diverse the here in new york what often is misunderstood or at least not very well explained in america is the constitutional roots of police and  country's criminal justice system ultimately in a representative democracy the constitution recognizes that the state gets its power from the will of the people it's supposed to be a government of the people by the people and for the people the police prosecutors court systems prison systems the entire criminal justice system all are expected to reflect and represent the will and the to the people it constitutional restraints on the police or fewer are few regulations of police power remains fairly minimal prosecutors in new york do not have a legal obligation to turn over in a timely fashion  police reports witness names d n a evidence surveillance footage or anything else from their investigative files the one nine hundred sixty three supreme court decision found that prosecutors have a constitutional duty to turn over anything significant that may exonerate a defendant that ruling has not been consistently in force because prosecutors who flout the rule are rarely punished at the same time the country spends one hundred billion dollars annually on policing and another one hundred billion in cost three people law in order incarceration the re entry industry the courts criminal justice academies like john j college the criminal justice world with all its media and political influences in the stores and has become a huge cash cow that world has become central to millions of people's lives and jobs who work study teach in it are controlled by it get elected to it and are appointed are profit from it police offices the united states shoot and kill hundreds of people each year far more than any other developed country like the u k japan and germany where police officers might go entire year without killing more than a dozen people are even anyone at all deadly police encounters have drawn increased criticism over the past few years as cops have shot and killed and maimed or otherwise innocent black men and boys on a per capita basis black males in their late teens are killed at a rate twenty one times greater than that of their white peers yet it's rare for these cases to get resolved with significant punishment for the officers involved criminal justice reform is beginning to grapple with the lax legal standards and racial disparities true criminal justice reform needs to take power back from the racism political demonization and fear mongering that's taken over much of the dialogue it's a distraction that allows a rich and powerful to control the narrative and crime as they've done for decades on the radical imagination today will be discussing a first of its kind bill in new york that was set up an agency called the department of civilian justice it would have oversight powers over all state police departments district attorney's office and the department of corrections statewide would have subpoena powers and the ability to hold and ministry of hearings as well as the ability to suspend or fire anyone found guilty of corruption regardless of their position for the first time it will provide ordinary citizens the capability to report corruption in da's offices police departments and the department of corrections and will have investigators and judges who are not affiliated with any of the stated agencies to ensure fair impartial investigations and hearings in the public interest it also allows police officers to report police corruption without fear of retaliation and ensure that  investigations are conducted now reforms mean different things to different people even with the best of intentions reforms can often mean a tinkering and shuffling of policies or a change in language or tone that still fundamentally leaves the problem intact and structural issues and chains the same people are still being controlled by the same system in different supposedly more benign ways of the would be advocates of reforms have incentives more rooted in economic profit the agenda of the koch brothers and other corporate dark money groups in their attempts to privatized prisons drug rehab parole and other reentry programs use the facade of reform to maintain control over that same disenfranchised population the department of civilian justice bill is the radical reform that does address the fundamentals of power differentials and structures that have been behind what more and more people have come to see as the blatant injustices of our justice system as cornel west would put it don't allow your investigator who's leading the fight for a new department of civilian justice in new york and connecticut it will be introduced as bills in a matter of days in both states and the hope is that a bentley all fifty states will have similar legislation he's prominently portrayed in the award winning documentary crime and punishment now up for the cademy award will be the subject of a front page new york times magazine article at the end of this month and is shaking up the criminal justice legislative world like it hasn't been since the early one nine hundred seventy s and the days of the crusading n y p d police officer frank serco serco advocated a similar bil then and is a strong supporter of this bill today we have a radical measure committed to seeing a department of civilian justice exists in every state of the union and will be in the struggle with many until it happens our guest has become a clear friend and a very dear one a comrade who i've grown to deeply respect and mire he's the real deal welcome again yes again thank you wonderful so please all help me be most misunderstood your favorite show now i don't favorite song yeah now i was it related well so the work you're doing well because in the when i started the business i was not encountering all these cases stay wide of corruption and people think question i think the police department robin experiencing corruption within the district attorney's office  far in the past five years i have freed ninety nine people ok and i haven't lost a case yet and all these cases i've found police corruption corruption with the department of corrections or corruption within the district attorney's office started uncovering all types of corruption but what i call the untouchables and the untouchables are the prosecutors and the reason why i call them that is right now you know in the united states only one state has a law called for prosecutorial misconduct which means of a prosecutor does something illegal or lies in court this law will punish them and investigate them for doing that what state is it to serve this new york only in new york  state district attorney's office they would sort of he has now stopped and put a pause on that law and that law was a law just recently voted into law this past december signed by the governor of new york state passed by the state legislature when i was passed by the senate and as an analyst and a governor signed it into law in a two thousand and eighteen right they stopped it now in january and the reason why the reason is because this district attorney david source is representing all the district attorneys to our new york state and he stopped it so that there's no oversight over the district attorneys this law was going to be able to put a mechanism of oversight which would punish them for being corrupt would fire them would get him arrested make it a crime to lie in court which it already is a crime the problem is that the prosecutors have immunity this state and then the governor agreed to a settlement to not let it go forward i see that so that's where we're at this point so it stopped so that lawyer that was going to oversee prosecutors for lying in court or hiding evidence or and in our new york state law that cannot be done it has to be appointed by the governor so this loop or made them start the bell stopped law so now that the prosecutors take a line in court keeping force the arrested and governor is going along with this he had to have no choice with the settlement and he could afford it out but nothing's happened so for now we have coming forward this new piece of legislation right which i wrote which called the partner civil and justice and frank form anything or what they did was they fired some bad cops and bad people right in the system still going that's right that's what we're seeing in the interim the structure i mean just saying the problem is still there are different words and so on so now you've come to the fore so after these five years of is now sitting the new york times for me in the times and it will be in a new york times magazine on january twenty seventh this january twentieth right so the twenty first now it will the show will be aired on the twentieth it will be publicly announced on the become part of our audience and i was going to be interested in this or i want to more to come i mean that's the whole thing there's got to be a movement there's got to be a grassroots movement because you're you're you're really fighting an incredibly powerful forces aren't you well yeah court if you lie in court that's perjury but if a district attorney does it they get immunity this is the problem we have so many cases right now the innocence project has freed two hundred twenty that's right where the prosecutors hid the evidence for so far the evidence or they lied about the evidence and this is what i have encountered in my case and actually learned in my ninety nine cases seventy four of a defense against whatever evidence they have they way to the last minute turn over the evidence so they'll have this whole fall on you and then you get two days before trial to go through it is and when you were also interested in exploring punishment came around and it showed the work i've done it's gone nationwide right i've been getting calls jane from all around the united states for similar cases and it's and i realized that there was a big big national and this is what i have now reached out to the department of civil injustice a standard in every state not a federal agency but a state is where simple person can report corruption without fear retaliation where the poor mom or the poor father can go in there and say listen this prosecutor lied in court and this was going on or that this police officer lied and then get an independent investigator who will look into it and if they find that the mother or father of this innocent victim is correct then they can hold a hearing and fire them and not only that this can be initiated by ordinary everyday people and so how does a little how the mechanism would work how the structure would be set up in the bill here how  campaign and outreach campaign to notify the public of what this agency is there for to do so that every citizen in the state will know they have a place to go get justice it's going to change the very fabric of our judicial system it's actually a real horse absolutely right and then not only that want to give the regular person the ability report corruption but it's going to give the cop the police themselves and this is the  ability for cop to report corruption without fear retaliation and to get a hearing fairly this agency would do because as he put it it in ninety percent of the cops are honest they see what's happening  along to get along you have to go along ok and that's something i never did they want you to you knows go out there and throw those spanish guys up against the wall those black guys all white guys up against the wall without probable cause just to see what they hundred million a year and summonses nine million dollars yes and this is a lot of money which is being used to supplement our agencies and this you could turn his office the budget this is insanity this is just for the city yeah we're not supposed to be generating revenues or for use right and the showing the futures of our youth so obviously then this is coming from the mayor's office i mean these are the coefficients that are making up the budget so they're talking to the police chiefs and the union cheese and so on and this is this is their the little game that they're playing where they're very big game it's destroying lives and it's a lot of folks are given a perfect example  you member a gardener now the reason why he got stopped was because of the ticket quotas see the cops are being pressured to get a certain amount of tickets every month so when they do these tickets they're looking for people for anything and they're desperate and then if they don't get the ticket the twenty five tickets a month of thirty tickets a month pending a way you work but on average is twenty five i'm up then what happens is they get punished they get put on performance monitoring they get changed their that's the new quota performance object the objective is to get qualified six among the ok so that's the year and i can prove it do you want to quickly every precinct in new york turns in a summons beyond right this is a you know throwing people up against the wall who are coming out of a pizzeria for nothing or just walking on the street in your neighborhood or locking people up for criminal trespass in their own building you know this is the insanity and then somewhere you don't have any i and judges that have been working in the promise of injustice will have no affiliation with the police department or the district attorney's office or the department corrections these will be brand new investigators all human do is take the cream of the crop from n y u john jay harvard columbia and we're going to take them and turn them into investigators people who have not been biased by working with these other agencies so we can sure it fair and impartial hearing because you see something that's here in terms of taking the information that people are going to be bringing them and then they will be judges as well that yeah so the investigators find out that the allegation is correct you know you were targeted and you've been harassed and and violated and you've been now it will get referred to the trial section the administrative section and in now you will have a cop right and the the victim be there in front of a judge who will be able to hold a hearing to fire them ok and make sure that justice is finally served but not only to the car because it flips over and helps the cop as well the couple be able to report corruption against the question he sees within the police department more her or sexual harassment other devaluation what are your allegation and then their bosses who are committing this corruption now they'll get a fair hearing right now we have evidence showing police captains telling people i'm video showing telling people stop blacks from the age of eleven to twenty one and i'm talking about five ten years ago none of this is right now this we have there is actually some of the evidence is shown in the film crime and punishment and right yes anyone can see it and it's clear as day it's real right it's you know people say that biased this and racism and all this was in the sixty's and it's changed no it has not changed what is done is there it's the ground it's still there and this corruption is still there within the police to palm and every year the city the taxpayers of new york pay hundreds of millions of dollars just on these lawsuits and it's sa it's been done that's why i got tired and had tired of people calling me for help and i said you know what let me write this lives lation and then i went to frank supple and i say frank take a look at this and he goes kid you really think you can make a difference i said yeah and he goes to me i talked all around the whole world and all they did was pay me some money and fire a few bad people but the system never changed and i told frank you got two choices either with me or you with me and he laughed at me but it's going to give the people who work with them the corrections department within the district attorney's office within the police department to fire upon the ability to report corruption that we don't see that they see and to do a better and more honest job that's which is threatening the power of people who've been vested in that for years well i want to make this clear until i am not against the prosecutors i'm not against cops it's become myself what i am against is corruption ok and i don't care where it is it's in the street or if it's in the district attorney's office if it's in the mayor's office or the governor's office i'm against corruption nationwide and state wide this bill will provide that empowering them they'll have a place and it's going to strengthen our very fabric of our judicial system and our society as a second a fairer it's more decent it's the right thing to do well you know what it is you know how can we have as the constitution says the right to pursue life liberty and happiness how can you have life if you can't get justice how can you have liberty if people can take it away at them  and then not be held accountable for their mistakes or injustices how can you have happiness if your futures have been destroyed right now what you're seeing happening in our society because the description within our judicial system is  bill is that right now every district attorney's office statewide in new york state and nationwide keeps a sister called charge and how many convictions they get  and then they incentivize the prosecutors for the convictions so when we break that down what that means is that they keep a chart showing how many wins they have the prosecutors and then a reward to prosecutors for how many convictions they get so that's insanity what we should be rewarding is doing your job properly and just whatever that may be that is right and now they're not rewarding them for freeing the innocent  john and they'll say why didn't you get him to take a plea deal right there you go and that's the problem do you know right now in new york state that in any district attorney's office eighty five percent eighty five percent of their convictions are plea deals that means they're telling people who are innocent or some or some more innocent and they're saying take this deal or we're going to go have to give you fifteen years and then to let the guy walk out the door even though they know he's innocent  this is why they offer these plea deals because the case is so weak they know they're going to lose rather than letting this person go to court and say you know what you want to we don't believe he's guilty and i don't really have personally evidence or number mation they hide it right and association in albany there's also a special prosecutor and also a system that you turn one time upstate is upstate and he was representing a case as a prosecutor against a guy named h bos innocent of the charge of this was arson the charge of arson and insurance for ok and he was innocent he was in and they hid the evidence they hid the evidence and this man was incarcerated and then when found out that the prosecutor did this guess what happened so they wind up paying him over two hundred fifty thousand dollars as a settlement and he released them and cleared his name but this in this these crimes in there and now he's fighting for the for the bill to stop the law does not mean did continue he was successful he's put a pause on it it was shown in the daily news right so what do you think is going to happen what well i don't know if you know how i'm going with that because what i do know what's going to happen is governor has the governor you know they're talking in talks but the bottom line is what is your barefoot he said my gut tells me it's going to stay in limbo the way it is now indefinitely or watered down it's going to stay in limbo until somebody forgets about but again so we're working out and rhode island yes so what i'm doing is missouri yes st louis missouri and atlanta georgia as well georgia total right now the ones i have going to be first on it will be connecticut new york and now possibly are know by the end of this weekend jersey so that you have a quiet state bill covering a third of the east coast ok where people be able to go from state to state and can't justice and every capital states  justice and not only that but saw the palm the corrections we have so many prisoners being brutalized were cruel and unusual punishment so many cases of people being falsely was there's not one here that goes by that you know release twice in a paper proving them innocent right but even though they prove them innocent show the corruption nothing happens to the prosecutors that did the corruption and that's why i have a problem that's yes that i find a point you know nothing happens you know says project as one like i said o it is being circulated there you can look it up on the tube and so forth and it's very powerful you know it it talks about like i said about the prosecutors having evidence and all these stories of people who've been fifteen years sixteen years twenty years who are innocent people have to realize who these are political positions correct absolutely so they are a reflection of even larger more powerful forces actually exactly correct that's why i call them the on third suppose and it's been a hard pill people behind as well what's going on in missouri you said you've been out to st louis missouri there were develops and they were like the rodney king riots over there i mean it's bad and so i got called up tells our there was here they call me up to st louis before i have yeah and here but it was it was just humbling to get that call yeah asking me for help and then i says oh my god then i got calls malana georgia right now says my god so i had five states call me back to back asking me for help because of this film crime and punishment scene how i help people and all these innocent mothers call me for a nation so now inspired me like i said to write this legislation to push me before the night is a new york state law right right agency can be handled within the state taking care of its own business right so now also bringing in the media on this we're so happy and proud to have you here thank you we've been one of the first i guess to  but the fact is we can always say that it was already nominated a short list so i can say that forever right now so it's been a it's been one blessing right it's a sad film but it's a real film and i recommend everybody see it because it shows corruption currently within our system could produce films it's hulu it's a whole people can see it through crime plus punishment like the plus sign for us and you will see it you know and you'll you'll be moved and then you also see so you can't have a police department check itself punish itself monitor itself and correct that's not a proper system of checks and balances and that problem we also have in a district attorney's office there checking themselves m we went through a number of cases i would do clips on that but but so were the summers so so so again this is getting going this is steamrolling oh yeah into something that i think  people decent people of whatever background get get a sense that this is this is the right thing to do it is and you know what else i want to show i want to show that i'm not a lawyer when i am is a pissed off american citizen who sided to write the law and that's the beautiful thing about america the first amendment allows you to petition the government to collateralize we dress agreements and then we simple fly that means the ability for a person to write a bill to make a new law to correct injustice let's emphasize that this is basically happening call it story with you yet that's exactly right and this is hopefully going to be spread throughout the country  notice from are saying that yes she's in but the office is in love with it because it's simple it gives people a mechanism of justice we have to have oversight nobody is look there's not one american there bill disagree with me transparency that's exactly what all of it and no oversight so we have the widespread people getting away with anything we're trying to this will change that this will give oversight and transparency and like i said it gives that poor man a regular person poor rich middle class it doesn't matter black white jewish child in irish anyone spanish the ability to walk in and to get help right and before they would if they were unfortunate the fabric of our lives and it will be very natural and very well i want to do two things and i want to let people know that one as i said you can write the law that's the beauty of our government the first member lets it i went in there the lady said what about a stack of books about that high means and said read this i got thrown out of the library about twenty one times because i was the last guy always in the library so i had cause and they had a close they were like i could hide in the stacks they were there were like you got it you got to get out because i was always reading and it took me six months of reading and how to write a bill and guess what i was able to do it well and that's the beauty about america the people who wrote the constitution they went to harvard grads they were just americans this and i'm not going to take it any more screaming no justice no peace is not the solution shakespeare said it best the pen is mightier than the sword we need to write down o grievances make it into a bill and present it to our officials partitions hold them accountable because they we empower them we vote for them but some we want this law and that's what's been happening you know i've been able to do that and i want other people to be able to do that to know that that's the beauty about america we can have that ability to write i think is a very important point you're bringing up here this is this is part of our democracy this is what it justice agenda for profit for their own egos for their own careers this is what really america is going to give something to the world which it has and can continue to do this is about two years ago from meeting dearborn and i'm going to retire reserves i'm still in a military ok and i've had a great privilege of leading american soldiers which has been an honor for me as a commissioned officer and one of the things that i learned about my country america is the thing that makes it to one of the greatest countries in the world is that we have more laws than any country in the world to protect your rights we're the most litigious country in the world now we're not perfect we have a lot of things that need to that says legislation and you also see my current cases but you see legislation in the show you what i'm doing and i'll be putting notices up there to invite the public i want to invite a whole new york state to come i want to flood this room it seats five k and he's one of the most honest lawyers that i know in new york state i call him superman of lawyers he'll be there and in there be other victims of this policy but jr just going to end is another makes its way as you get the political pressure up there and people are out there it then weaves its way in the assembly in the state senate yeah well we're going to be doing is a joint hearing which would be from the state assembly code committee and then also  audience out there to spread the word and to do the good thing they leaving a legacy by putting this agency out thank you so much thank you so much it's another but we're going to see you again very soon we're going to have you on before mark thank you thank you so much very