Serial S03 - Ep. 2: You’ve Got Some Gauls
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These first two episodes of serial season three are free, but to hear the whole series, you'll need to subscribe to the new york times, where you'll get access to all the serial productions and new york times shows and is super easy. You can sign up through apple podcast or spotify. And if you're already a time subscriber, just link your account and you're done. Previously on cereal, you know, at first I was like, ha ha, no stab, but you don't have his audio. You don't hear the officer saying .

police break IT up doesn't matter.

like you will just be seen as an area tend now in this case, well, an you don't want to get a reputation for that.

As fine, but you still have to go through this.

From this american life and W B E Y, chicago, it's cereal one course told week by week. I'm sarana.

First thing I said to myself when I looked at the list of felony judges and kag account was holy how that's a lot of irish names. Well, truthfully, that was the second thing I said. First thing I said was, where are all the juice? Second thing, so many irish.

There's judge kordan another, judge kordan, judge holy gallagher, judge shane gallagher, judge Kelly gallagher, oni, judge shen, judge macan, judge mccorry, judge mcDonald, judge o. Donald and judge Donald. Second to the irish are the italians, namely ruo russia, russia and ruo. Judge john jay russo, judge Joseph russo, judge Michael russo and judge Nancy market rules at the analyst is judge seta and her cousin, judge the tulla. And finally, judge synth G, I know, sounds like my kind of judge, which is actually italian, married the the upshot in a course where the majority of the defendants is black out of the thirty four felony judges, thirty two, or wait two, our african american.

Early on in my reporting here, I was on the nineteen floor of the justice center, and I wandered in to the court room of judge Daniel goal just in time to hear him sentencing someone. Thing was, four years ago was about to get. I didn't record IT, but I took notes.

Your pathetic the general saying your pathetic dude my father had a saying, I shouldn't say this in court and i'm going to say that you're a bulls shit artist, your criminal and a liar and he views the system of all your life then the bullsh artist says, a judge gal, a liar, a cheat. That's not what I built my life on. Don't come in here and make these pretty speeches.

Judge goal says, you've got what's called the moral character flaw. The man says, i'm not going to let you down. I left the court room a little waged out.

I never heard a judge talk to a defendant quite like that, raw and brutal and confusingly ly intimate, as if these two men were locked in a personal argument rather than a legal one. The man up on the bench, tight and small, acting the enraged parent, the other chin up. But hammed trying to modify a judges job here when IT comes to sentencing is, broadly speaking, to punish the offender and protect the public.

There are sentencing guidelines, of course, spelled out in excitation detail, the ohio revised code to the guidelines is meant that sentencing was fairly mechanical. A certain kind of charge would produce a certain kind of sentence, plus remind is a little legally room in the margin to account for special circumstances or whatever else. But it's not like that county judges in ohio have a lot of ley in sentencing, a lot of discretion to interpret what punishment consists of what danger to the public.

Looks like the way, direction. That's power by another name. Today's episode, we're going to spend IT on one place in judge goal's courtroom, and we chose his room. We is our producer manual, joc and I, because, Frankly, it's sometimes thrilling in there.

The shock factor alone is worth the Price of admission, but also because his room, more than any we saw, laid bear, this prediction power the judges hold in the many ways they can wal that power to try to get what they want. A man, he was gona tell part of today's episode. He actually moved to clive in for us, went to justice center almost every day.

He'll be reporting some of the series. So you'll hear from him throughout. And hang on to your hat, america.

A manual went to high school and college in ohio, but he sounds like an englishman. Long story. Here's a annual. I spent about five months.

often on watching cases in jug's courtroom.

Thanks very much.

And so I can say with confidence .

that this is a typical day. I do. Why did you just pull over most of what's .

happening in just god's courtroom? In any courtroom are, please, and sentencing trials of the exception. So this one i'm starting with a sentencing for a nineteen year old i'm gna call to real is not unusual anyway to was caught driving a stolen car. He d LED the police in a chase he put guilty about a month earlier and now he was back in front of the goal for sentencing so let's .

back up for a second here. Please tell me who's in the court? Your mother in the fark point to the left? yes. hi. How are you today to .

his family is sitting back there, which is usually a good thing for the defender, is meant to telegraph of there are people .

who can keep the defendant in line, should he or SHE be released? Okay, hi.

are you just go greets to your sister and another sister and brother then turns back to to roll, starts to turn out a lecture. Anyone with Better behaved siblings said.

when you're not in jail, you live with those fine people. That too bad for their mission because you've been pretty much of a very good that you are two nice sisters and your nice brother. They all have these problems do that. But you bring brief to their dog, do you don't you tell me, judge gal .

looks at to ell's psi presidency investigation, which is details about to .

well's background. Is your father in the picture?

I see him to all says.

what does that mean?

They were .

divorce with five character. Does your father have a criminal?

Still says.

not that I know of as you went in. Ata is a decent guy. What you do for you, you. You know, well, he short of deserted you in the family are your brothers and sisters, four brothers and sisters or step sisters, four brothers and sisters in your parents divorce when you were five is accurate .

if you're hearing a sharp note of, I don't know, racial stereo ping and judges an assumption on the part of the judge that this black family is rudderless and unstable, but all these kids must be from different, possibly incarcerated fathers yeah.

i'm guessing .

to roll his IT too. I'm quite thick and he's attorney. Don't stand on his he's standing just behind toll at podium um in middle of the court room he's got one hand upper back to rose neck and the other firm on to her as though he is physically .

trying to stay here to all through this toil's mother .

says yes he wants him back plus SHE says to his son needs him right that was the .

other thing you married. Are you working now you that you're in the counter jet and you've been in the kind of you how long how long OK. So when I ask you if you're working, you don't working kind of you, you don't supports your check and you had a baby at what age?

Eighteen, was there a smart move that was also a bad decision? right? So just go this for bad .

decisions that LED to well to this moment. And he's not altogether wrong. A lot of bad decisions we play. Finally, judge goal sentences to run to four years of probation, not a turble outcome for him, considering judge goal could given him almost three years in prison. Judge goal explains for tempt wealth, probation period, drug testing, get a job and he tacked on one laws condition he tells her role, if he is another child out of that he can support, you will consider that a violation of his probation.

So thank you. Your mother talked about that.

Responsibility is responsibility.

The community, i'm that down with you having kids and dump in their present to grave and the shoulder is detected. I know some people don't think that politically correct, but that's my view. That's my view.

And if you demonstrate the responsibility to this court, I will send you to Better that you get a job. And believe me, you're gonna child support through the bureau. Support for every child you have doesn't .

say anything. It's a turney on standard. Thanks, judge goal. And scots is crying out. No one in the room points out.

But what judge goal is just threatened to do is on constitutional. He can't punish to roll for having a child, not legally. But this is the sort of thing judges does as the day continues. He put the same condition on two more defendants.

and to me, and knew that more kids out of what like that you get afford pay for on the institution.

as far as I know, just goes, never made good on this. He issues threads all the time. We're going to tap your cell phone.

We can test your hair followers for opiate. Right now it's all blur. The attack is know of that.

And what they also know is that as long as you don't piss them off, judge gal isn't an especially tough sentencing. All of the punishment he handed out on this day were reasonable for his building. He put people on probations mean, we could have sent to prison.

And the people he did sent to prison, he said he, you consider giving early release. So for the defendants in attorneys, the strange in judges court room is, enjoy whatever he loves at you, don't chAllenge him, don't trigger him, and you'll probably come out okay? That's what a defense attorney like john stanard is trying to convey by freezing to rail shoulders.

Just hold on. Don't say anything. We're almost fair.

Can you see me one second back in his office? Judge goals got souvenir from ireland. Lot of the judges have ireland stuff in their chAmbers.

He's also got one of those pottery things. Hi, there are lot of golf balls be found. I had a slip in fall case .

from your golf ball.

Judge goes at home here. He's nestled into the building along with the sons of other prominent cleveland ders on his floor, or two other judges whose father's were also county judges. Judge gaul's own father was a cleveland city council men, and later county judge.

Goal started out as a defense in civil attorney and then ran for judge in one thousand nine hundred ninety two. County judges are elected in ohio. He hasn't lost an election since there have been four of them.

He's known around here as a TV judge, controversially entertaining the way he talks, the way he reacts instantaneously to stimulate. It's why the cleveland doctor reporter sometimes parks himself in judge goal's room on a slow news day. A recent headline woman convicted in murder conspiracy calls judge racist, gets life sentence.

Here's another judge compares man accused of murder charge to lost vegas st. Shooter at sentencing. No, they were acquitted of murder in that one judge goal said that if the defendant had pulled on on him on judge gal, quote, I would have butted a cap you on, quote, the defense name was damage. O callahan, judge girl, said he remembered this guy from a previous case because, quote, he's got to italian first name and an irish last name and he's a brother. He'll often called black defendants brother and dude.

As you ve got a bit of an attitude.

emanuel told me that in eight months of watching his courtroom, the only black person he didn't hear, judge gal called brother or dude, was a manual. He uses terms like baby's mom and baby's daddy, which impossible for a White going to do without the whole room crying. He has no truck with political correctness.

He's up to use the term race card. If you throws IT down in his courtroom, he says he is not going to work. I eat woman called judge racist gets life sentence.

He'll worked the black life's matter movement into his college web as a pen I guess his black life didn't matter to you did IT, he'll say, has said more than once to a black defended regarding a black victim judge. God knows he's blunt, knows he's skirting, not equable, but I see crossing various lines constitutionally and socially. He says he's been called all the names sageness racist, but he says that is the pricy pace for trying to connect with defendants.

Now I have been criticized in the past for maybe using a little slang or being a little bit to casual sometimes. Um but i'm talking to A A group of people and I want to speak to them in their in language that they can understand not in legal, not in footnoted references and Jerry, I just hate to get real mean. I really want them to understand me and understand that I understand that he's .

doing something up there. He says he's not just a functionary. Say what you will about judge goal's personal views and his manner and his temperament, and I will say many things here. But he is not cynical. He's fundamentally optimistic in a way that he can fix what's broken defendant by defendant.

And I really think I know these people sometimes Better than they know themselves. And I share the inform. I confront them and make them think about their lives every day.

Judge goal is seeing all these depressing stats made manifest. It's almost always there in the p size.

He'll see that the defendants parents were drug, add s or abusive, couldn't or didn't take care of their children, maybe ended up in prison themselves, and now this person, a product of Foster care and a board of education with kids, or his or her own, comes before judge goal, having committed a crime, sometimes a horble crime, is a rotten and family cycle. And judge gore wants to break IT. He told the manual. That's why he's asking defendants about their children.

You ask me why? I ask people how many kids they have.

Yeah, what? Why over?

Because IT should be an issue of social concern. It's not politically correct to ask people how many children they have, why I don't know. I think perhaps because some people think that this is women. It's not about that.

If I believe that most of the people are in here because of abuse for abandon or neglect as a child, and I do that, I want to see to IT that there aren't kids that are just born and left by themselves and abandoned. You know, some people would say, well, you're a massage in this way to second, i'm defending little boys and little girls who were brought into this world and rates and fluster c care for the rest their life. What do you think their chances of manual? And what percentage of the kids can be born into poverty before we don't have a middle class anymore or there's a permanent under class?

So theory, meet practice.

Please tell me you don't have this. Woman had pleaded .

guilty to theft an incident in a misses. Her lawyer tries to help her out, he explains. He has one child and a second on the way.

Then you put even Better, wonderful. Who's the first .

baby's dead? Judge goal gave a couple years. This is on a monday. Over the weekend, judge got had read an article about the percentage children born on medicate.

After the maces woman left the courtroom, he started talking about IT anybody see the story in the paper? But the percentage of children born in this country unmedicated anybody see this? I only want to know a mounted defense attorney.

New mexico, I think, leads the country seventy two percent, he told them. And the national average is over fifty percent. I believe it's at a prosecutor.

We hear judge gal site this statistic from the bench several times as the months went on. Judge gal is one of the most transparent judges in the building. His world do seemed woven into every proceeding.

He liked the old days Better, and celine was Better. AmErica was Better when people were more respectful, more resilient, less. Now we're dealing with a generation raised on A D H D medication, which did who knows what to their brain chemistry, anise, millennial nourish on participation trophy, think they are owed something from the rest of us. All of this, the whole building, the thirteen thousand felony cases moving through the criminal court each year, judge goal traces IT to a frightful shortage of personal responsibility.

Sentencing in ohio, grier ent history of IT is similar to what's evolved all over the country back in the men one thousand and nineties when we were freaking out about rising violent crime.

Ohio, like many states, revamp its sentencing laws that redefined certain felonies, made some punishment harsher, and got rid of parole for most cases and a minute, shamelessly oversimplify for a second, because the reasons why ohio s prison population climbed are complex and super interesting, by the way. But just that I did climb mostly because people began serving longer senses. In one hundred and seventy four, a higher prisons held ten thousand, seven hundred people.

By two thousand and eleven, they held almost fifty one thousand people. Four hundred percent increase. That's expensive, more than a billion and a quarter dollars, expensive.

So that year, two thousand and eleven, ohio, again like other places, swung back the other way. IT passed new legislation aimed at unpack in the prisons. IT gave judges more options for diverting low level felons to alternative punishments and broaden the opportunities for that.

Suits judge gold just fine. He likes service. He likes lengthy.

I probably put more people on probation than any other judges in this course. Yeah, because I can always put him in prison later, right? And I keep my ion m.

Probation gives judicial ongoing control over people's lives. It's his best hope for getting them to change.

And I probably have to anyone, time, anywhere we can, I don't know. You know, couple of thousand people on probation to me, fifty percent of people on probation.

Oli, problem. What insiders called getting paper rather than time is what most defendants want. But probation has its own hazards. Probation, he has actually called community control sanctions, emphasis on the control, which is why I have heard defendants tell judges they'd rather pay a big fine or just do some jail time and get this over with rather than beyond. Product on product, you're out, but you're not free.

You are still tethered red to the courthouse, and the conditions of your release can warm their way into almost every aspect of your life. They can dict who you live with, where you work, whether you can have a beer after work, whether you can go to your uncle's funeral or your uses wedding is so easy to slip up a dirty uranium mist meeting. Maybe you getting dated on a new crime and you're back before judge goal. That's why he's got more cases than most judges in the building. Because of all those product violations, we watched one violation hearing for a woman, nam Vivian.

I know you quite well. We've talked on five, six occasions correct with you. So I feel like I know judge god .

doesn't know vivid and pretty well, but he knows her respects. She's twenty nine, single, three children. Her Youngest is three months old.

Couple of years ago, in two thousand fifteen, SHE pleaded guilty to fill any drug position. SHE got caught with a smaller t of cocaine rather than convicted of the felony judge god granted her. It's called an L.

C. Intervention in love, conviction work, sort of like probation. The idea is that Vivian can do everything she's supposed to. Her case will go away.

The list of requirements is significant, report weekly, undergo drug testing, complete intensive outpatient drug treatment, go to A, A meetings, obtain a sponsor, get counselling, get G, D. She's done everything except stay clean. A recent drug test should you've been using, this is our fifth violation for .

six time before judge goal, and you are what you just problem or you're going to lose your jin children live.

Judge goal takes time with vian for a matter that another judge might have dealt within five minutes tops. Judge goal spends twenty minutes talking to her. That's a dog's age.

In this building, he spent through the usual jazz about baby's daddies and bad decisions and the welfare state media. Mexico, 2 percent。 But he also seems sincere about trying to help her.

He boards into the detail of her, ask a Better job. He works nights in the kitchen of a casino for ten dollars an hour. Bad idea. He tells her. That's exactly the kind of place where you going to be offered cocaine.

You need to stop the second shift work. I think it's set me up fair. I think you could get up and get the kids off and get the kids stay, care and work during the daylight hours so that you and the children could rest of the same time.

You need to get answer. You're working. You're working, you know, sixteen hours a day without the help of anybody.

Three months ago, at another violation hearing, judge goal got fed up and sent Vivian to jail for a week to try to scare straight. That didn't work today. She's desperate not to get locked up.

She's where to lose her children. Her comportment is dept. SHE knows not to begin here, not to wine.

SHE admits her weakness, flags her strength. SHE tells him all in her own. She's enrolled herself in an intensive outpatient drug treatment program, an I O P C.

方式。 I know I done wrong numerous times， but they were myself. I Vivians. Attn y today request the judge gal transfer vision into drug court.

Instead of remaining under judge god's supervision, you'd be put on a specialized docket designed specifically for people like her, people who aren't violent, who don't want to be criminals, but who get in trouble with the law because of their addiction. Over in drug court, they use a therapeutic model. Their question is not, how can we best punish you? It's, how can we best help you get Better?

One of the drug court judges is Jones cinner burg as a social work background. Actually, she's the recovery court judge, which is a decade for people struggling with both mental health. Andrew g, problems.

And this is a different vibe over there. Just really fast. Someone to show you. I was with her one day when he popped into that court room to say hi.

How are you? Another judge was substituting for because he was tied up on a murder trial. The participants SAT in the jury box and on the benches the atmosphere was casual, warm.

On the way out, judge sentier grand into one of the recovery court participants in the hallway, got him crag give a big house. amazing. Yeah, you have been your own inspiration problem.

Amazing, hectic and stressful, but amazing. This whole experience was amazing. You have come so far.

Nice, right? No one gets torn down in drug court. No one has asked why they're pregnant. I'm not saying it's a cure all.

Ohio has been devastated by the opiate crisis, but research shows that programs like these are the best way we ve found to help people with drug problems stay out of the criminal justice system. So Vivians attorney asks for drug court in the probation department, which is staffed with substance of be specialists and social workers. They're well regarded around here. They're also recommending Vivian for drug court. But judge go flicks that idea as aside .

as if drug D O do something different.

And it's as if you're saying, I got this. I deal with addiction all day long. Babies just got a buckle down. Stay the course SHE doesn't need drug SHE has me Vivian's attorney doesn't push back much on this. He even seems to agree with judge gal.

What difference? What IT make one difference in drug court, sh'd have one defense attorney dedicated to her case who would follow her progress and update the judge. But this guy is her fifth torney.

Each time he has to appear before judge gal she's assigned, someone knew. First, there is a public defender, land errico, who negotiated the L. C.

deal. Since then, it's been assignment, less attorneys. There is travel Morgan than jim hofer k.

And arn brock ler. He represented her at two hearings. Actually, today is Joseph e.

mali. Their goal, all of them, is to keep Vivian out of jail. Other than that, they don't have much of a stake here.

They're not thinking too hard about how he progresses with drug treatment or what would work best for her. They're getting paid a hundred bucks for this hearing. And the moment over, she's not their client anymore. Today, judge goal ends up putting Vivian on house arrest at her own suggestion. I'm sure Vivian would like this interaction with judge goal to be her last, but unless he is midd stream, a month from now shall be intended for theft for using a friends credit card.

But another hearing, judge gal will tell Vivian she's out of control and he'll center to jail sh'll spend fifty one days there while the credit card case gets sorted out sh'll be guilty to a couple and first degree mister miners. Judge go will tell her she's weak, indulgent, selfish. I'll tell her, quit the tears, sweet heart, and i'll give us suspended jail sentence.

More home detention, plus two years before now, instead of three A A, any meanings a week, SHE must go to four a week. Two months later sh'll violate again. This time sh'll beg for inpatient treatment shell till judge goal.

Her cousin died three weeks ago from an overdose. And she's afraid, I need help. I need help. Sh'll say, at seven times, I need to learn to get through this sickness. You call IT a sickness, and I call IT a crime he'll say will send to jail once again. He will leave her three sons, who by this time are nine years old, six years old and nine months old with their grandmother.

After Vivian has spent sixty six days locked up, her nth assigned lawyer will write to judge gall asking him to let her out, and judge ga will release Vivian from jail. I'll put her on provision for another year and half, and now he must to ten, five, A A, N A meetings a week. Judge goals, trying to help Vivian least I think he is.

But consider if Vivian had gone a drug court, that new theft charge would have been rolled into her existing case. IT would not have affected her status in drug court at all. If she's been in drug court, it's unlikely they would have spent even one day in the county jail, much less one hundred and twenty seven days if you ve been in drug court. And if shows anything like the other drug court participants, almost all of whom backsides and struggle, SHE would have graduated from that program in about thirteen months. As IT stands, she's been arrowed with judge goal for three and a half years and counting for fewer than five grams of cocaine.

This is possibly the most profound, at least examined, question in the building. What works? The court doesn't gather statistics on sentencing, and that's true for most of the country.

By the way, no data that says defendants in kyoto county do Better after six months of probation than after three years of probation. Or in terms of reoffending, four years in prison yells Better results than seven years in prison. We just don't know, which I found rather is standing.

When I realize no one is tracking this, the court keeps extensive data regarding efficiency, how many cases are moving through, whose dockets and how quickly, which i'm not knocking efficiency, it's important. So why people here are generally not waiting years and years for their cases to resolve, and that's good. But there's no database locally or nationally that shows what works.

So each judge in the building has to muddy IT out for him or herself, just kandara lier. William put IT to me this way. There are thirty four judges up here, and it's like thirty four different cities. Of course, judges here aren't just winning IT or mostly they're not winning IT. They're basing their decisions on the sentencing guidelines and on their professional experience, but they're also making decisions based on their life experience and where they come from and who they know and where they live and what they read and what IT is. They hold deer, duck into various courses .

and you feel IT right away 就是 and just speak .

up this little bit OK。 That's judge color Williams on the twenty third floor taking a plea case of fonda assault with a gun SHE painstakingly list for mister cook all the rights he's giving up by not going to trial with gentle's. ss. SHE makes double sure he understands what she's saying.

okay. So was the total .

time you .

looking at the possibility from five to eleven years?

understand? OK finally SHE lecture them.

Thank you. I expect your plea of guilty to count three and .

you guilty because she's done no. So we have seen to do this. You have thirty days to red .

your vote and show to prevent to your probation officer and now you're not be hard to vote no elections. And the reason why I do .

that is because people died for this, right, just call Williams wants felons to participate in democracy like everybody else.

But to actually stop doing this, ever since the aclu had a little chat weather again on constitutional judge Michael danny on nineteen, he'll only discuss please on the record, no background sentencing deals judge Janet burnside, down on sixteen, finds she's giving people accused of serious crimes longer and longer prison terms because she's was struck by the show violence she's saying. But for probation, SHE swings light. SHE wants to get people off of court supervision as quickly as possible.

Few years ago, the provision department started using water called evidence space practices to determine provision. You ask a bunch of questions to try to figure out a defendant risk of recidivism and the tailor the conditions of provision to historical level of risk. A powerpoint I saw on the method included a slide that said, quote, avoid threatening, lecturing ing, arguing, shaming or sympathising.

But judges don't have to take the probation department's recommendations. They're optional. Judge Katherine nanzela back up on twenty three. So SHE uses the evidence based thing only. Sometimes her philosophy is a kid to judge goals.

He told us short provision that's throwing a personal sh'll typically give five years of super strict conditions, ninety A A meetings and ninety A S for instance. And if you miss a day, you have to start over. SHE owns her reputation as a tough judge.

Wake up, mean would be the tamest thing we heard to describe her. But I either say we didn't see that so much. SHE was tough, but we didn't get the feeling her toughness was self surveying.

We watched the sentencing of a Young guy, eighteen. He'd stolen a bunch cars. Other guys were involved, but they didn't get ended is intense. He asked a defendant, you live with your father, so why didn't he pay your bond two hundred fifty box and you could have gone home months ago stead of sitting in jail all this time. You know, we called your father, he said he didn't know your address or where you stay that surprise.

Yes, mam, he whispers you're .

standing here all alone. There's no Lewis there, no marking, and even your father does. I want to stand .

here with you. Does this tell you something? Do you have any thoughts about this in your. What are they share them with me?

Yeah, big time.

By the end, they're .

talking about .

his future plans. He mentions college. I don't know. Can one stiff talking to change the trajectory of a teenager's life? I don't know.

Maybe when I ask judges here, how do you know? How do you know if what you're doing is working? They they talk about the people who come back just to visit, or who write letters, or who may see on the street who say, thank you for being hard on me.

Thank you for giving me a chance. You help me. I have my kids back. I'm doing well, which must be great for a judge to hear. But rigorous evidence IT isn't for judge goal. I wasn't exactly sure what he needed to see from a defendant in order to declare success until we came upon the case of rican Alice. That's after this.

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That's T H U M A. Got C, O. When judge goal sentences someone, the principal thing he's looking for is remorse, a manual. I have heard him say these two phrases dozens of times, acceptance of responsibility.

demonstration of remorse. Rebilitate can't until there is some acceptance of responsibility. Some can do with the court, some demonstration of remorse.

acceptance of responsibility, showing remorse. Judge gal did not invent these phases. They come from federal and state sentencing guidelines, and they sound bedrocks ish like they're probably chizzle into the courthouse while some place.

But in practice, they're controversial because acceptance of responsibility or showing genuine remorse. What does that mean? What's that supposed to look like? It's subjective.

Some judges will say, well, you played guilty. So that's taking responsibility right there. That's enough for me.

But in a golf room, a plea alone definitely not enough. He needs to hear you say that even Better. He wants to feel you feeling IT.

If you do, it's a good bet your sentence will be lighter. If you deflect responsibility or stay mum on the subject, the sentence could be heavier. The starkest example we saw, this was the sentencing of a guy named ray haan. Alice ray haan was thirty one. He'd been a defendant in many cases ever since he was a teenager.

Some charges i'd beats, some he hadn't the year before he picked up a new case or caught a new case is what everyone says, if is a virus anyway? Rich han caught in new case serious charges for onias assault weapons violations. IT was a messy incident, but the just was that a guy shot a gun out the window of ratios car while ris driving, and I fighter had broken out early on.

Judge gal made a plane. He thought rachaman should plead guilty, but ryan said he wasn't the instigator of this tobacco. And what's more, he had tried to deescalate the situation to break up the fight. He had been scared for his own life, he said. Ryan took the case to trial and he one mostly he was acquitted of the most serious charge, flonies assault, but he was convicted on two weapons charges, both of which Carried the possibility of prison time because of the gun in the car, even though IT wasn't ray Shawn gun and he didn't fire IT, the jury found he was still criminally responsible for IT immediately after the verdict, with the jury still sitting there, judge goal launched reason, he said, you should resolve this case a long time ago.

User are going to be looking at the harsh, okay, because i'm not gonna put on a stream a person that so disfunctional, instructive, that doesn't understand the issue, result this case without risky. Twenty three years on the first count, even thousand, six, twenty six. I want to pause .

on this first, second. So the perversity of the moment can sinking in. Judge go is angry at reaching for refusing to play guilty for risking huge prison time on an assault charge for which he has just been acquitted, not guilty.

That's switch dis function on destructive, refusing to plead. And that's what makes a shon deserve prison. A month later, a man you will went to ration on sentencing. We were curious to see what he was.

Gonna IT was a monday morning ratio was one of his first cases of the day. And already judge go was worked up.

You get and died. And you don't make your responsibility. You don't demonstrate any remorse. You know you're going to go to personal the public violence because I told you that through your atterley.

Rich only been informed the judge gore, in this new case happened. That party while is pissed. Judge goals started missing.

Arrest after arrest, charge after charge, dropped or not that rehan fed evidenced was a juvenile when he in rationals attorney y john rosana, start relitigating the facts of the current case. John's exasperated and not pretend exasperated. You often see a turn is performing an argument, but you don't often see a real one. John is insisting that Rachel had tried to do the right thing to keep the people around them from getting shot. He's getting hot with a judge.

This goes on and on. Rachel is facing five and a half years on the privation violation alone. Never mind the new charges he's just been convicted of, which had another four and a half years.

So ten years total. If the judge wants to stick IT to him, this fighting is not helping. Finally, right of judge goal says, so your sentence to racing interrupts speak.

further.

Rachel m takes out a four page letter and begins reading. 羊 呢？ 这是 狗。

I have to understand which would try unit in this old time.

Later, back in his chAmbers.

judge GLE red pots of a letter allow to me of has .

been cloud since I was first charged sixteen years old, and I have been angry ever since. I have finally opened my eyes and saw and came to realize I have been wrong for fifteen years. IT has humbled me.

This experience has helped save my life in awake on me, to myself destructed illusions. You are an outstanding judge. I'm going to remind you of what you said that I could be your son. And i'm not assuming that as favoritism that come at truly touched me and made me look at you different. I originally perceived you to .

be prejudice .

and never expected you to show me your human personal decency. I recognize the wisdom and help you imported on me that I was wrong and you've been trying to reason with me to consider my choice to associate with a criminal lifestyle. And IT goes on around in the .

courtroom. Rone read his letter for more than seven minutes when he finished just goals. stunned.

That's really went this letter I can do in this for thirty five years. And that sort like the criminal equivalent to dress.

He said he wanted to get the little lam inside and read IT from time to time because he found .

the inspiring. I visit IT .

to the courtroom such as myself, might consider one letter a brilliant strategic move, while also wonder with a just goal just been played. But judge gore believe that I was genuine. He was moved, he said, to ration is not possible for anyone to fake what you just said.

The letter was gratifying for judge gal. Of course IT was, but I think IT was also may be vindicating for him because I been to here. I'd also been in a room a few weeks early when the defend and racist just god knew i'd been squinting, uncomfortable ly for hands and the stereotyping.

And now he was proof goals, method worked, judge goals, emotional about IT. Afterwards, he mentioned a bible story about the good fief who was redeemed. He choked up.

So there may be some redemption tion here. He's certainly ung enough. And if if he changes his attire. He, he may, he may, he may amount to suck.

He may make IT because of the letter, should cut his own sentence roughly in half. Just go was gna give him six and a half for seven years, he said. Instead, he gave him three, and he told her, come back in six months and apply for judicial release.

What's known as shock release, a way of cutting someone lose who's learned his lesson after the shocker of prison. So six months, he said, file emotion. Maybe I shock you out.

Six months to the day, john rosanna rich, on attorney, did file emotion for shock release. Judge goal held a hearing rican a. Zana were there, but IT lacked the magic of the sentencing.

Instead, judge gled trad rations criminal record all over again, so much prior involvement with the system, cruelty to animals that jumps off the page. Anyone that would do that to in the animal racing on push back IT wasn't me. I was fourteen years old, and someone shot a catch on my porch with A B, B.

Gun, and I didn't tell. What about the aggravate or robbery in two thousand? one? Well, that one I didn't do IT, but I was there, so I got caught.

And then the crime hand judge goal accused ratione of knowing about the gun, of putting other people in danger. Rachel said. IT wasn't like that to god, said, why are you minimize the getty's burger dress wasn't echoing in anyone's years.

Judge gd denied rations motion for judicial release i'm denying your motion for shark provision at this time, he said, because you are not accepting responsibility and therefore you are not demonstrating any remorse. Try again in six months if I told them, see if your attitude is changed. After IT was all over, I talked to rehan about how this whole thing went down.

He told me he still hadn't made sense of IT judge. God had all bit promised to shock him out if he did well in prison, and he had done well six months earlier, when he wrote the letter, he said he was partly sincere, partly political. He knew the struck judge goes, eo. He behaves like a king.

He said, he wants you to, you know, under him you can become this digester and he may think about job crimes of the tables.

But at the hearing for shocks release, he figured they were past the stage of flattery and theatrics. So he was taken a back when judge goal started in on the details of his case. Ray shahn said he kept trying to talk to him, man to man.

I respect you as the individual and the position that your hosting, because, you know, i'm being accused to something and I need to be a professional and the effect and find out with the evidence he just automatically already knew, like, IT doesn't matter your innocent. I want guilty outturn taye and like, there's something, there's more to this story and I know what you want me to tell you, but that's the honest.

the guy who richa didn't feel as if judge goal. We're leading him down the road toward responsibility and redemption. He felt as if judge goal simply wanted submission for its own sake, ray Shawn said. Judge gq te struck me as nothing less than a raging .

slave master I just had to let them know is such a nice way what already hurting business to much like I did that I know slake, i'm not scared of you again, you know and I was, you know, a lot of time I kept them them I don't agree, which I don't agree with what you and he just beating like that so he he wanted to his way or no way and he was just like, that is not your way. You no, no.

But IT is judge god's way or no way that's the maddening cork crew of rich an's position. Judge girl shouldn't require him to gravel racing is right about that but there's nothing ray haan can do about IT because Richard is the one who wrote the law. Everything jet golds doing is legal.

If you're wondering the judge girl ever get in trouble for the way he runs his room is ever rained in. Well, let me tell you at this one last case just quickly, was back in twenty fifteen. So I wasn't there for, but I do have a transcript.

A game carlton heard was indeed for shooting, he said didn't do IT he wanted go to trial after being postponed a few times. Day of trial finally comes and crowton hurds attorney asks for another continuance because he said mister heard had just informed him a half hour ago that he's been covering up for the real shooter, so now they need more time to investigate. Judge god does not take kindly to this motion to continue.

He thinks this last minute new evidence claim is bogus. He sure they're just trying to delay. He does what he does, which is to explore, ate mister heard for being black, among other things.

Your black life didn't matter to you. Did IT and your child's gona grow up? And i'm speculating. Now, just like you did without a dad, did you have a father? no. This crowd heard, no, of course not so judge gal, but then, even by judge gal standards, judge goal veers at bounds. He says the carton heard, you're either onna go to trial right now, are going to played guilty carm heard hadn't asked for a plea deal.

The state had not offered one no matter judge girl comes up with his own deal for corton heard he says, if you pleaded no contest to the indication right now, i'll sends you to fourteen years. Quote, if you take the case to trial and are convicted, you will do multiples of fourteen years. Because if you're convicted of these charges, that's what you deserve.

You deserve to spend what could be the rest of your life in the state panel institution. Unquote, what's IT? Gonna be carton hurt.

Says, i'll go to trial. His mom lets out. No, carlton has to hurt. Listen to what he just said. Fourteen years seemed like forever to come. A little daughter would be eighteen when he got out, but his mom was hearing the other numbers, multiples of fourteen.

If he's convicted a trial, they confer for a bit off the record, then judge god tells them at length about another casey head in which he offered a couple of, quote, nuckles heads, a deal they didn't take. I had the same conversation with them i'm having with you. They SAT right there, right that chair.

I told them. I said, look, you can do fifteen years. Or if you're convicted of all this other stuff, you're gonna get consecutive time.

They both got sentenced to seventy eight years. Judge god asked again whether crowton wants to plead. I didn't do IT says carlton heard that goal, says, look, you wanna go to trial, go to trial.

You have a beautiful suit on. You can sit there and maybe the jury will think you're a great guy and you're not guilty. What do you want to do this? A pause.

All right, let's bring the jury up. Judge goal says the juries on its way. If they walk into this room, my deal with you is off. I'll take IT as carrot heard something.

that's carrot.

When I asked him why he said yes to the plea, he told me his mother persuade to him they could fight IT that they could appeal.

which they did IT would like what he was say like, we just know that not nothing that really could be said to be and and doing on to that.

The court of appeals agreed. I got the sense, reading their decision, that the justices were straining to contain their discussion. A plea is supposed to be knowingly, intelligently, involuntarily made. That's the standard, the fact the judge goal participated in the play.

By itself, that's not necessarily unconstitional tional, but the way judge god did IT concoction the play on his own without even asking the prosecutor the defensive tourney and you adding the pressure, the threats, the way he made IT obvious. He thought cartland was guilty before even seeing a scrap of evidence. The only thing crowton heard could have knowingly and intelligently concluded, the court said, was that he was unlikely to get either a fair trial or a fair sentence after trial from judge goal under those circumstances.

They said the plea was not voluntary. IT was coerce on constitutional. They vacated the play and then took the extraordinary step of ordering that current hearts case be assigned to a different judge.

The forcefulness of the quarter appeals decision was remarkable than something more remarkable happened this summer. Almost three years after being locked up, carbon heard went to trial, this time in front of judge john russo, and he was acquitted of all charges. So what does this mean for judge gal? For the moment, nothing I asked judge god whether he felt he screwed up in carton hurd's case.

His answer, no to me. He said, this is in a case about an innocent man being railroad ted by the system. It's a case that clearly demonstrates how defendant and his attorney manipulated the system of justice to their benefit and be a murder case, attempted murder.

Actually, the day carton was acquitted, I called judge russo. He'd presided over the trial, but he's also the administrative judge for the cahoga I court of common please. He's not judge goes boss, but he is the public face of the court. I caught him on his cell right when he got home from the trial. Is there any consequence for judge goal because of this?

I mean, there isn't from me, so I I don't know. He's a colleague and so I I I don't recommend him or function in in any way.

After the verdict, when croton heard was acquitted, judge russia had apologized to him, said coersion has no place in the system at, said a judge russia clearly disapproved of how judge goal had handled the case. But now on the phone with me, he was sitting rather mean about that. What seems frustrating is that there isn't some automatic now review or some automatic yeah some investigation something I mean, i've seen him do this in his court room to .

other people and it's one. And if any George is doing that, somebody needs to be made aware of that. I mean, guess this, there's a process, whatever that process is that ask me started by somebody.

I would argue that judge russo is a somebody. I talk to another cold cani judge. He was outraged by this case. He is a somebody a couple of attorney is on this case you might also spoke to. There are some bodies that could have appeals judges who ruled in this case.

What about those somebody, if any of these somebody's is afraid of reprisal from judge goal, they can even complain anonyme sly. To the old house supreme court, there is a state board on grievances and discipline that has the authority to investigate and sanction judges despite them, if necessary. Judge goals actually been through that process once before in twenty ten.

I won't give you the details, but service is to say the supreme core justices were appalled by wet goal had done and said in that case and then they gave a fairly minor rapper, mand, a six months suspended suspension of his law licence, meaning he was able to stay on the bench. As of right now, i've not heard that anyone has filed a complaint with the supreme court against judge goal because of current herds case. Nothing about the case has been reported in the local newspaper or on T.

V. No one's picketing outside his courtroom. So judge goals, not too worried. He's been on the bench for twenty seven plus years.

I take my role is protecting the peace in dignity of the state of ohio very, very seriously. And I wasn't elected to be stupid, he said. If he's being lied to is not onna, sit back and pretend it's not happening.

I wasn't elected six times to be a dumas and vote. As long as the voters keep voting form, then he's gona keep on, keep him on and he's right. Yes, there's the appeals court in the discipline board, but really every six years it's the voters who have the final say.

And most of the voters here, here and everywhere, it's understood that what do they know? For decades we've seen the same irish and italian names on the ballot, almost all democrats. What's a rusal over a chord on over a gallagher? I could even keep them straight. Mostly the voters are casting their ballots and then staying far, far away from the felony courthouse that doesn't touch them and they don't touch IT until there's a shock wave, a crime and punishment shockwave that billows out across the city, the county, the country that next time on syria.

Serials produced by Julie snider, a manual joky benko hoon and me, with additional courting by italians coastal editing on this episode from iraq lass nani update and honest danger fields are digital editing research and been fAiling sound design and mixed by stone Nelson music clearance by Anthony roman, seat lindis our director of Operations series staff includes Emily conn, Julie whitner, casey holy and Francis swan.

Our music is by adam dorn and how willer with additional music from magic inly and free miers our theme sung is by nick thorburn, remixed by adam dorn, special thanks to gypsy escobar and measures for justice Colin swee, corry shafer, zoe root and the justice programs office at american university school of public affairs David Brown, Kelly mitchel and Julia as currency at the rubina institute of criminal law and criminal justice Sarah Andrews and Scott shoemaker at the ohio criminal sentencing commission, brian hoffman and the pretrial justice institute. Finally, the art on our website was made by adam meda. He created the mirror for this episode and more studio to the animation.

Please check IT out at serial podcast dot work. That serial podcast dot work also thanks to studio rud rego, who did the web designs in particular bent arrow, Juliet wang or lavita and coy wong serials a production of this american life and W. B. Easy chicago.