case and he asked me to let him out of jail because of the second, well, because of the First Step Act and the fact that he was entitled to have his sentence reconsidered. So that and plus other cases I got gave me the idea that there was a book to be written here called Second Chance. These people were asking for second chances and the judges were required to take second looks at what they had previously done. So this legislation was truly unique and that spawned really everything we’re talking about now in terms of second chances.

Lee Rawles:

And what I appreciated about the book, a Second chance is I think people like to talk in a high level about mass incarceration, the need for s resentencing, but then when it comes to individual cases, oftentimes they realize, oh, this isn’t super simple. No matter what side of the aisle you may come down on, whether you think no, everyone needs to serve every minute of the time they were sentenced to or you could be a prison abolitionist. And by putting a human face on many of these cases you were asked to consider, I think that you really helped the reader think through on an individual level, oh yeah, this is complicated. This person did great harm or this person did great harm, but look at these other circumstances that influenced this case. So just for listeners who are thinking about whether to pick up a second chance, you picked out essentially four groups of cases, three are individuals and then there’s what you call the mafia cases. And there are three defendants in there that you have to consider individually whether or not they deserve this second chance with the First Step Act. How did you narrow down who you were going to talk about?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well, I’ve had many of these applications, but the ones I picked out for the book, I picked six out and I told the stories. And the first part of the book we talk about like ab louima and the situation with the broomstick, and we talk about all of that and how he was sentenced to court for 30 years and then I picked out five others, which I thought were representative of the types of cases we are dealing with. Look, the problem basically Lee, is that the public emotionally reacts when they hear about the law, when they hear about sentences, do the crime, do the time, and they turn off their reasoning process, they turn over their intellectual part of their minds and they just emotionally react to it. That’s especially so when you’re dealing with crimes involving the word sex, anything dealing with sexual crimes, whatever they may be, pornography cases, we have mandatory minimums.

The public really doesn’t want to get into it. It’s such an emotionally reactive type of response that we have that we really don’t stop to think about the size of our prison population, who these people are, how long they should be in jail. The problem we have as judges, it’s not a question of whether somebody should be sent to jail, how long? One year, 10 years for life, six months. So the statute that we now have gives us the opportunity to rethink what we have done in terms of sentencing people and to give the public the opportunity to say, wait a second, this is not just an emotional type of thing. We got to really think about this. Why do we have this huge mass incarceration problem? Why do we have these enormous sentences we’re handing out? Why is that we’re not dealing with rehabilitation in an effective way? Why is it that we have a high recidivist rate? Because when people get out of jail, we have laws that don’t allow them to work, they don’t allow them to vote, they don’t allow them to get public housing and they become recidivists. We have to deal with this in an intelligent way. Many other countries do it, we don’t do it. We seem to stick our head in the sand and everything’s an emotional soundbite these days, and that’s just not the way in which to deal with our criminal justice system.

Lee Rawles:

Speaking to that, you and I are talking to each other on January 6th and before Christmas, president Joe Biden pardoned many people and commuted many sentences that sent a lot of nonviolent prisoners home essentially it seems like he took into account, okay, these are nonviolent crimes and commuted sentences, and that was an ask that had been made to him by the A CLU by other groups. But people seemed taken aback when they realized, oh, but that also covers this case. It covers a judge who was involved in the Cash for Kids scandal. Well, I didn’t mean that. And I do think that your book is instructive in making people see, yeah, you aren’t going to erase what someone has done. You need to consider that in order to solve the mass incarceration problem. There are going to be things that make us highly reactive, highly emotional, and it still may be the right thing to do even if it doesn’t necessarily feel right. How do you deal with that on a personal level or when you’re explaining your reasoning behind the second chance decisions you’re making under the First Step Act?

Judge Frederic Block:

So we have a whole range of options at our disposal to deal with those who are incarcerated. What we do now in the federal system, it doesn’t apply to the states. I want to talk about that. It’s only the federal prisoners we’re talking about, which is only about 10% of our prison population. And the total prison population is about 2 million people in jail and about 200,000 of those are in federal facilities. So 90% are in the states. So what we’re talking about now is only the power that federal court judges have to reconsider a previously opposed sentence. Now, when we do this, we are careful to really look at whether or not somebody’s been rehabilitated, whether there’s a real basis, whether the laws have been changed, whether there’s disproportionate sentencing between people who are similarly situated. The judges are trained to make reason rational decisions.

Those people who have been given relief under the First Step Act, they’re older people, they’ve been in jail for many years, there’s no threat of recidivism. In fact, those who have been released, I don’t think there’s been any recidivism. On the other hand, you have this presidential pardon concept, which the president can do no wrong. He can let anybody out of jail for any reason whatsoever. The public has seen that play out and they’ll see it again big time. I’m sure every president engages in that clemency process. We have a structured clemency process which has something to be said for, and then again, the president, any president can for whatever reason, pardon somebody. And a lot of those things are fraught with peril that politically based and not based upon reason or common sense, there’s no correlation between these decisions and anything that makes rational sense under criminal sentencing concepts.

So the public has to look at parole systems, clemency systems, presidential pardon systems, and now we have a rational set of laws call the Second Chance Act we have now. And the federal courts are really doing this in a responsible way. And that’s why it’s so important to have this book read and to have the public realize that it’s not a technical legal book, it’s for the public to understand why it is we have this mass incarceration problem, what we can do to deal with things intelligently and not emotionally. Now obviously I can go on and on and on, but I’ve tried to husband my energies because I want to hear more questions from you so I can be more responsive

Lee Rawles:

And you absolutely will. But we’re going to take a quick break to hear from our advertisers. Welcome back to the Modern Law Library. I’m your host Lee Rawles here with Judge Frederic Block author of a Second Chance a federal judge decides Who deserves it. So Judge Block, one of the most pressing questions I had while reading this was about the conversations you have with your colleagues in the judiciary. I mean, we saw that this is not change coming from within the legal system. This had to take place as an act of legislation. We have the balance of powers. But when you talk to your fellow judges, what have been the viewpoints you’ve heard when it comes to re-sentencing? Is there a broad-based approval? Do you find a lot of controversy when you have these conversations? What are you guys talking about amongst yourselves?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well, the whole concept of judges revisiting a previously post sentence is controversial. Many of my colleagues just haven’t really grasped the importance of really doing this, and they are very conservative in terms of their decision making. If somebody is dying in jail or there’s something of that nature which really jumps out of the pages, they’ll grant some relief, but they really pretty much are not doing it perhaps like I am doing it. And there’s also a lot of differences of thoughts and opinions throughout the United States of America. In our court, we’re governed by the Second Circuit. They have written language that suggests that we should give this a liberal or broad reach. There are other circuits which said, no, it should be constrict applied only through those people who are sick or dying and not through people who have engaged in affected rehabilitation. So there is this real dichotomy of opinions throughout the country as to how the Second Chance Act should be interpreted.

It may wind up that the Supreme Court may take a shot at this to really give us a better guidance as to what the parameters of our discretion ought to be. But right now where I am in the EDNY in Brooklyn and in the Second Circuit, we have a fair amount of discretion to do what we think is the right thing and the fair thing, most of what we do is based upon whether or not the prisoner has engaged in meaningful rehabilitation. If a person’s a bad actor during their period of incarceration, I’m not going to let them out of jail. But the ones that I have let out of jail, and I’m not going to tell you what they are, it’s in the book, are those that have engaged in effective rehabilitation. It truly do merit to having a second chance of living a law body life.

Lee Rawles:

One thing I appreciated about you selecting the mafia cases to look at was it acknowledged that in many cases, crimes are not just one person committed an act. It’s a network of people. It was a group of people who engaged in crime. Everyone may have had a different role and everyone may have responded in a different way to being in a correctional facility. And so you look at three gentlemen who are all, well gentlemen who are all involved in the mafia cases, and I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say, I won’t say who was let out, who wasn’t, but not everyone received the same decision from you. I appreciated that you use that as an example because I think it’s sometimes easy to just see the one tree and not a little bit more of the forest. So when you have a situation where multiple people were involved in essentially a criminal act or one criminal conspiracy, you do look at their individual actions. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well, we do, and it’s important to realize that when the reader reads this book, they’re going to realize that it’s not a simple A, B, C type of thing. When you look at somebody who’s in jail for life because they to trial and because they lost, they were sentenced in an extreme fashion compared to people who were much more culp when they who worked at plea deals and have been out of jail for 10 or 15 years, it makes you scratch your chin and say, wait a second. Something is not right about this. But the cases dealing with the mafia are great stories of course, but they also shake out differently. And we talk about the nature of the crimes that they were convicted of and some of them involved murders, but they were sort of revenge murders. They weren’t the type of things that we had in New Orleans just this last weekend.

And we have different dynamics with all these people and we take a look at them individually, we make separate decisions. A lot of them really want to get out of jail to die at home. They’re all sick, they’re demented. Look, we have people sitting in prison cells in hospital wards who don’t even know their names anymore, but we pay a fortune to keep them housed in these facilities where they can just die at home. And these are things which we talk about. The whole idea of the book is to get the public that cares, that really does want to not just have a knee jerk emotional reaction to what we talk about, to think about the real practical problems we have in our criminal justice system, and to recognize that not one shoe fits all. And you have to look at each person as an individual.

And if somebody is in jail for a long, long time and they are rehabilitative themselves and they become leaders and the warden says, this person should not be in jail anymore or this person is sick of dying, you have to pay attention to that. The beauty of the First Step Act is that it gives federal court judges the opportunity and indeed the responsibility to revisit these sentences and look upon people as human beings, not necessarily they’d be committed a crime and therefore they stay in jail for the rest of their lives. And I think that it’s an intelligent way of dealing with a mass incarceration problem. It’s effective, it’s a step in the right direction. The problem is, we write about in the book Lee, as you know, is that it only applies to the federal prisoners. So 90% of those in jail come through the states. And the states have to also really, I think, enact their own equivalent First step acts to give the state judges the opportunity to take a look at those people who are in state incarceration, who may deserve a second chance as well.

Lee Rawles:

And that’s what I really want to focus on next because as you said, the First Step Act that was passed in 2018, it was bipartisan, the A a certainly supported it and it was great for the some 200,000 people that it applies to currently in federal prison. So the state level, let’s say the states being the laboratories of democracy, I am in a state where I feel like my could be persuaded that this is something that we need to do on a state level to address mass incarceration. What would you be suggesting if I am a normal citizen, maybe I am a lawyer, maybe I have a position as a legal professional or maybe I don’t. How would you suggest people begin advocating within their own states?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well, New York State’s a good example. I just recently participated in a program at a law school in New York State where they’re actively supporting the enactment of a piece of legislation that’s been pending for a couple of years in the state of New York called the Second Look Act. And it does basically what the federal law does as well, and it’s supported by the A BA, it’s supported by the New York Criminal Justice world and it ought to be enacted and it will do this. And there are other states that have taken some small steps in that direction. DC Columbia has a law to this effect. Pennsylvania has something on the books. There are few out there, but all those state legislatures ought to get their act together and do what I hope New York State’s going to be doing in this next legislative session pass what they call the Second Look Act or their Own First Step Act.

It’s necessary to do this. There are people sitting in jail, in state prisons who don’t belong there anymore and they have no remedy, no access to get to a judge and say, Judge, please take a look. Take a second look at my situation and it just cries out for reform. And this is what I’m trying to do with my book, and I think my book has a lot of relevancy, it has a lot of cogency to it. It’s getting a lot of attention. The states are starting to look at this type of thing and I am hopeful that when we have the podcast like what we’re doing right now, it will serve as a stimulus for more of this type of sentence reform, which is so painfully needed. Those who read my book I think will go away saying, judge Block is right. I’m glad I read this book. I never thought about these things before. But if we’re going to be responsible citizens, we have to really take a look at our criminal justice system because it’s in sore need of reform.

Lee Rawles:

We’re going to take another break to hear from our advertisers when we return. I’ll still be speaking with Judge Block about a second chance. Welcome back to the Modern Law Library. I’m here with Judge Block now. Judge, one of the things I’ve very much appreciated was actually what’s kind of a coda to your book, which is when you bring up collateral consequences, now a second chance is mostly about do we continue to incarcerate this person? And obviously that’s something that we as a society need to decide how serious are we about keeping people in incarceration? But what many people who have not interacted with the criminal justice system don’t understand is this series of collateral consequences after you have been released from prison. And you mentioned earlier you think that it contributes to the recidivism rate. So I’d love to hear from you about where you think we need to be educating people about collateral consequences and how we can be ameliorating this problem.

Judge Frederic Block:

So I read Michelle Alexander’s book a few years ago, and the public may know about that book. It really became very, very successful and it was called The New Jim Crow. And the whole thesis of Professor Alexander was that it doesn’t matter whether you’re in jail or out of jail, and basically it’s a minority population that’s really victimized by most of this. They’re still basically effectively incarcerated because they can’t vote, they can’t get housing, they can’t get food stamps. They have to be subject to a host of these sort of ghost-like statutes that the states have enacted, which restrict people’s abilities to effectively rehabilitate. Look, if you don’t have a job and if you can’t get a job, you are really a candidate for recidivism. The recidivism rate for those who have no employment I think is 80%. If you have a job, if you have hope, it’s 20%.

But if you’re going to put roadblocks in the path of people once they do their jail time and they’re trying to readjust the society and not give them an opportunity to do that, you’re going to increase the recidivist rate. I was shocked when I read Professor Alexander’s book to learn about the collateral consequences that the states and the federal government attach to people once they’re released from incarceration, a thousand statewide, believe it or not, and hundreds on the federal level employment for example, you can’t ride, you can’t drive, you can’t do this. They have thousands of these so-called statutes that the states enact. That place continued burdens upon a person’s ability to effectively rehabilitate themselves once they’re out of jail. So we write about that and it’s the type of thing which I have applied in my decisions as well where I sentence people to not periods of incarceration because of the collateral consequences they suffer.

Somebody wanted to be a school teacher, they can’t get a certificate anymore, somebody wanted to get food stamps, they couldn’t get food stamps anymore, they can’t get employment anymore. We have these burdens that are attached to people who are meaningfully trying to rehabilitate themselves and we don’t allow them to do that. Other countries take a whole different view of it, but in our country we’re punitive and we keep people effectively incarcerated even when they’re not incarcerated. So we write about that in the book and I think that’s an intention getter. The interesting thing about it is that I got support from the most conservative organizations. The Heritage Society agrees with this. This is not a question of liberal or Democrat or Republican or conservative, it’s a question of just intelligent common sense in terms of how we manage our criminal justice system.

Lee Rawles:

Well, and the problem was not created by a single political branch either. I remember when being tough on crime was a way that Democratic politicians attempted to build support. And so if everyone contributed to the problem, everyone needs to help solve the problem. So far we really have been addressing a more broad section of citizens in the public. I’d like to dial in a little bit because I know that many, if not most of my listeners are lawyers and I want to call out specifically. You mentioned in here the different experiences between prisoners who appealed to be reconsidered under the First Step Act, who had representation or counsel and those who did not. So if you’re a lawyer out there listening, are there opportunities for pro bono or work in this area to represent prisoners to help them have their sentences reconsidered under the First Step Act?

Judge Frederic Block:

So Lee, I’ve been speaking to a broad range of groups of lawyers and I talk about this because those who are in jail who want to make applications under the First Step Act are not entitled to legal counsel such as you are of course when you’re charged with a crime. So the difference is enormous and when you’re represented by counsel in these matters, the counsel, the lawyers know what to do, they understand how to make it a proper application to the courts. So it’s so terribly important for these folks to have counsel. I have the right and the power to assign a lawyer pro bono to represent somebody, but I don’t do it willy-nilly when I have done it, it’s made an enormous difference. So theBar now is aware of the fact that yes, the lawyer should take a look at those people who they represented who are sitting in jail who may be entitled to a second chance, but who may not know about it.

I think it’s basically almost a moral responsibility on lawyers who have represented people who are incarcerated now to take a harsh look at whether or not they ought to really be a candidate to make an application to Judge Block and to district court judges throughout the country to give them an opportunity now to avail themselves to this new statute. Lawyers are beginning to do that, but most of them just really don’t really sort of step up to theBar to do that. But I think that every lawyer out there who has a client who’s incarcerated for a long period of time ought to take a look at whether or not there may be a basis to make an application to give this person a chance at freedom. They should of course start off by reading Judge Block’s book and they should contact their clients and check out how they’re doing. It’s a very, very important part I think, of legal responsibility. Just like when somebody is sentenced to jail, I think a lawyer has a responsibility to make sure that they’re properly sent to a proper facility. And there’s a whole range of things that lawyers do right now in terms of effectively representing their client’s post-conviction. This is another one of those areas and it’s a fertile ground and I think it’s morally necessary for lawyers to take a second look at their clients.

Lee Rawles:

And this is an ask that we’re making of criminal defense attorneys, but let’s switch it up a little bit and talk about the prosecutors. Obviously everyone is very busy, certainly no one that I know who is a practicing attorney is sitting around twiddling their thumbs, but do you see the prosecution having any moral responsibilities? Let’s say we are in a new year, 2025, there are going to be new people stepping into roles as prosecutors around the country soon. Do you think offices that have prosecuted people also need to be doing some of these reviews?

Judge Frederic Block:

Look, I think they do have a responsibility. I think that prosecutors really have an overarching responsibility to do justice and not to just secure convictions at any price. I think the federal prosecutors I know in the EDNY, they’re pretty savvy. They take that responsibility seriously, and I do think that they should take a hard look at this as well. Will they do it? I doubt it. I think that the incentive has to come from the criminal defense bar. But yes, I think they have a moral responsibility if they know they prosecuted somebody and they should not be sitting in jail now, they should not be dying in jail now. They rehabilitated themselves that the laws have been changed. A lot of these decisions which we render are predicated upon the fact about profound changes in the law. The three strikes in your out has changed significantly and the cocaine and the drug charges have changed and the sex crimes have changed.

So you got to look at this type of stuff and if there are significant changes in the law and those people would not be sitting in jail today, that’s real fertile meat for making application to the district court to let their clients out of jail. I do think there’s a moral responsibility that prosecutors have, and I think it’s an important subject for people to talk about. I hope my book will sort of kick off the ball a little bit, and I think I may be ahead of the curve, but I think it’s important that we really understand that we have to take a second look to see whether people are entitled to a second chance

Lee Rawles:

When it comes to taking second looks. You have been a judge for decades now. You’re now a senior US district judge at the Eastern District of New York. Do you feel exactly the same now about all of these sentencing difficulties and incarceration as you did when you first started out your career? Or have you gone on a journey to, did you take a second look at what all of these sentences that you are perhaps handing down were doing?

Judge Frederic Block:

So you made no Lee that after the book was written, maybe the most profound sentence that I reconsidered was the Walter Johnson case. It’s gotten an enormous amount press that New York Times had a whole big page on it. Adam Liptak wrote about it just last week. I was on Morning Joe with this person let out of jail. And it really is representative of the fact that judges do change. A judge who’s there for the first year or two is not the same judge as I am 30 years later. And in the decision I wrote where I let Walter Johnson out of jail, I wrote that I sentenced him 28 years ago when I was on the bench for one to two years to five lifetime sentences of imprisonment. And it was basically because of the fact that he was a victim of the three strikes and your outlaw, and it was mandatory incarceration for life.

That’s changed today. He would not have been sentenced the same way today. Then over the years I realized that I’m not the same person either. And in that decision where I let him out of jail and he was there to die in jail and now he’s 61 years of age and he’s a free man, I talk about judicial maturation. So judges throughout the years really evolve also. And I think that if you’re sentenced by a judge who’s been out there for one year as compared to somebody who’s out there for 30 years, it may not be the same sentence. There are different sensitivities, there are different awarenesses, life experiences are different, the law changes. So I think judges have a responsibility to really engage what I call judicial maturation. I think I did that with the Walter Johnson case, and I think that all judges have to take a harsh look at where they are at in the course of their careers.

New judges are generally going to be a little bit harsher in sentencing because they’re a little bit more concerned about being reversed. They’re a little bit more worried about whether they can pass the bad smell test when you are 30 years on the bench, you don’t think that way anymore. You’re not motivated by what the second court of appeals may do, what your colleagues may think, what the newspapers may think. And I think you’re freed up emotionally and intellectually to really feel that you’re in a better position now to do the right thing. And I think that for sure judges do change during the course of the years as prisoners do as well.

Lee Rawles:

Well Judge Black, thank you so much for coming on to talk about a second chance. You mentioned that you think you’re kind of on the crest of a wave here, that there’s more coming. Is there more coming from you? Could you tell us where people might hear more from you, find out more or pick up a second chance?

Judge Frederic Block:

Well, this thing is taken root and last week I think I mentioned I was on Morning Joe and Walter Johnson was on as well. CBS is going to be doing a big interview with me and him as well. C-Span contacted me, I did an hour interview with them. They’re going to be playing it I think, well on the 12th, January 12th at eight o’clock Sunday night. They’re putting it on prime time. And so if anybody is interested, they can hear Judge Block ramble on a little more so on C-span this coming Sunday. And it’s important I think, just for people to be a little bit sensitive and sensitized to our criminal justice system such as it is, and to resist the temptation of just being mindless about it. And we really are all challenged with the media and soundbites these days, but that really doesn’t smack with doing effective justice, which is what I think of responsibility of the judges and all of this.

Lee Rawles:

Well, thank you again, Judge Block and thank you to you, my listeners, for joining us for this episode of the Modern Law Library. If you have read a book that you think we should discuss in an upcoming episode, you can always write me about it at books at ABA Journal dot com. And if you enjoyed this episode, please rate review and subscribe in your favorite podcast listening service.