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Welcome back overlap listeners.

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I am so happy to have some really fun things here for you today.

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I really hope you listened to last week's podcast.

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If you didn't, I do recommend you go back and listen to last week's podcast where Will and
I kind of tried a new little debate format.

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And we were talking specifically about justice, justice reform and how budgets work within
the federal government and the state level governments for public defense and how we

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taking our own positions.

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If you remember,

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you

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and kind of what it actually guaranteed versus what it ended up delivering.

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We covered the 1994 crime bill, which was $30.2 billion for prosecution infrastructure and
almost nothing for defense.

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I think it was a million.

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Jeff Sessions deleting the office for access to justice with a single memo in 2017.

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The $106 million federal public defender shortfall from 2024, the Hurl-Haring versus New
York class action lawsuit that forced caseload caps in five counties in New York state.

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Also a man named Inzana who sat in an Oregon jail for months because the state ran out of
lawyers and eventually had to let him go.

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The 97 % federal plea rate as evidenced the system runs on waived rights, not trials.

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But coming

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to you today is not just myself and my wonderful co-host Will, Will say hello.

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Hello everyone, good to be back with you.

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Yes.

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We also have a Travis County public defender, attorney Seth Mineta-Dillon from Travis
County.

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Seth, why don't you give us a sort of an overview of who you are.

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Tell us the things you want to tell us, introduce yourself and set this up for the
audience about what you've been doing up until this point.

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Yeah, sure.

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So for those who are not aware, Travis County is the county where Austin, Texas is
located.

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That is the capital of Texas.

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um Most folks, most folks don't know about Travis, but they, you know, they've heard of
Austin, obviously.

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And so I have been here with the public defender's office for five years.

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We were created five years ago and been here ever since.

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Prior to that, I spent two years working private defense.

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here in Travis County as the office kind of got set up and all the political machinations
went through to its creation.

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And then prior to that, I spent about two and a half years in Philadelphia at their public
defender's office, which is an office that's been around for over 50 years at this point.

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And it's a much larger scale and we can get into the differences between those two.

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And then prior to that law school with William

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Right, where's my ride or die co-counsel?

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This is not just any public defender we have today.

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This is one of the leading, in fact, national trial, national mock trial winner going back
to way back in the day.

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I will say this is probably the first time I've ever seen an actual benefit from having an
attorney as a friend is that he knows other attorneys that he could bring on the podcast.

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Well, Seth, I really do want to thank you very much for being here with us today.

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You're actually our second only ever interview episode.

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Usually we're either in a single format or a double format and we kind of talk about
different topics.

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So it's really cool to have you here as our second official interview guest.

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Just for for our audience's sake, I'm going to have a little bit of Travis County context
uh as well as Texas state context that I want to just go through a couple of facts about

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Texas from a defense perspective.

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So Texas actually ranks 46th of the 50 states nationally in state public defense spending.

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We'll get a little bit more into that.

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I just kind of want to rattle these off.

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We can talk about our opinions about them or our feelings about them later.

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I just want to get a little bit of context out there.

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So state funds are about 13 percent of what they call indigent defense costs and the
county actually carries the rest of it.

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So the county is spending much, much more than the actual state of Texas is currently on
indigent.

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Wow.

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Defense costs.

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Also, CAFA, which is the Council at First Appearance, was actually only implemented in
Travis County in early 2025 after the ACLU successfully sued Travis County.

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Additionally, there's been a giant pay exodus within the Travis County Public Defender's
Office because attorneys are essentially leaving for Harris County, who are...

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the he's he's shaking his head if you can't see.

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But of course you can't see this is an audio only podcast but he's shaking his head back
and forth like maybe not maybe not maybe not.

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And we can talk about that too.

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I would describe an Exodus as anything more than 50 percent turnover rate and the for the
sake of this this blurb it wasn't really you know laid out what the context was in those

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numbers.

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So I personally would say if it's more than half of your staff leaves and we've seen that.

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happened quite a bit in the police force and several things around the country.

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So they're leaving specifically for Harris County private practice and the Office of Fair
Defense.

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Additionally, uh Chief PDO, and that is Public Defender's Office, Chief Public Defender,
CPD, Adiola Agunkayede called it Sophie's Choice.

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because 75 % of the positions within Travis County's public defender's office are actually
below the market rate for attorneys doing the same thing for other counties in Texas.

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And 156 rural Texas counties have absolutely zero public defender's office at all, often
using either a good old boy system or pulling from other counties as available.

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Any of those off the top of your head that you go, nope, that's total BS or yes,
absolutely all of those and accept them full bore.

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I think the Exodus one, I think if you combined the different places, I don't think it's
all to Harris County.

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We can talk about OFD and what the Office of First Defense is and kind of its creation and
its purpose.

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But the rest of them, yeah, the rest of them sound accurate.

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Cool.

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Will, do you have any sort of pre-questionnaire, pre-interview oh facts, thoughts, or
other ideas you'd like to put forward for our audience today?

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I just, you know, that's you don't have to admit that you went into being a PD for the
money.

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We all know that that's why everybody goes into it.

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But seriously, I mean, obviously, like we're just glad to have you here.

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You're a wealth of knowledge that you've got experience in various public defenders
office.

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I know it get a little bit more into your backstory prior to coming to Travis County.

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yeah, I mean, it's just, it's I'm thankful.

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I know because if I ever find myself in situation where I needed a public defender.

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I would be very glad to have someone with your caliber and skill set on that.

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So Travis is lucky to have you and we're lucky to have you on the podcast today.

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So that's all the smoke I'm going to blow for now.

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Sounds good.

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Alright then.

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welcome back overlap listeners.

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Thank you again so much for being here.

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If you are just picking us up now, make sure to rewind to the first, you know why we're
here, what we're doing, and we know that we're here with public defender, Seth Dillon,

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Seth Minetta Dillon.

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So before we get into sort of the policy side of things, I wanna get a feel, I want you to
tell us who you are and what your work actually looks like day to day.

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Right?

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Like not like the headline version, like, I'm a public defender and I work for Travis
County.

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We did that in the beginning.

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You can listen to that, but kind of what a normal week feels like for you.

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Yeah, no, that's a great question.

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think I'm gonna, start out with what my current week looks like here in Austin, right?

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Because it is very different than what it looked like when I was a public defender in
Philly.

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And I think comparing those two could actually be pretty interesting.

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So what we do here in Austin is what's called vertical representation.

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and you mentioned CAFA, which is Council at First Appearance.

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That is where we go in and it all starts there, right?

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And it's a rain mit.

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We have arraignment based on the level of cases you're taking.

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Maybe you're taking misdemeanors, you're taking more serious felonies.

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If you're taking a heavier caseload, meaning more serious felonies, you will be in CAFA a
little bit less.

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If you're taking a bunch of misdemeanors, you'll be in there a little bit more frequently.

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But that's where every case for us starts.

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These are folks who have just been arrested, could have been less than 24 hours ago, less
than 48 hours ago if it's a felony.

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And we're the first attorney that they talk to.

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We get their basic information.

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We very briefly go over what happened.

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And what we're doing is we're making a pitch to the magistrate for this person to get out
of jail.

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So they don't have to sit in jail during the pendency of their case.

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Because in Travis County, cases do not go fast.

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They can take, a misdemeanor can easily take one to two years.

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Which is often shocking for a lot of folks when they hear that they go, wait, a
misdemeanor takes over a year.

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It's like, yeah, that is the regular business here in Travis County.

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And there's a lot of reasons why that is that we don't have to get into, but that is the
amount of time.

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So that's where we meet our clients.

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And they are our clients at that point throughout.

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So during a regular week, what I'm doing, yeah.

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interrupt, but just for people who may not have as much context or background on this,
essentially when someone's read their rights, their Miranda rights, right?

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Like the rights remain silent.

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Can they say, can it be used against them in a court of law?

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You have the right to an attorney.

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If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you.

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Is that essentially you?

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Like you're that guy, the attorney that will be provided for you if you can't afford one?

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Or is it, okay.

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So.

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a public defender, I represent folks who cannot afford an attorney.

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There's metrics that they use to make that determination.

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But yes, that is correct.

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So when they first booked, um they're going to go through some process where they indicate
whether they have their own attorney or they need an attorney to be provided for them.

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Correct.

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Okay, thanks.

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I just wanted to clear that up for those who may not have the background and to show off
that I watch cops and still no Miranda rights even though I'm a civil litigator by trade.

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What do you mean?

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98 % of all cases they read those Miranda rights and if they don't they just get off
scot-free they just walk away.

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away, yeah.

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Well, we can talk about that in Travis County, though it seems like the practice is to
avoid reading Miranda at all costs.

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But yes, that is so we represent folks who are qualified, meaning they cannot afford their
own attorney.

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And so we represent them at Magistration where the judge is going to determine one, is
there enough probable cause, is there probable cause to keep them in jail?

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we will often argue against saying, no, Judge, if you read this probable cause affidavit,
it doesn't actually make out a crime, which you would think doesn't happen a lot, but it

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actually happens probably three, four times per shift.

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A shift is an eight hour shift.

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And so in a batch of, yeah.

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three to four times, mean a shift is essentially a day, mean, right?

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Like I mean it would be what the average person works in a day of work.

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Three to four times, it's just like yeah, this case has no merit.

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We're not even gonna bother.

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I mean, don't quote me on the exact number, but having done enough, yes, yeah, it's about
three to four times where we can at least make a colorable argument that like, judge, this

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isn't a crime.

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uh Like sometimes you read it and you go, this is just by definition not a crime.

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Take for example, one I had where, look, this is Texas, right?

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So we love our guns.

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famously concealed carry is now a thing in Texas, which means,

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unless you are otherwise prohibited from having a gun for some other reason, anybody can
walk around with, I shouldn't say anybody, assuming you're the legal age and everything,

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but uh you can walk around with a gun in your pocket as long as it's completely concealed.

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You don't need a permit, you don't need anything special.

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And I had a case, yep, and I had a case where that was exactly what happened, is they said
my client,

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um, might maybe have gotten into a fight with somebody and when they stopped him, he had a
gun in his pocket.

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but they literally put, but we couldn't see it until we first him and I well, this is not
a crime.

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And yet they had arrested him anyway, had taken his gun and I had to argue against the
prosecutor who, who was a former judge who kept insisting that there was enough probable

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cause.

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the case got dismissed.

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immediately because the judge who was working said, yeah, there's not probable cause here.

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This is not a crime.

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That kind of thing happens probably three to four times per shift.

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And we only see 30 to 40 cases in a shift.

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So yeah, I mean, it happens a lot.

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And that goes, you know, that goes to the politics of Travis County and what the
incentives of the police are.

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I can't tell you how many times I've heard on body camera, let the attorneys figure it
out.

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It's kind of an arrest first, ask questions later jurisdiction.

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And they'll tell you otherwise, but I've seen enough body cameras to know that their
instinct is, well, let's put somebody in handcuffs and it's no big deal if they have to go

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for a ride because their attorney will figure it out.

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So that's what happens at council of first appearance that and then the second part, first
part being probable cause.

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Second part is what bond amount and what conditions will this person need, right?

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And for those who don't know bond or bail, they're basically the same word.

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They, it means it's a permission slip is the way I describe it to folks.

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It's like if you were in high school and you needed a hall pass to go to the bathroom,
when you're out on bond, it is essentially a hall pass.

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It's a pass to be out in the community.

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while you have a criminal case pending.

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And that hall pass can sometimes come with conditions.

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Might be getting random your analysis tests.

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It could be taking some classes.

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It could be staying away and not having contact with somebody.

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It could be having a device in your car that you have to blow into.

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There's all sorts of different conditions that a judge can set.

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And so part of our job is to one, argue that this person shouldn't have to pay anything to
get out, or at least to keep that number as low as possible.

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And then two, to try to limit whatever the conditions are, because most of these
conditions are pretty onerous.

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And they seem minor, but when you have to do them day in and day out, and your case takes
a year, it can be a lot to comply with all of these things.

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So that's what happens at CAFA.

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Now, I believe the original question was, what's an average week, right?

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So with that kind of backdrop, an average week is going into court, checking in with the
prosecutor about a case.

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telling them we don't have this evidence, we're gonna need this evidence, negotiating.

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That's usually the morning, you know, then coming back, replying to emails and then
watching evidence and building your defense.

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uh Could be talking with your investigators because we are a holistic office, which means
that we provide, we try to provide services that go beyond just the criminal defense

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aspect of the case.

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We try to connect our clients with

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social programs that they might need that are getting to the root of maybe why they find
themselves in this position.

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We have a lot of meetings with our social workers, our case workers, to make sure that
every client is getting the most out of what we can provide them so that they don't end up

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here again.

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um And so I would say, that's most of the day.

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00:15:43,384 --> 00:15:52,299
I hadn't heard about that, those sort of supplemental or guess adjacent services you
provide, those, is there state funding for those specifically or is that just something

204
00:15:52,299 --> 00:15:54,943
you all have decided as an office to do?

205
00:15:55,264 --> 00:15:58,035
So it's kind of a combination what our office was created.

206
00:15:58,035 --> 00:16:12,914
It was you know, the initial funding came from a state of Texas I Guess agency called the
TIDC the Texas Indent see Defense Commission I can't believe that's what it's called, but

207
00:16:12,914 --> 00:16:21,118
they provide kind of you can think of it like a startup They provide the startup capital
to get the office open the county has to pitch in 50 %

208
00:16:21,403 --> 00:16:22,603
just to get it open.

209
00:16:22,603 --> 00:16:30,645
And then after five years, they stopped providing the funding, the state organization and
the county is the one who covers the cost.

210
00:16:30,645 --> 00:16:35,827
TIDC still may be providing some level of funding, but they're not providing as much as
they used to.

211
00:16:35,827 --> 00:16:43,749
So when we started, we pitched or our chief pitched the offices, this is gonna be a
holistic model.

212
00:16:43,749 --> 00:16:47,540
It's going to provide services beyond just the criminal defense.

213
00:16:47,540 --> 00:16:49,627
We're gonna have social workers on staff.

214
00:16:49,627 --> 00:16:51,178
We're gonna have caseworkers on staff.

215
00:16:51,178 --> 00:16:55,852
We're gonna have paralegals and it's not paralegals in the traditional sense.

216
00:16:55,852 --> 00:17:01,356
The traditional sense, right, somebody who's filing some basic motions, doing your
calendar, that kind of thing.

217
00:17:01,356 --> 00:17:03,758
Our paralegals are more civil advocates.

218
00:17:03,758 --> 00:17:09,363
They help our clients navigate the huge number of bureaucracies that they have to deal
with.

219
00:17:09,363 --> 00:17:13,366
So they assist them in getting their SSI turned back on.

220
00:17:13,366 --> 00:17:18,339
They will assist them in getting driver's licenses, in applying for health insurance.

221
00:17:18,339 --> 00:17:30,479
All the things that would take anybody kind of a lot of time and effort to just navigate
those folks are quote, paralegals or civil advocates are helping our clients navigate that

222
00:17:30,479 --> 00:17:33,513
so that they can get those really critical resources.

223
00:17:33,764 --> 00:17:35,685
Yeah, I think that's interesting too.

224
00:17:35,685 --> 00:17:48,700
Social workers, how do you see or how do you feel exists the sort of line between what a
social worker or a civil advocate is really sort of doing on the non-legal defense side

225
00:17:48,700 --> 00:17:50,112
versus what you're doing?

226
00:17:50,112 --> 00:17:59,986
And do you find that there's sometimes overlap and do you find some bleed back and forth
based upon how you feel or what you think is appropriate?

227
00:17:59,987 --> 00:18:00,828
Absolutely.

228
00:18:00,828 --> 00:18:09,016
think, you you got to remember that there are plenty of folks who get themselves entangled
in this system.

229
00:18:09,016 --> 00:18:13,839
And I would say that the vast majority, it's not by choice, right?

230
00:18:13,839 --> 00:18:17,592
We all want to believe, somebody found themselves in this place.

231
00:18:17,592 --> 00:18:18,882
It's because they made a choice.

232
00:18:18,882 --> 00:18:24,687
They made a conscious decision to do something that ended up resulting in them getting
charged with a crime.

233
00:18:24,687 --> 00:18:25,670
And while they're

234
00:18:25,670 --> 00:18:30,284
Absolutely could be some level of choice to it a lot of times.

235
00:18:30,284 --> 00:18:34,403
It's not something that's very clearly within their control, right?

236
00:18:34,403 --> 00:18:35,668
They're the impacts of poverty.

237
00:18:35,668 --> 00:18:37,390
There's the impacts of mental health.

238
00:18:37,390 --> 00:18:49,481
There's the impacts of addiction and And if you don't address those root causes Then
you're just creating a cycle where somebody comes in goes out comes in goes out comes in

239
00:18:49,481 --> 00:18:53,224
goes out if you really want to stop that kind of

240
00:18:53,225 --> 00:18:57,567
repeat behavior, that kind of cycle, you've got to get to the things that are actually
causing it.

241
00:18:57,567 --> 00:19:01,969
And that could be helping clients get into a treatment program, which we do on the daily.

242
00:19:01,969 --> 00:19:08,130
That could be helping clients get their food stamps turned on, or get some housing
resources, which we do on the daily.

243
00:19:08,130 --> 00:19:16,173
Because if somebody has a roof over their head, or they've got a hot meal to eat, they're
a lot less likely to go looking for those basic needs somewhere else.

244
00:19:16,173 --> 00:19:16,853
Right?

245
00:19:16,853 --> 00:19:20,414
And by somewhere else, I mean, maybe some retail theft, right?

246
00:19:20,414 --> 00:19:21,500
Okay, going to

247
00:19:21,500 --> 00:19:29,725
Target or CVS, can't tell you the number of clients I've had who are alleged to have taken
like body wash, shampoo from a Target, right?

248
00:19:29,725 --> 00:19:32,663
These are not folks who are trying to get rich.

249
00:19:32,663 --> 00:19:34,116
that's not TVs.

250
00:19:34,116 --> 00:19:38,000
That's general needs for everyday people.

251
00:19:38,941 --> 00:19:40,402
That they're struggling with.

252
00:19:40,487 --> 00:19:42,019
you know, how does it compare?

253
00:19:42,019 --> 00:19:51,444
They are part and parcel of what we are doing, often more important, honestly, because in
Travis County, Travis County prosecutors, they are, you know, as much as I will complain

254
00:19:51,444 --> 00:19:55,066
about them, the culture here is they tend to be a little more understanding.

255
00:19:55,066 --> 00:20:02,389
And so I can walk in there and go, look, this is a this is a circumstance situation where
they're working with our social work team.

256
00:20:02,389 --> 00:20:05,071
We're going to try to get them set up with the things that they need.

257
00:20:05,071 --> 00:20:07,729
And they're usually like, OK, yeah, not a problem.

258
00:20:07,729 --> 00:20:11,471
Let us know how that's going and then eventually the case will get dismissed.

259
00:20:11,471 --> 00:20:21,466
I think as it should, they understand that the solution here is not X number of days in
jail, because that's not gonna do anything, that's not gonna help anybody, it's just gonna

260
00:20:21,466 --> 00:20:22,657
create a repeat.

261
00:20:22,657 --> 00:20:31,152
Whereas getting them the resources they need is gonna be something that can hopefully put
them in a position where they don't need to go do some other activities.

262
00:20:31,403 --> 00:20:33,735
That kind of leads into my next question.

263
00:20:33,735 --> 00:20:40,200
Is there something that you've been really wanting people to either understand about this
work or to know?

264
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:46,345
Something that you really, you know, don't really get a chance to say to the broader
public at large.

265
00:20:46,596 --> 00:20:50,928
Yeah, I think, you know, there is, there's a myth, right?

266
00:20:50,928 --> 00:20:53,359
And it's common, and it's about the public defender.

267
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:58,271
And it is absolutely in some ways true, but it's also in some ways false.

268
00:20:58,271 --> 00:21:05,915
And what that myth is, is that like, if you get a public defender, you're getting an
attorney who is not as good as somebody you would pay.

269
00:21:05,915 --> 00:21:13,670
And so like, the public writ large, the reason I say, look, there's plenty of folks who
don't qualify for our services because they make too much money.

270
00:21:13,670 --> 00:21:14,691
That's fine.

271
00:21:14,691 --> 00:21:19,516
know, they should, you know, that's a whole other philosophical issue should you even have
to ever pay for an attorney.

272
00:21:19,516 --> 00:21:20,737
you know, that's fine.

273
00:21:20,737 --> 00:21:27,162
But for a lot of folks, they get appointed a public defender and then they are.

274
00:21:27,413 --> 00:21:31,114
working really hard to save up enough money to go hire somebody.

275
00:21:31,115 --> 00:21:40,135
And I think what I would want to tell the public at large is the people I've worked with
in Philly and here are some of the best attorneys, the most hardworking attorneys.

276
00:21:40,135 --> 00:21:48,995
There's a myth that like, oh, well, you know, if you were really that good, you would like
go do it privately and, you know, make more money.

277
00:21:48,995 --> 00:21:52,255
But there's a lot of other reasons that we do what we do.

278
00:21:52,455 --> 00:21:53,979
And so I think

279
00:21:53,979 --> 00:21:54,989
That's what I want the public.

280
00:21:54,989 --> 00:22:00,864
Like you're getting a really good advocate if you get a PD in almost every place that I've
seen.

281
00:22:01,245 --> 00:22:08,110
And I know we're gonna talk about this, but the overworked high caseloads, yes, that is a
thing, that happens.

282
00:22:08,110 --> 00:22:16,334
But that doesn't mean that the person you're getting isn't going to bust their butt for
you and get you a really good result.

283
00:22:16,334 --> 00:22:17,643
And ultimately,

284
00:22:17,643 --> 00:22:23,346
you know, we're talking dollars and cents here, like it will cost you thousands of dollars
to go to a private defense attorney.

285
00:22:23,346 --> 00:22:29,310
And some of them are great, but some of them just are not as good as the people who are
working my office currently.

286
00:22:29,310 --> 00:22:33,212
And then the office I've worked with in Philly, um, hands down.

287
00:22:33,212 --> 00:22:37,378
And so I just kind of wish people had a clear review.

288
00:22:37,378 --> 00:22:38,874
They want to hire somebody, go for it.

289
00:22:38,874 --> 00:22:40,375
That's obviously you're right.

290
00:22:40,375 --> 00:22:46,198
But, sometimes you're, you're paying for not as great of representation, not always.

291
00:22:46,530 --> 00:22:48,137
But sometimes you are.

292
00:22:48,388 --> 00:22:50,619
And so there's the quality of representation, right?

293
00:22:50,619 --> 00:22:52,330
And then there's also the resources you have.

294
00:22:52,330 --> 00:22:57,625
So I mean, you have a great lawyer, but if they're underfunded, the resources may not be
there for them.

295
00:22:57,625 --> 00:23:00,578
Like you said, their case load goes too high or whatever.

296
00:23:00,578 --> 00:23:05,511
And that's a different, that's a systemic problem, but it's not a problem with the quality
of representation.

297
00:23:05,512 --> 00:23:08,574
Do you find yourself having to educate your clients on that a lot?

298
00:23:08,951 --> 00:23:17,810
yeah, I mean absolutely, find, I think this is an old adage, I don't think telling people,
we use it in trial court all time, don't tell them, show them.

299
00:23:17,850 --> 00:23:22,092
And so you can tell clients every day, we've got these resources.

300
00:23:22,473 --> 00:23:30,908
Next time they're in court, if you have a social worker there who's gonna show them, hey
we can do this, let's set a meeting, let's get you these resources, that immediately

301
00:23:30,908 --> 00:23:35,100
people go, wow, this is an office I can trust, these are people that will.

302
00:23:35,100 --> 00:23:38,222
help me get what I need, they're not just giving me lip service.

303
00:23:38,222 --> 00:23:41,325
And so that's the approach I tend to take.

304
00:23:41,325 --> 00:23:51,251
Don't expect the client to come asking for resources because they've probably had
experiences of like broken promises or having to jump through way too many hoops.

305
00:23:51,251 --> 00:23:54,492
Like let's go to them and show them what we can do for them.

306
00:23:54,492 --> 00:23:59,365
And then they're much more likely to utilize the resources that we have available for
them.

307
00:24:00,249 --> 00:24:06,596
was gonna say just to your point, Will, one thing I wanted to point out too is that
there's a myth, right?

308
00:24:06,596 --> 00:24:12,480
I think a lot of people have seen TV shows, the Lincoln Lawyer comes to mind, Both a show
and a movie.

309
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:19,645
And I haven't seen the show, but if it's like the movie, that one attorney had an
investigator like on call.

310
00:24:19,701 --> 00:24:20,101
Right.

311
00:24:20,101 --> 00:24:26,505
I think people have this belief about private defense attorneys that they have an
investigator on call.

312
00:24:26,505 --> 00:24:30,747
There may be some that do, but the ones I know they do not.

313
00:24:30,747 --> 00:24:34,939
They may have an investigator that they work with regularly, but that costs money.

314
00:24:34,939 --> 00:24:38,071
And I think a lot of people don't realize like, no, that adds to your bill.

315
00:24:38,071 --> 00:24:42,984
That doesn't come part and parcel when you hire an attorney as the PD office.

316
00:24:42,984 --> 00:24:47,370
I am literally right now pointing to the desk across from me and that's my investigator.

317
00:24:47,370 --> 00:24:49,692
And so we are constantly talking about cases.

318
00:24:49,692 --> 00:24:59,900
are constantly planning and strategizing and that kind of efficiency and access for me,
helps me do my job way better.

319
00:24:59,900 --> 00:25:04,433
And it's not just true with the investigators, true with social worker, with the case
worker, with the paralegal.

320
00:25:04,434 --> 00:25:11,460
Everybody is here in the office and you get that efficiency by being in one place in one
group and you get the institutional knowledge.

321
00:25:11,460 --> 00:25:16,564
And if there's a legal topic I don't understand, I can go to another attorney who may be
more of an expert in it.

322
00:25:16,566 --> 00:25:20,928
I just think if you're on your own on an island, it's really hard to get that.

323
00:25:20,928 --> 00:25:25,319
So, you know, I like to tell people, you know, like, yeah, we are your attorney.

324
00:25:25,319 --> 00:25:27,850
It's not just me, it's the whole office.

325
00:25:27,850 --> 00:25:36,033
And that is true in a legal sense, and that attorney-client privilege connects, but it's
also true in a practical sense, because you're getting the benefit of everybody's

326
00:25:36,033 --> 00:25:41,125
experience and everybody's knowledge versus just one individual person.

327
00:25:41,125 --> 00:25:42,269
So.

328
00:25:42,269 --> 00:25:47,242
Yeah, and I think people will have this misconception, like you said, that they're gonna
go out and get Dixie Garren to represent them.

329
00:25:47,242 --> 00:25:49,118
That's just not how it goes, you know.

330
00:25:49,118 --> 00:25:52,860
Yeah, I mean if you're a real estate tycoon, you can do it.

331
00:25:52,860 --> 00:25:53,651
You can afford it.

332
00:25:53,651 --> 00:25:55,452
You can get all those services.

333
00:25:55,452 --> 00:26:00,888
But if not, I mean, wouldn't you prefer a law firm to be working for you rather than one
person?

334
00:26:00,888 --> 00:26:01,435
I don't know.

335
00:26:01,435 --> 00:26:03,176
That's so.

336
00:26:03,666 --> 00:26:10,926
Yeah, and I was just pulling, I pulled some stats just to sort of bolster the numbers
game.

337
00:26:10,926 --> 00:26:14,566
A lot of people who haven't hired an attorney before, they have no idea what it costs.

338
00:26:14,566 --> 00:26:21,586
mean, basically there's just this belief it's just expensive and if you have to ask, you
can't afford it, know, kind of a thing.

339
00:26:21,886 --> 00:26:32,646
In Texas specifically, a criminal defense retainer, and that's just your first payment for
our listeners out there, for a misdemeanor is gonna be somewhere between 1500 bucks and

340
00:26:32,646 --> 00:26:33,586
5000.

341
00:26:33,617 --> 00:26:37,857
just a misdemeanor, and they burn it.

342
00:26:37,977 --> 00:26:41,417
If they don't use it, you still lose it, it doesn't matter.

343
00:26:41,417 --> 00:26:47,357
Felonies, you're looking anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 of a retainer just to get an
attorney started.

344
00:26:47,357 --> 00:26:58,737
And a serious felony murder, federal crime, something of that, we're looking between
25,000 and 100,000 plus as an initial retainer to hire a private defense attorney.

345
00:26:58,738 --> 00:27:00,425
Yeah, that sounds right.

346
00:27:00,626 --> 00:27:01,146
Yeah.

347
00:27:01,146 --> 00:27:04,728
So I mean, it's not anything cheap.

348
00:27:04,728 --> 00:27:10,551
So in our debate last week, we described the system sort of as a processing center.

349
00:27:10,551 --> 00:27:18,963
And I mean, I know you've kind of covered a little bit of this, but lawyers kind of
meeting clients for the first time five minutes before a plea hearing in a hallway.

350
00:27:18,963 --> 00:27:24,906
That's what you see on the cop shows, you know, and where there's a public defender at
all.

351
00:27:25,216 --> 00:27:29,198
Is that I mean, is there any truth to that whatsoever?

352
00:27:29,198 --> 00:27:32,989
You described a situation where obviously you guys are doing a good job, right?

353
00:27:32,989 --> 00:27:35,170
I mean, it sounds like you're making a lot of effort.

354
00:27:35,170 --> 00:27:37,923
sounds like your clients are well are well defended.

355
00:27:37,923 --> 00:27:48,657
But because of sort of the realities of both workload and funding, both at a county level
as well as at a state level, would you describe any of that to be reality in maybe some of

356
00:27:48,657 --> 00:27:53,265
the smaller counties around Texas, like the hundred and fifty six that don't even have a

357
00:27:53,265 --> 00:27:54,883
Public Defender's Office.

358
00:27:55,315 --> 00:27:57,106
Yes, mean it's true in Travis County too.

359
00:27:57,106 --> 00:28:02,872
Yeah, and I can, and this might be a good time to kind of talk about my experience in
Philadelphia.

360
00:28:02,872 --> 00:28:05,684
So here we have what's called BRD.

361
00:28:05,684 --> 00:28:07,756
It's called bond reduction docket.

362
00:28:07,756 --> 00:28:08,736
It's a misnomer.

363
00:28:08,736 --> 00:28:10,377
It's not what it's intended for.

364
00:28:10,377 --> 00:28:15,402
You could get your bond reduced if you do not take the plea, but really it's a plea
docket.

365
00:28:15,402 --> 00:28:16,203
What does that mean?

366
00:28:16,203 --> 00:28:18,815
It means, right now it's for misdemeanor cases where the

367
00:28:18,815 --> 00:28:20,685
client is still in custody.

368
00:28:20,906 --> 00:28:23,677
And so they've had their registration, right?

369
00:28:23,677 --> 00:28:28,379
That was maybe a few days ago and their bond got set at some level.

370
00:28:28,379 --> 00:28:29,089
They couldn't make it.

371
00:28:29,089 --> 00:28:31,050
Whatever it was, they couldn't pay it.

372
00:28:31,250 --> 00:28:41,074
Hopefully, the attorney went to a judge and said, hey, you know, the judge that the case
got assigned to, hey, will you lower this bond and try to get the person out?

373
00:28:41,074 --> 00:28:43,295
know, our attorneys will do that.

374
00:28:43,295 --> 00:28:45,996
Not every attorney does it, but ours will.

375
00:28:46,352 --> 00:28:47,592
Maybe the judge said no.

376
00:28:47,592 --> 00:28:51,213
And so the person is still stuck in jail on a misdemeanor.

377
00:28:51,333 --> 00:29:00,107
And so what Travis County has in those situations, assuming there's no other reason, it's
not following a related felony or something like that, the person doesn't have a hold for

378
00:29:00,107 --> 00:29:06,049
some other thing, out of county or federal hold, then it will get placed on bond reduction
docket.

379
00:29:06,049 --> 00:29:13,561
And what happens at bond reduction docket is you show up and you may not have all the
evidence and they make you an offer.

380
00:29:13,729 --> 00:29:19,953
and you're duty bound of course to convey that offer to your client and explain to your
client, look we don't have all the evidence.

381
00:29:19,953 --> 00:29:25,477
I can ask for a lower bond amount or we can negotiate and you can take that offer today.

382
00:29:25,838 --> 00:29:31,603
And so now in our case, right, we are meeting our clients at Magistration.

383
00:29:31,603 --> 00:29:35,846
So they've met us but it could be a few days later we're telling them, hey do you want to
take this plea?

384
00:29:35,846 --> 00:29:39,886
It is their right, we advise them but ultimately if that's what they want, you know.

385
00:29:39,886 --> 00:29:41,416
then we go through with it.

386
00:29:41,417 --> 00:29:46,219
And we try to get as much of the evidence as we can, but sometimes like the body cameras
just haven't been uploaded yet.

387
00:29:46,219 --> 00:29:52,263
So we don't have complete evidence and we've asked for it, that's on the prosecutors and
the police for not turning it over.

388
00:29:52,263 --> 00:29:57,144
But ultimately if the client is well informed and they wanna take the plea, that's all
right.

389
00:29:57,396 --> 00:30:03,819
But some attorneys, not from our office, will show up and that's where they're getting
their client.

390
00:30:03,819 --> 00:30:09,360
So yes, they've met their client five minutes before and they're saying, hey, do you want
to take this plea?

391
00:30:09,611 --> 00:30:11,311
Some of these cases are open and shut, right?

392
00:30:11,311 --> 00:30:19,864
Some of them are criminal trespass and the client clearly was doing something they
wouldn't be and you can talk to the client, the client's like, yeah, that's fine, time

393
00:30:19,864 --> 00:30:21,314
served, yeah, I'm good with it.

394
00:30:21,314 --> 00:30:24,075
I've got 10 criminal trespasses, what's one more?

395
00:30:24,075 --> 00:30:24,915
I just want out.

396
00:30:24,915 --> 00:30:25,510
Again.

397
00:30:25,510 --> 00:30:26,921
as is their right.

398
00:30:27,142 --> 00:30:36,541
But as far as the quick rocket docket, which is what it's known, not just locally, but
everywhere, yeah, that absolutely happens.

399
00:30:37,055 --> 00:30:39,352
Small counties, I imagine it's the same thing.

400
00:30:39,352 --> 00:30:40,176
Yeah.

401
00:30:40,427 --> 00:30:50,007
Okay, so I mean, obviously there was some issues again with New York as well in some of
the facts we talked about previously where it's that sort of, was a problem for New York

402
00:30:50,007 --> 00:31:00,175
State as a whole and they were running into not just the open and shut, clearly the
client's fine with it, the client in some cases was expecting help, was expecting

403
00:31:00,175 --> 00:31:03,537
legitimate concern, was expecting legitimate.

404
00:31:06,273 --> 00:31:07,009
you

405
00:31:07,009 --> 00:31:09,931
they just simply weren't receiving it and were saying, look, this is your choice.

406
00:31:09,931 --> 00:31:12,233
You pick this plea or, you whatever.

407
00:31:12,233 --> 00:31:14,314
And I wanted to make sure that we sort of talked about those things.

408
00:31:14,314 --> 00:31:24,822
Now, it does sound like Travis County has made a lot of positive changes in the last few
years, some because of the court outcome, right?

409
00:31:24,822 --> 00:31:27,663
Which is the process that we've been

410
00:31:28,073 --> 00:31:29,484
sort of handed as a way.

411
00:31:29,484 --> 00:31:33,295
Now, if you did listen, I did take the opinion of I think the whole thing needs to be
scrapped.

412
00:31:33,295 --> 00:31:35,196
Like I think we got to go to a one to one model.

413
00:31:35,196 --> 00:31:41,528
If we're going to fund defense, we should I mean, if we're to fund prosecution, we should
fund defense at the same clip.

414
00:31:41,529 --> 00:31:45,471
What is I mean, what is a good outcome actually look like for one of your clients?

415
00:31:45,471 --> 00:31:45,681
Right.

416
00:31:45,681 --> 00:31:47,552
Like what is what is a bad one look like?

417
00:31:47,552 --> 00:31:56,185
Not and it doesn't have to be dramatically bad, like just kind of the the ordinary kind of
loss that comes from the system working the way the system was designed.

418
00:31:56,641 --> 00:31:59,821
Yeah, which by the way, love that idea.

419
00:31:59,821 --> 00:32:01,024
$1 to $1.

420
00:32:01,024 --> 00:32:02,986
That's, that's way, I agree with that.

421
00:32:02,986 --> 00:32:03,937
What's the ideal?

422
00:32:03,937 --> 00:32:05,148
I mean, a good outcome.

423
00:32:05,148 --> 00:32:13,054
mean, I think a good outcome is if somebody can avoid a conviction, they think if they can
avoid something that will stay with them forever.

424
00:32:13,054 --> 00:32:18,188
It's not always a good outcome because sometimes the impacts go beyond what's on paper,
right?

425
00:32:18,188 --> 00:32:20,019
You've, you've got sure.

426
00:32:20,019 --> 00:32:22,150
Maybe I avoided a conviction, but

427
00:32:22,176 --> 00:32:27,656
in the process of being prosecuted for this alleged offense, I lost my job.

428
00:32:27,936 --> 00:32:30,536
I had to move out of my house.

429
00:32:30,536 --> 00:32:32,696
I lost my car.

430
00:32:32,696 --> 00:32:39,176
I mean, there's a lot of impacts that go beyond the conviction.

431
00:32:39,177 --> 00:32:50,761
And so it's hard, know, if a client's able to avoid any serious collateral consequences
and walk away with an outcome that does not

432
00:32:50,766 --> 00:32:54,147
impact their life, I would call that a positive.

433
00:32:54,147 --> 00:32:55,167
That's a good outcome.

434
00:32:55,167 --> 00:32:56,788
It depends on the person.

435
00:32:56,788 --> 00:33:07,231
So for example, I may have a client who has a handful of felony convictions, but none that
are gonna stop them from working a blue collar job.

436
00:33:07,231 --> 00:33:08,632
They can still get paid.

437
00:33:08,632 --> 00:33:17,338
There are some sex offenses, a lot of times theft offenses that things that employers are
like, I don't wanna touch this.

438
00:33:17,338 --> 00:33:25,052
But if you're doing construction work and you've got an aggravated assault on your record,
they might not care as long as you can do the work and show up on time.

439
00:33:25,052 --> 00:33:25,973
They're good with that.

440
00:33:25,973 --> 00:33:32,215
And so maybe taking a misdemeanor conviction on some case is fine for them.

441
00:33:32,215 --> 00:33:39,899
They got out on bond, they didn't lose their job, a misdemeanor isn't gonna change
anything in their life, it's not gonna impact their custody of their kids, it's not gonna

442
00:33:39,899 --> 00:33:42,828
impact whatever resources they're getting, if they're getting any.

443
00:33:42,828 --> 00:33:44,588
And so to them, they're like, yeah, it's fine.

444
00:33:44,588 --> 00:33:46,288
It's one more, it ain't gonna change my life.

445
00:33:46,288 --> 00:33:47,128
Like, let's do it.

446
00:33:47,128 --> 00:33:52,608
And then I can just be done with, you know, with the impacts of this.

447
00:33:52,608 --> 00:33:57,608
Cause a lot of times the punishment is the process or the process is the punishment.

448
00:33:58,048 --> 00:34:00,408
And so, yeah.

449
00:34:00,775 --> 00:34:01,615
And what would you say?

450
00:34:01,615 --> 00:34:08,195
mean, knowing those likely outcomes as you do from your experience, mean, that's that's
that only comes with experience, right?

451
00:34:08,495 --> 00:34:09,735
They don't really teach that in law school.

452
00:34:09,735 --> 00:34:11,775
At least I didn't get that class.

453
00:34:11,776 --> 00:34:20,516
But, you know, if you I think that's one of the reasons it's important to keep the system
funded and to keep, you know, experienced public defenders able to live off of their

454
00:34:20,516 --> 00:34:23,176
salaries, you know, because people need that, right?

455
00:34:23,176 --> 00:34:27,203
People don't want to get trapped in these situations where they're ruining their whole
life to take a

456
00:34:27,203 --> 00:34:29,183
plea bargain for a short-term benefit,

457
00:34:29,434 --> 00:34:30,515
Yes, I agree.

458
00:34:30,515 --> 00:34:37,632
um that goes to very big systemic change and changing the opinions and the beliefs of
those who are in positions of power within the system.

459
00:34:37,632 --> 00:34:40,434
And mainly that's judges, but it's also prosecutors.

460
00:34:40,434 --> 00:34:47,860
I mean, they have a complete misconception, a lot of them, of like, how are you gonna help
change someone's life?

461
00:34:47,881 --> 00:34:48,299
Right?

462
00:34:48,299 --> 00:34:49,534
And like really,

463
00:34:49,534 --> 00:34:54,037
And this gets to big philosophical questions of like, is this system even for?

464
00:34:54,218 --> 00:35:03,965
You know, I think realistically, if we're talking about, you I think a lot of us would
hope that it's for rehabilitation or it's for diversion or it's hoping that like, if

465
00:35:03,965 --> 00:35:12,094
somebody assuming that they in fact did cause some kind of harm, I know why did they cause
that harm and what can we do to make sure it doesn't happen again?

466
00:35:12,094 --> 00:35:16,284
And a lot of times, as I said, that means getting them the resources that they need.

467
00:35:16,610 --> 00:35:22,172
both the person who may have caused the harm and the person who was harmed.

468
00:35:22,430 --> 00:35:31,846
And unfortunately, I think that there are those who designed the system, if we're being
honest, and probably continue to perpetuate its existence in its current form, that are

469
00:35:31,846 --> 00:35:33,757
not really concerned with rehabilitation.

470
00:35:33,757 --> 00:35:38,389
They're not concerned with making sure that the crime rates go down.

471
00:35:38,389 --> 00:35:42,774
In fact, they probably wanna see the crime rates go up, because that's not their goal.

472
00:35:42,774 --> 00:35:51,961
And their goal is oppression and their goal is trying to keep certain populations from
gaining power and from being successful.

473
00:35:51,962 --> 00:35:54,763
I mean, unfortunately, the history bears that out, right?

474
00:35:54,763 --> 00:35:55,203
right?

475
00:35:55,203 --> 00:35:59,588
Now you're starting to actually speak the language of the overlap along with us.

476
00:35:59,588 --> 00:36:05,254
And I want to say, I think that sometimes there's uh sort of an unfair KPI here.

477
00:36:05,254 --> 00:36:14,404
I think that from a perspective of somebody who values equal justice more than necessarily
just justice,

478
00:36:14,408 --> 00:36:20,290
they're going to say, you know, the KPI for you doing a good job or a good outcome is that
you got the client off.

479
00:36:20,290 --> 00:36:24,972
You got the client, you know, the case dismissed or you kept from the conviction.

480
00:36:24,972 --> 00:36:34,747
And, you know, if, if you're, if it's the opposite perspective and they are more on the
side of the DA or they were one of the victims, justice probably to them looks a little

481
00:36:34,747 --> 00:36:42,561
bit more like you got, you know, you, you had a crappy defense and it got the, the,
prosecutor, the, the win.

482
00:36:42,609 --> 00:36:45,189
and that person goes to jail or for whatever reason.

483
00:36:45,189 --> 00:36:49,121
I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm gonna sort of paraphrase here.

484
00:36:49,121 --> 00:36:59,995
It sounds like you're saying that ultimately the best KPI is that they got a valid, a good
defense just as though they were any person actually paying for it.

485
00:36:59,995 --> 00:37:02,416
In some cases, maybe better.

486
00:37:02,417 --> 00:37:04,060
Yeah, I would agree with that.

487
00:37:04,060 --> 00:37:04,901
Yes.

488
00:37:05,191 --> 00:37:05,892
cool.

489
00:37:05,892 --> 00:37:08,573
The from the other side seems to be it really comes into play.

490
00:37:08,573 --> 00:37:18,677
There's systemic issues, but for an individual, lead to the level of that DA position, now
you're both a prosecutor and a politician, and you got to defend your tough on crime

491
00:37:18,677 --> 00:37:19,787
stance or whatever.

492
00:37:19,787 --> 00:37:30,262
The only stats that they care about are convictions and how many quote unquote dangerous
people, tend to, yeah, there's like a dog whistle word, but the number of dangerous

493
00:37:30,262 --> 00:37:32,584
criminals you kept off the streets, that's your record, right?

494
00:37:32,584 --> 00:37:33,515
And so that's gonna...

495
00:37:33,515 --> 00:37:39,400
incentive there is to get the person to serve time or do whatever to say, hey, I kept
these dangerous people off the streets.

496
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:41,111
Whereas my opponent was whatever.

497
00:37:41,111 --> 00:37:45,965
And that seems to be not really serving the public very well.

498
00:37:45,965 --> 00:37:47,725
But that's the system we have.

499
00:37:47,911 --> 00:37:51,800
Yeah, well, if you look the AG in Texas.

500
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:53,200
yeah, right.

501
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:54,420
You've got to ask yourself.

502
00:37:54,420 --> 00:38:03,480
And as I was listening to y'all's last episode that, you know, it came to mind, I was
like, I work with a lot of different kinds of prosecutors of different experience levels.

503
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:11,677
And the ones that are the most reasonable in my case, or my, my opinion, I should say, are

504
00:38:11,677 --> 00:38:24,626
the folks who are willing to listen, they have perspective, and they're ultimately they
care about, you know, the long term impact and almost to say quality of life of both

505
00:38:24,626 --> 00:38:25,496
sides.

506
00:38:25,496 --> 00:38:31,160
In Texas, there's a constitutional mandate that prosecutors seek to do justice.

507
00:38:31,180 --> 00:38:32,402
And that's not defined.

508
00:38:32,402 --> 00:38:33,513
And there's a reason for that.

509
00:38:33,513 --> 00:38:35,504
Like that might mean dismissing a case.

510
00:38:35,504 --> 00:38:36,644
might mean

511
00:38:37,020 --> 00:38:43,386
offering a very reasonable plea offer because they're not intended to just seek
convictions.

512
00:38:43,386 --> 00:38:55,575
And I think that unfortunately a lot of the culture of lot of prosecutors offices, because
it's easy to just cite your conviction rate or to talk about the number of years that you

513
00:38:55,575 --> 00:38:59,309
pledged, got somebody to plead to is,

514
00:38:59,517 --> 00:39:03,737
it's easy to cite those numbers and then that becomes the goal.

515
00:39:03,917 --> 00:39:06,877
Whereas you should get more credit for, man, you know what?

516
00:39:06,877 --> 00:39:11,257
The defense attorney presented me this mitigation and ultimately we're gonna give this guy
a chance.

517
00:39:11,257 --> 00:39:14,497
I prosecutors should probably be judged on recidivism rates.

518
00:39:14,937 --> 00:39:23,237
How often did they get an outcome where the person didn't go to prison and didn't end up
having a new offense?

519
00:39:23,237 --> 00:39:29,137
And that can be because they got creative and they wanted classes and that kind of thing.

520
00:39:29,138 --> 00:39:32,817
But unfortunately, that's not the culture in a lot of their offices.

521
00:39:32,818 --> 00:39:41,038
And while we're still on the point of philosophical, you know, or political philosophy
here, I mean, I think they should reflect, like you said, the chug on the quality of life.

522
00:39:41,038 --> 00:39:46,778
There's a quality of life for, you know, the prosecution side, for the government side,
which is supposed to represent the people, right?

523
00:39:46,778 --> 00:39:51,038
Ideally, it's the people versus not the DA versus.

524
00:39:51,658 --> 00:39:57,935
But the quality of life thing is important too, because these are the people you're
putting in jail or not putting in jail or the people you're getting to plea out.

525
00:39:57,935 --> 00:40:11,914
you you

526
00:40:11,914 --> 00:40:17,014
jobs and work jobs and support, you know, they can pay taxes and support the government
that way.

527
00:40:17,014 --> 00:40:27,291
But also even for the tough on crime folks, it's like, yeah, you'll see people who have no
problem undercutting the public defender's office and they have $106 million shortfall.

528
00:40:27,291 --> 00:40:31,143
But the reality is when you don't have the public defender there, that's somebody else
that's going to be in jail.

529
00:40:31,143 --> 00:40:33,181
And you know how much it costs to house a prisoner?

530
00:40:33,181 --> 00:40:36,175
A lot more than it costs to have a PD on a case.

531
00:40:36,275 --> 00:40:37,996
That's what people should be thinking about is long-term.

532
00:40:37,996 --> 00:40:46,261
Like if this person pleads for two years of prison time that they didn't have to do, now
you're paying them for their room and board for the rest of that time as a taxpayer.

533
00:40:46,261 --> 00:40:50,633
So a little short-sighted to think, know, them away, put them away.

534
00:40:50,695 --> 00:40:54,309
I can't tell you how many times I've heard judges, even though these are our clients,
right?

535
00:40:54,309 --> 00:40:59,424
They've been by the court, they have been declared indigent, meaning they cannot afford an
attorney.

536
00:40:59,424 --> 00:41:07,332
And yet we still have to ask the judges to waive fees for things like monitors, alcohol
monitors, waive fees for classes.

537
00:41:07,332 --> 00:41:09,025
There's a fee in Texas.

538
00:41:09,025 --> 00:41:11,867
to get a personal recognizance bond.

539
00:41:12,289 --> 00:41:18,795
A personal recognizance bond for those who don't know is where you just sign your name and
you say, I promise I'm gonna show up.

540
00:41:18,795 --> 00:41:21,839
And now if you don't show up, they can issue a warrant, you know, that kind of thing.

541
00:41:21,839 --> 00:41:27,585
But in Texas, the whole point is that you don't have to pay money, but there's a fee to
get the bond and it's $40.

542
00:41:27,585 --> 00:41:30,888
And it's like, wait, I thought this was something I didn't have to pay for.

543
00:41:30,888 --> 00:41:32,284
um

544
00:41:32,284 --> 00:41:33,057
fee.

545
00:41:33,207 --> 00:41:34,467
but there's a processing fee.

546
00:41:34,467 --> 00:41:36,628
And so we have to ask for those things to be waived.

547
00:41:36,628 --> 00:41:45,443
And in most cases they are waived, but there's some judges who are like, well, indigent
doesn't mean, I'm like, it does mean that they can't afford it, like by definition.

548
00:41:45,443 --> 00:41:49,984
And so they're always worried about, that they cite the taxpayers money.

549
00:41:50,094 --> 00:41:59,228
well, the taxpayers are, and I'm like, the taxpayers are gonna pay a lot more if you put
this person in jail and have them wait in jail for their trial.

550
00:41:59,379 --> 00:42:00,150
Right.

551
00:42:00,150 --> 00:42:02,813
And it's like they don't make that connection.

552
00:42:03,763 --> 00:42:10,045
the monitor or the breathalyzer or whatever, somebody else might get hurt by them making
another, getting caught up in another bad situation.

553
00:42:10,045 --> 00:42:12,746
Somebody else could get hurt or, yeah.

554
00:42:12,746 --> 00:42:18,849
Again, it's short-sighted, but that's why we're here, to educate our audience, hopefully.

555
00:42:19,101 --> 00:42:29,447
there was something Joshua that you had touched on about, you know, Travis County doing a
pretty good job as far as not having crushing caseloads like we've all heard about.

556
00:42:29,447 --> 00:42:38,911
And uh while that is true currently, unfortunately, we are starting to get to the point
where that may start to become more of an issue.

557
00:42:38,911 --> 00:42:43,034
And the reason is, ironically, when the public defender's office was created,

558
00:42:43,285 --> 00:42:47,596
there was also an issue with how much they paid court appointed attorneys.

559
00:42:47,596 --> 00:42:51,197
And so just to kind of make sure the difference is clear, right?

560
00:42:51,197 --> 00:42:58,079
A public defender is somebody who works in an office with other attorneys, investigators,
social worker, case workers, et cetera.

561
00:42:58,079 --> 00:43:00,759
And a client will get assigned to that office.

562
00:43:00,759 --> 00:43:07,401
And then the office will represent that person in the way it sees fit consistent with
their legal duties.

563
00:43:07,401 --> 00:43:10,361
Meaning the person doesn't choose which public defender they get.

564
00:43:10,361 --> 00:43:12,352
The office chooses which public defender they get.

565
00:43:12,352 --> 00:43:13,366
But the person

566
00:43:13,366 --> 00:43:15,606
client gets assigned to the office.

567
00:43:15,867 --> 00:43:24,779
If you don't get assigned to the public defender's office because there could be a
conflict where we represent the other person in the case or we have represented a witness

568
00:43:24,779 --> 00:43:34,852
or for a variety of reasons, you and you still qualify for a court appointed attorney,
you'll get a private attorney who the court will pay for.

569
00:43:34,853 --> 00:43:36,464
They don't pay them their normal rate.

570
00:43:36,464 --> 00:43:41,415
They pay them a reduced rate that has been agreed on by the county.

571
00:43:41,631 --> 00:43:41,985
Mm-hmm.

572
00:43:41,985 --> 00:43:44,987
many private attorneys will take court appointments.

573
00:43:44,987 --> 00:43:46,399
They'll take those clients.

574
00:43:46,399 --> 00:43:53,464
And there was a, you go back a few years and there was a debate over like what they were
paying because it was a very low amount.

575
00:43:53,464 --> 00:43:58,687
It was like, I want to say it was one to $200 for a misdemeanor for the whole case.

576
00:43:58,688 --> 00:43:59,068
Right?

577
00:43:59,068 --> 00:44:08,848
And so when your incentives are aligned that way, you're incentivized to just move them as
quick as possible because if it took you a day or if it took you a year,

578
00:44:08,848 --> 00:44:11,191
you were getting basically the same price.

579
00:44:11,191 --> 00:44:20,179
Yeah, you might get a little bit more if it went to trial, you might get a little bit more
if there was emotion involved, but if it was just basic reviewing discovery and leading to

580
00:44:20,179 --> 00:44:22,501
a plea, you were getting the same amount.

581
00:44:22,501 --> 00:44:30,289
And so what happened, where people were taking an unbelievably large amount of cases,
because they were trying to make ends meet, right?

582
00:44:30,289 --> 00:44:31,910
And so it makes sense.

583
00:44:32,111 --> 00:44:33,256
That has changed.

584
00:44:33,256 --> 00:44:40,756
They're now an hour, they're getting paid hourly now and it's a, you know, there's a
debate over whether or not the rate they're getting paid is reasonable.

585
00:44:41,007 --> 00:44:48,707
What I can tell you is that whatever that rate is, it's not enough because they don't have
enough attorneys.

586
00:44:48,887 --> 00:44:52,967
They don't have enough attorneys taking cases that the public defender doesn't take.

587
00:44:52,967 --> 00:44:59,527
And so there are a lot of clients right now who are waiting days, weeks to get their court
appointed attorney assigned.

588
00:45:00,727 --> 00:45:01,955
And so now it's like,

589
00:45:01,955 --> 00:45:03,510
has spoken, it's not working.

590
00:45:03,510 --> 00:45:10,170
Yeah, and so it's either you either raise the rates to get more attorneys to take those
court-appointed cases or where do they go?

591
00:45:10,170 --> 00:45:15,776
Oh, well, here's a sponge that can seemingly just keep soaking it up and they try to send
it to the PD's office.

592
00:45:16,657 --> 00:45:22,860
And so then we start to go over the case caps that they've set our limits that, you know,
to good representation.

593
00:45:22,860 --> 00:45:27,382
So that is unfortunately on the horizon for Travis County.

594
00:45:27,633 --> 00:45:34,693
And so in those 150 plus counties that Joshua was talking about in Texas where they don't
have a PD's office, that's basically what they're learning to, right?

595
00:45:34,693 --> 00:45:38,653
Is they're gonna get court appointed lawyers at whatever rate they've worked out.

596
00:45:39,073 --> 00:45:39,966
Wow.

597
00:45:39,966 --> 00:45:43,627
you you mentioned earlier, think Joshua said it was like a good old boy system.

598
00:45:43,627 --> 00:45:45,418
And in some of these counties, it is.

599
00:45:45,418 --> 00:45:56,973
In Travis County, they operate on what's called the wheel, meaning, you know, let's say
you have 50 attorneys that can take misdemeanor A, which is the highest misdemeanor level.

600
00:45:56,973 --> 00:45:58,654
They all kind of stand in line.

601
00:45:58,654 --> 00:46:04,196
You get your case, and then you go to the back of the line and you wait until your turn
comes up again.

602
00:46:04,196 --> 00:46:06,093
So it operates kind of like a wheel.

603
00:46:06,093 --> 00:46:15,819
And so that way there's no unfair system where attorneys might be getting more cases than
another attorney.

604
00:46:15,819 --> 00:46:17,941
Now, Travis County did not used to work that way.

605
00:46:17,941 --> 00:46:28,148
That wheel system came about, oh, at this point, I think it was maybe 10-ish years ago,
because there were five attorneys who were getting a huge amount of cases.

606
00:46:28,148 --> 00:46:28,988
And...

607
00:46:29,240 --> 00:46:36,870
They were getting cases for who knows why, but the judges were the ones who were
appointing the cases and it just so happened that these five just kept getting a lot of

608
00:46:36,870 --> 00:46:37,859
cases.

609
00:46:38,294 --> 00:46:45,954
Just having a room with the judge in law school and, you know, be married to the judge's
niece or nephew or, yeah.

610
00:46:45,954 --> 00:46:49,479
a lot of these small counties, I imagine it operates kind of similar.

611
00:46:49,479 --> 00:46:55,985
They may not have a wheel system that judges appoint and I would not be shocked if a
certain handful of folks just get all the appointments.

612
00:46:55,985 --> 00:46:59,638
And so yeah, if you're out there, that's what you deal with.

613
00:46:59,638 --> 00:47:01,289
There are no public defender's offices.

614
00:47:01,289 --> 00:47:03,231
Now there are a few, there's regional ones.

615
00:47:03,231 --> 00:47:11,537
There may be three or four that cover a couple counties, but that doesn't mean they're
taking the bulk of the cases and for all the rest, yeah, they're doing court appointed.

616
00:47:11,822 --> 00:47:13,601
to whatever degree they can.

617
00:47:13,602 --> 00:47:14,493
Yeah.

618
00:47:14,744 --> 00:47:24,390
Now, if I'm not, if my research hasn't uh given up on me, Travis County recently
consolidated its public defenders offices into kind of one department.

619
00:47:24,611 --> 00:47:25,302
That is correct.

620
00:47:25,302 --> 00:47:28,244
Yes, we had a juvenile public defender's office.

621
00:47:28,244 --> 00:47:31,507
We had the adult public defender's office, which is where I work.

622
00:47:31,507 --> 00:47:33,549
And we had a mental health public defender's office.

623
00:47:33,549 --> 00:47:40,153
And the MH, the juvenile public defender's office has been around for, I want to say like
50 years.

624
00:47:40,153 --> 00:47:41,715
It's been around a while.

625
00:47:41,715 --> 00:47:44,858
I could get that number could be way off, but it's been around a while.

626
00:47:44,858 --> 00:47:52,682
The mental health public defender's office, I think since the early 2000s has been around
and then we were created five years ago.

627
00:47:52,682 --> 00:47:59,738
And as part of the grant that created our office, there was a requirement to consider
consolidation.

628
00:47:59,738 --> 00:48:06,763
And then ultimately the county felt like that, you know, for economies of scale, you you
didn't have to have three chiefs, you could have one chief.

629
00:48:06,763 --> 00:48:08,803
And so that's what happened.

630
00:48:09,033 --> 00:48:19,237
Which ultimately goes to, or at least seemingly on the surface, goes to better outcomes
and more clients served and more attorneys versus more chiefs.

631
00:48:19,237 --> 00:48:23,432
I mean, the cost for an attorney versus a chief, I'm sure, is likely on the two to one
scale.

632
00:48:23,432 --> 00:48:29,197
So from where you sit, has that been in real practice an improvement or is it?

633
00:48:29,197 --> 00:48:33,831
Basically just a reorganization and doesn't really actually change the underlying resource
problem.

634
00:48:34,150 --> 00:48:37,041
I'm probably gonna give a lawyer answer and say little column A, little column B.

635
00:48:37,041 --> 00:48:45,173
Yeah, but I mean, yes, so our building, I'm on the third floor now, our fourth floor is
our mental health unit.

636
00:48:45,173 --> 00:48:54,646
And so then, yes, we have technology these days, yes, you can reach out to anybody, but
them being physically that close, I can pop into an office, I can ask a question about a

637
00:48:54,646 --> 00:49:00,570
complex mental health issue that a client might be having from the people who are the
experts in it.

638
00:49:00,570 --> 00:49:09,567
Juvenile they are in a different office because they have a different court and so they're
not here So I don't talk to them quite as much but I do know that being part of the same

639
00:49:09,567 --> 00:49:16,694
office it creates continuity of representation We're able to pass our notes along easier.

640
00:49:16,694 --> 00:49:20,178
We're able to share resources and pool resources.

641
00:49:20,178 --> 00:49:22,089
So there's a lot of benefit to it

642
00:49:22,340 --> 00:49:33,540
Um, so look, we, we spent a good chunk of the last episode basically arguing whether this
system is kind of failing by design or by neglect.

643
00:49:33,540 --> 00:49:45,920
Um, whether the 94 crime bills investment in prosecution in prisons with nothing for
defense was kind of a conscious choice or kind of a political blind spot.

644
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,424
And now I'm not asking you to pick a side, but I'm, genuinely curious.

645
00:49:50,424 --> 00:49:56,756
from your chair and where you're working every day, does that distinction feel meaningful?

646
00:49:57,007 --> 00:49:58,528
Yeah, I think it does.

647
00:49:58,528 --> 00:50:01,090
mean, the outcome is the same, right?

648
00:50:01,090 --> 00:50:04,192
But I think it does because it goes to how do you fix it?

649
00:50:04,192 --> 00:50:09,636
think if it's by neglect, think that's what Will was arguing.

650
00:50:09,636 --> 00:50:15,259
That suggests that you have a system that's populated by good actors who just need a
better answer.

651
00:50:15,740 --> 00:50:21,043
Whereas I think that if it's by design, you've got a whole other battle on your hands.

652
00:50:21,117 --> 00:50:26,770
And you've got people who may be saying, yeah, we wanna do X, Y, and Z, but they're being
disingenuine.

653
00:50:26,770 --> 00:50:29,131
So I do think that there is a critical difference.

654
00:50:29,131 --> 00:50:33,855
At the end of the day, think the outcome is the same, which is that we've got underfunded
offices.

655
00:50:33,855 --> 00:50:41,438
And those underfunded offices, we have a high burnout rate because folks have a lot of,
there's trauma to the job, sure, right?

656
00:50:41,438 --> 00:50:42,999
But if you can't...

657
00:50:43,250 --> 00:50:54,101
family, if you've got other priorities that this job is making impossible to address, then
you're going to leave somewhere else even if you really want to be here.

658
00:50:54,352 --> 00:51:00,480
So do you have a position on which of the two it is that they collect versus that you're
willing to share?

659
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:03,978
Notice I specifically did not ask you to pick a side.

660
00:51:03,978 --> 00:51:07,805
I asked you if you felt like the distinction was meaningful.

661
00:51:07,981 --> 00:51:12,474
I'm just asking you if you'd like to air it on here, you're welcome to.

662
00:51:12,474 --> 00:51:14,171
If not, it's too complicated.

663
00:51:14,171 --> 00:51:16,565
I can totally accept that as well.

664
00:51:16,706 --> 00:51:25,484
I think what I have learned in the work that I've done in Travis County, one, think
because I've just gotten older and two, because our office has been very.

665
00:51:25,735 --> 00:51:31,078
active in advocating with the county for its needs.

666
00:51:31,098 --> 00:51:36,941
And I say that both our leadership has done so, but also our line folks have done.

667
00:51:36,941 --> 00:51:42,765
We've organized, we've gone to the county, we've done, call it like a little protest kind
of thing.

668
00:51:42,765 --> 00:51:46,147
We got in the news, we've spoken at hearings.

669
00:51:46,147 --> 00:51:53,318
And I think there's this, especially in politics today, we wanna oversimplify.

670
00:51:53,318 --> 00:52:03,357
We want to believe that folks who may be making decisions that we don't agree with are
doing it because of nefarious beliefs or intentions.

671
00:52:03,357 --> 00:52:06,920
That is absolutely true in cases.

672
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:17,508
But I think in Travis County, the bigger challenge is that we're often dealing with folks
who do genuinely believe that they're making the right call and the right decision.

673
00:52:17,508 --> 00:52:20,029
It's just that they have different priorities.

674
00:52:20,170 --> 00:52:21,503
It's that the

675
00:52:21,503 --> 00:52:28,888
the background belief or story that they're functioning with is not one that we would
agree with.

676
00:52:28,888 --> 00:52:31,889
And I can give you a specific example of that.

677
00:52:31,889 --> 00:52:42,246
um So it's a minor example, but we went to our the head of our county, or they're called
the county judge oddly, and their commissioners court is what it's called.

678
00:52:42,246 --> 00:52:44,257
It's like city council for the county.

679
00:52:44,257 --> 00:52:46,859
And since we're a county office, we're funded by the county.

680
00:52:46,859 --> 00:52:48,083
And we were talking

681
00:52:48,083 --> 00:52:51,827
to the county judge who is essentially like the mayor of the county.

682
00:52:51,827 --> 00:52:53,909
And we were talking about our investigators.

683
00:52:53,909 --> 00:53:01,184
Our investigators in our office, they go out into the field, they talk to witnesses, they
do all the things you've seen in movies, right?

684
00:53:01,184 --> 00:53:03,295
Like that really is their job.

685
00:53:03,516 --> 00:53:09,800
Well, the district attorney's office, they have investigators too, many of them former
police officers.

686
00:53:10,220 --> 00:53:13,302
You would think, well, they must be going out into the field too.

687
00:53:13,302 --> 00:53:15,670
They must be looking for witnesses, talking to witnesses.

688
00:53:15,670 --> 00:53:16,700
They're not doing that.

689
00:53:16,700 --> 00:53:17,661
Why are they not doing it?

690
00:53:17,661 --> 00:53:19,941
Because that's what the police are doing, right?

691
00:53:19,941 --> 00:53:20,561
Which makes sense.

692
00:53:20,561 --> 00:53:22,602
That's what the police, that's their job.

693
00:53:22,602 --> 00:53:24,482
And they have a budget for that.

694
00:53:24,803 --> 00:53:33,705
The folks at the county are pretty much just trying to like make some phone calls, maybe
like getting some evidence from the evidence warehouse and bringing it into the office.

695
00:53:33,705 --> 00:53:36,616
Maybe calling a witness or two, sending a subpoena out.

696
00:53:36,616 --> 00:53:40,267
They're not doing field work from what I've ever seen.

697
00:53:40,267 --> 00:53:44,858
I've never seen them go out, try to pull surveillance or anything like that.

698
00:53:45,109 --> 00:53:50,802
And yet they get paid $30,000 more than our investigators.

699
00:53:50,883 --> 00:53:53,705
So they're doing less work and they're getting paid more.

700
00:53:53,705 --> 00:53:55,506
And there's politics behind that, right?

701
00:53:55,506 --> 00:53:58,983
Like I said, they're former law enforcement officers.

702
00:53:58,983 --> 00:54:10,096
And that may not be explicitly why, but when they left their law enforcement job and they
came over here, well, we needed to pay them some things to get them to come work for us.

703
00:54:10,096 --> 00:54:12,398
And so, you know, that's where these salaries are.

704
00:54:12,398 --> 00:54:14,298
And we went to talk to

705
00:54:14,410 --> 00:54:16,832
the county judge and say, look, this is unfair.

706
00:54:16,832 --> 00:54:19,374
We want this discrepancy rectified.

707
00:54:19,374 --> 00:54:21,206
Like our folks are actually doing this work.

708
00:54:21,206 --> 00:54:22,677
They're knocking on doors.

709
00:54:22,677 --> 00:54:27,822
They're putting their butts on the line because not everybody they'll try to talk to wants
to talk to them.

710
00:54:27,822 --> 00:54:33,367
And we got a question of, well, can they take the, do they carry a gun?

711
00:54:33,367 --> 00:54:36,349
No, they do not carry a gun for a variety of reasons.

712
00:54:36,349 --> 00:54:39,292
People don't usually want to talk to someone who carries a gun.

713
00:54:39,292 --> 00:54:42,294
Well, can they do this police training?

714
00:54:42,294 --> 00:54:45,157
No, they're not gonna do a six month police training.

715
00:54:45,157 --> 00:54:51,443
That would be six months that we don't have them working on their cases and it's not gonna
teach them anything they don't already know.

716
00:54:51,443 --> 00:54:55,126
And this is, so we're dealing with folks who just don't, they don't get it.

717
00:54:55,126 --> 00:55:03,634
Like they don't understand why an investigator for defense would not wanna go spend six
months doing a training that's not gonna benefit them.

718
00:55:03,634 --> 00:55:06,396
It's just a credential, it doesn't mean anything.

719
00:55:06,556 --> 00:55:08,900
And these are the people making the decisions.

720
00:55:08,900 --> 00:55:10,952
And so they're just uninformed, unfortunately.

721
00:55:10,952 --> 00:55:17,736
So this is all to say, the original question is, is it neglect or is it intent?

722
00:55:17,736 --> 00:55:21,998
I do think that there are plenty of people who work within the system who absolutely have
the intent.

723
00:55:21,998 --> 00:55:22,898
Yes, right?

724
00:55:22,898 --> 00:55:34,724
They're not necessarily scared of the public defender's office, but they would love for
this to be an unequal system because for them, the system is not intended for justice.

725
00:55:34,724 --> 00:55:36,245
It's for power and control.

726
00:55:36,246 --> 00:55:38,528
of various communities and populations.

727
00:55:38,528 --> 00:55:40,489
And then there's others who like, it is neglect.

728
00:55:40,489 --> 00:55:48,394
So do I think, mean, to Will's point, if you were to get proper funding, if we were to get
a dollar to a dollar, would that actually solve the issue?

729
00:55:48,394 --> 00:55:51,897
No, because you would still have a ton of bad actors within the system.

730
00:55:51,897 --> 00:55:54,698
So you kind of have to, you have to deal with both.

731
00:55:54,699 --> 00:55:58,810
Yeah, that's what worries me to be honest at the end of the day is I'm sure there are bad
actors.

732
00:55:58,810 --> 00:56:03,902
I'm sure there are people uninformed and then there are good actors who are thwarted by
other forces.

733
00:56:04,022 --> 00:56:10,985
But at end of day, if the bad actors are in control and that's the reason we're in the
situation we're in now, no amount of legislation or no amount of reworking or anything is

734
00:56:10,985 --> 00:56:18,167
going to fix that because even if you gave a dollar to a dollar, they'd find a way to get
a lot more dollars because that's just what they do.

735
00:56:18,427 --> 00:56:21,788
But I think at some point, yeah.

736
00:56:21,813 --> 00:56:22,861
Yeah

737
00:56:23,169 --> 00:56:31,129
But at some point, if you don't believe that you can deal with that, and that's just the
reality the way it is, then we're just kind of stuck.

738
00:56:31,130 --> 00:56:34,190
So I appreciate your nuanced answer.

739
00:56:34,190 --> 00:56:38,275
Sorry to put you on the spot there, but I appreciate it.

740
00:56:38,275 --> 00:56:39,916
we have to talk about these things.

741
00:56:39,916 --> 00:56:43,855
Otherwise, I don't think we can ever, you know, fix them.

742
00:56:43,855 --> 00:56:47,298
I do think that most people don't.

743
00:56:47,639 --> 00:56:48,999
We like to watch them on TV.

744
00:56:48,999 --> 00:56:50,640
We like to see it in movies.

745
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:58,573
And for a lot of folks who come into contact with the system for the first time, and you
know, sure, we have many frequent flyers at the public defender's office.

746
00:56:58,573 --> 00:56:59,504
That is true.

747
00:56:59,504 --> 00:57:02,745
But we also have folks who have never touched the system.

748
00:57:02,745 --> 00:57:03,565
And

749
00:57:03,566 --> 00:57:05,177
they are often shocked.

750
00:57:05,177 --> 00:57:09,280
As I said at the beginning of this, they're shocked that a misdemeanor can take a year or
two.

751
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:12,243
They're shocked when we tell them the range of punishment.

752
00:57:12,243 --> 00:57:22,749
Every time I say, well, it could be two to 20 years in prison, and people are just like,
my God, because it's a shocking number.

753
00:57:22,749 --> 00:57:30,215
um And then we have to talk them back and be like, well, you're probably going to be
offered diversion.

754
00:57:30,215 --> 00:57:36,213
It's not, but like I have to inform them of the range of punishment and.

755
00:57:36,464 --> 00:57:43,611
So yeah, think folks who have not touched the system don't have a very clear comprehension
of what it actually looks like on a day to day.

756
00:57:43,611 --> 00:57:48,766
And a lot of our job is just unfortunately letting them know like this is the real world.

757
00:57:48,766 --> 00:57:51,329
It doesn't look like TV, it doesn't look like the movies.

758
00:57:51,329 --> 00:57:54,753
This is the pace at which it moves, the consequences you could be dealing with.

759
00:57:54,753 --> 00:57:55,553
Yeah.

760
00:57:55,804 --> 00:58:00,518
So let's pretend for a second that I'm a fairy with a magic wand.

761
00:58:00,519 --> 00:58:14,327
If you could change one thing, not fix everything, not fix everything, but you get
unfettered, the unlimited ability to change one specific thing about how public defense is

762
00:58:14,327 --> 00:58:18,940
either funded or structured in Texas, what would it be?

763
00:58:19,191 --> 00:58:20,848
Ooh, that's a tough question.

764
00:58:20,848 --> 00:58:23,415
Funded or structured?

765
00:58:23,746 --> 00:58:29,329
I mean, I guess to me they're kind of the one and the same.

766
00:58:29,329 --> 00:58:32,131
I think it would just be like, us as much money as possible.

767
00:58:32,131 --> 00:58:36,863
And I say, because the more money we have, the more attorneys we can hire, the more social
workers we can hire.

768
00:58:36,863 --> 00:58:42,256
And I know at the beginning of this, said I was gonna talk about Philly and this might be
a good opportunity.

769
00:58:42,256 --> 00:58:45,997
So the Philly Public Defender's Office has been around for 50 years.

770
00:58:46,149 --> 00:58:49,249
the, it's called the Defender Service of Philadelphia.

771
00:58:49,509 --> 00:58:59,949
They take upwards of 70 % of all cases in Philadelphia because that's how many folks
qualify for the attorney up there.

772
00:58:59,949 --> 00:59:07,869
So seven out of 10 cases, not just, you know, qualified, just seven out of 10 cases are
going to the affiliate public defender's office.

773
00:59:07,949 --> 00:59:10,909
They have 500 people on staff.

774
00:59:10,989 --> 00:59:13,629
They have 300 attorneys on staff.

775
00:59:13,881 --> 00:59:23,460
They do horizontal representation, which is where you represent a person at different
stages of their case, which is not fun for the client, but there's no way to handle that

776
00:59:23,460 --> 00:59:26,633
many cases in a vertical form.

777
00:59:26,633 --> 00:59:31,999
Once you get to more serious level felonies, it becomes vertical, but for misdemeanors,
it's horizontal.

778
00:59:31,999 --> 00:59:35,922
And I say that because they also have social services.

779
00:59:36,167 --> 00:59:45,993
And because they're taking seven out of 10 cases and they're very well funded and they're
having their own fights about salaries and, you know, making sure that they make parity.

780
00:59:45,993 --> 00:59:46,833
They're a nonprofit.

781
00:59:46,833 --> 00:59:52,668
They're not technically a county or government office, which brings its own challenges and
it's on for freedoms.

782
00:59:52,668 --> 01:00:01,333
But, you know, they're able to provide a lot more connections and services to clients and
a lot more clients because they are so big.

783
01:00:01,584 --> 01:00:15,875
And so I think if for Texas, if you were to fund public defense completely, fully to be
able to provide that holistic model everywhere, um then that would ultimately change the

784
01:00:15,875 --> 01:00:19,899
structure to the other uh part of your question.

785
01:00:19,899 --> 01:00:28,262
But it would be an office where somebody can come in and they can get clothing that has
been donated, which we have in our office for our clients.

786
01:00:28,262 --> 01:00:33,002
They can get some water and a snack because that might be what they're just dealing with
today.

787
01:00:33,002 --> 01:00:36,182
They can get connections to mental health services.

788
01:00:36,182 --> 01:00:39,082
They can get connections to healthcare.

789
01:00:39,162 --> 01:00:45,362
That doesn't mean it's gonna happen right there in the office, but they can get a resource
list of places that they can go to.

790
01:00:45,363 --> 01:00:53,823
But again, that might actually address the root cause and allow people to move away from
the system rather than get trapped in it.

791
01:00:53,823 --> 01:00:56,416
And I think, unfortunately, that just costs money.

792
01:00:56,416 --> 01:00:58,723
You need to get people who are experienced who are in there.

793
01:00:58,723 --> 01:01:03,135
And so I think the more money we have, the more folks we can help.

794
01:01:03,386 --> 01:01:07,960
So yeah, Travis County pay us.

795
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:11,504
The t-shirt we made for our action that says TCPDL fair pay now.

796
01:01:11,504 --> 01:01:16,838
And we came up with it, don't know, a year or so ago and it'd be shocking how often we're
like, yep, no, this slogan works.

797
01:01:17,158 --> 01:01:18,018
Still.

798
01:01:18,018 --> 01:01:20,359
it's like, yep, still works, still works.

799
01:01:20,739 --> 01:01:27,323
So yeah, I mean, I do think the pay discrepancy as you guys talked about a lot, it's
shocking to hear the numbers that you were citing.

800
01:01:27,323 --> 01:01:28,624
I wasn't even aware of those.

801
01:01:28,624 --> 01:01:33,108
But it tells you, we're talking about somebody with an army and somebody with a peace
shooter.

802
01:01:33,108 --> 01:01:36,469
And all the things that go along with that beyond just the criminal defense.

803
01:01:36,469 --> 01:01:39,870
So if you were to pour that much money into it, then.

804
01:01:39,871 --> 01:01:43,703
I think you would find that the outcomes are what people want.

805
01:01:43,703 --> 01:01:53,547
People just have to get over the idea of, we're paying for people who allegedly committed
crimes to get all these services.

806
01:01:53,547 --> 01:01:55,287
And it's like, well, what do you want?

807
01:01:55,287 --> 01:01:58,429
Like, do you want the outcome or do you just want to feel good about the process?

808
01:01:58,429 --> 01:02:03,151
I think for a lot of people, it's feel good about the process, which means not providing
things.

809
01:02:03,151 --> 01:02:08,593
But if they really care about the outcome, they don't want these things to happen again,
well, then this is what it's gonna take.

810
01:02:08,844 --> 01:02:12,826
Yeah, there's that presumption of guilt coming back in instead of presumption of
innocence, right?

811
01:02:12,826 --> 01:02:18,268
And I've been trying to rack my brain to think of any like perverse incentives that a
public defender would have.

812
01:02:18,268 --> 01:02:22,987
It's really not anything that I can think of that's like, there's no incentive for you to
try and get somebody off.

813
01:02:22,987 --> 01:02:30,343
Like if he's a dangerous person, you know, or did a repeat offender or whatever, like, you
know, yes, you're to represent them and you're going to make sure that there's still not

814
01:02:30,343 --> 01:02:38,306
overreach, but you don't have the incentive to try and manipulate things or lie to the
judges because you're going to be back in front of those same judges again.

815
01:02:38,558 --> 01:02:42,101
There's really nothing from your side that I think would happen.

816
01:02:42,101 --> 01:02:49,387
There's a bad outcome of giving public defenders more resources.

817
01:02:50,928 --> 01:02:52,330
there anything that we...

818
01:02:52,330 --> 01:02:53,251
Go ahead, sorry.

819
01:02:53,251 --> 01:03:00,717
was going say that to that point, one of the, you know, as I mentioned, I worked private
defense for two years and I was working under a more senior attorney.

820
01:03:00,717 --> 01:03:07,994
And so I did not have to deal a lot with the business part of it, but I saw it, you know,
I had to take payments.

821
01:03:07,994 --> 01:03:15,964
had to remind people about payments and that is it's awkward and it's painful and it feels

822
01:03:15,964 --> 01:03:20,544
just crappy, every time you have to go judge, I have to withdraw from this case, why?

823
01:03:20,544 --> 01:03:22,444
Well, the person didn't pay us.

824
01:03:22,444 --> 01:03:27,724
And like, I get it, you're a practitioner, you're providing a service, you have the right
to do that.

825
01:03:27,725 --> 01:03:31,245
But when I can, as a public defender, I don't have to worry about that.

826
01:03:31,245 --> 01:03:35,565
All I have to worry about is giving my 100 % to every client.

827
01:03:35,565 --> 01:03:38,125
I don't have to worry about if they didn't make a payment.

828
01:03:38,125 --> 01:03:41,505
And I feel like that makes the...

829
01:03:41,506 --> 01:03:46,802
the attorney-client relationship that much stronger because there is no ulterior motive.

830
01:03:46,802 --> 01:03:49,864
It's just, I want to get the best outcome for you.

831
01:03:50,115 --> 01:03:52,667
And you're a true lifeline to these clients, a lot of your clients.

832
01:03:52,667 --> 01:03:55,648
mean, they don't have anybody else on their side, so.

833
01:03:55,778 --> 01:03:56,799
We try to be.

834
01:03:56,800 --> 01:04:07,238
Well, in addition to a social worker and a civil action specialist as well, if someone is
listening to this, say somebody from Travis County comes across our podcast.

835
01:04:07,238 --> 01:04:13,263
I'm not sure why, but hey, I have friends in Buda and several other places down around
you.

836
01:04:13,263 --> 01:04:21,290
if someone in rural Texas County that doesn't have a public defender's office or someone
in Travis County, if they don't have any sort of resource at all.

837
01:04:21,291 --> 01:04:22,991
What do you want them to know?

838
01:04:22,991 --> 01:04:26,631
And I want to frame that from a, what can they do?

839
01:04:26,631 --> 01:04:27,791
Can they volunteer?

840
01:04:27,791 --> 01:04:30,631
Is there something they can actually do besides, yeah, go vote.

841
01:04:30,631 --> 01:04:31,851
Oh yeah, we get it, vote.

842
01:04:31,851 --> 01:04:35,231
We've been all screaming it time and time again in Texas.

843
01:04:35,331 --> 01:04:40,911
think Texas has like a 17 % voting rate in non-major elections.

844
01:04:40,912 --> 01:04:49,504
So what can somebody who cares about these sorts of things and cares about the outcomes
actively do in their own community or in their own county to?

845
01:04:49,883 --> 01:04:51,479
make for a better system.

846
01:04:51,730 --> 01:04:58,633
Um, I would say, so if you're in Travis County, would say donating clothing or food to our
office is very helpful.

847
01:04:58,633 --> 01:05:01,895
you know, clients come in daily for that kind of thing and they need it.

848
01:05:01,895 --> 01:05:07,518
now if you're in a smaller County that doesn't have a public defender's office and you're,
you're trying to get involved.

849
01:05:07,518 --> 01:05:14,980
honestly, it sounds simple, but court watch, go to court, sit there and watch what's
happening.

850
01:05:15,441 --> 01:05:17,027
You may not realize it.

851
01:05:17,027 --> 01:05:24,082
But when a civilian comes in or a regular citizen and sits down and watches that judge or
those prosecutors, sit up straighter.

852
01:05:24,082 --> 01:05:28,645
Everything changes because now they know the eyeballs are on them.

853
01:05:28,645 --> 01:05:33,187
And all of a sudden people are getting more reasonable outcomes because somebody's
watching.

854
01:05:33,187 --> 01:05:34,518
look, the courts are open.

855
01:05:34,518 --> 01:05:35,569
They're meant to be public.

856
01:05:35,569 --> 01:05:38,410
The public often does not avail themselves of that right.

857
01:05:38,410 --> 01:05:39,672
And it is the public's right.

858
01:05:39,672 --> 01:05:42,994
And I really wish more people would.

859
01:05:43,110 --> 01:05:47,174
because I think that when people know that they're being watched, they tend to be on their
best behavior.

860
01:05:47,174 --> 01:05:57,803
And I've seen a lot of judges when they know they're not being watched, they get in their
power trippy head and they do things that they would never do in front of a voter.

861
01:05:57,803 --> 01:05:59,995
So yeah, sure, go out and vote, absolutely.

862
01:05:59,995 --> 01:06:02,567
But if not, then just go sit in court, just watch it.

863
01:06:02,567 --> 01:06:04,929
And it's highly entertaining.

864
01:06:04,929 --> 01:06:06,711
My job is never boring.

865
01:06:06,711 --> 01:06:08,530
And so for average people,

866
01:06:08,530 --> 01:06:13,074
If it's not volunteering somewhere or donating somewhere, I would just go and watch.

867
01:06:13,074 --> 01:06:17,977
Because I think that, believe it or not, that impact, it's real and it's immediate.

868
01:06:18,228 --> 01:06:18,718
Yeah, we did.

869
01:06:18,718 --> 01:06:25,823
We did mention uh actually on last week's episode, you can actually if you're looking for
a group and you're out there and you're listening to this and you're like, how do I how do

870
01:06:25,823 --> 01:06:26,683
I do that?

871
01:06:26,683 --> 01:06:28,224
Yes, you could just show up.

872
01:06:28,224 --> 01:06:31,026
You can also check out Courtwatch.org.

873
01:06:31,026 --> 01:06:36,859
They have some training videos and some live live information about exactly how you can do
that.

874
01:06:36,859 --> 01:06:42,003
But their byline is injustice happens in empty courtrooms and doesn't have to be this way.

875
01:06:42,003 --> 01:06:44,254
So I think that's a that's a really good.

876
01:06:44,916 --> 01:06:51,770
Good recommendation there and you can check that out at I said, CourtWatch.org.

877
01:06:51,770 --> 01:06:53,452
Let's see, here's kind of a big one.

878
01:06:53,452 --> 01:06:55,032
Why do you keep doing this?

879
01:06:55,032 --> 01:06:58,334
Why do you show up to work every day and why do you still do it?

880
01:06:58,585 --> 01:07:00,446
I don't know, I love it.

881
01:07:00,446 --> 01:07:08,326
I I know that's a, I've always, know, when I discovered public defense, it was a law
school panel discussion.

882
01:07:08,466 --> 01:07:17,266
And I believe it was by, there was a variety of attorneys on the panel and I went home and
I went, oh, you know, this is something that I think I knew about, but I didn't really

883
01:07:17,266 --> 01:07:17,986
know that.

884
01:07:17,986 --> 01:07:25,754
And I think it was the Bronx defenders that had kind of a brochure or a pamphlet online.

885
01:07:25,754 --> 01:07:28,535
And it was like, how do you know if you want to be a public defender?

886
01:07:28,715 --> 01:07:30,396
And it asks a series of questions.

887
01:07:30,396 --> 01:07:34,640
And one of them was like, you just, you know, you really like sticking it to the man.

888
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:37,361
And I was like, yep, that sounds like me.

889
01:07:37,401 --> 01:07:48,085
And, know, look, I think, I think this is a whole other conversation, but a lot of time, I
don't believe in a purity test for becoming a public defender.

890
01:07:48,085 --> 01:07:51,177
think a lot of people get into this work for a lot of different reasons.

891
01:07:51,177 --> 01:07:52,687
And I think it can be a,

892
01:07:52,801 --> 01:07:54,632
a variety of reasons.

893
01:07:54,993 --> 01:08:02,520
I think that there are going to be folks who have a much stronger sense of the injustice
that our clients face.

894
01:08:02,520 --> 01:08:08,686
And that, I feel like every year I do this, I get a stronger and stronger sense of the
injustice our clients face.

895
01:08:08,686 --> 01:08:13,730
And then there are those of us who have, you know, a little bit of like, we just enjoy
sticking it to the man.

896
01:08:13,730 --> 01:08:15,551
Others, we just enjoy going to court.

897
01:08:15,551 --> 01:08:18,970
We enjoy the oral advocacy compared to a written advocacy.

898
01:08:18,970 --> 01:08:22,913
So there's a lot of different reasons that I do it every day.

899
01:08:22,913 --> 01:08:29,297
But ultimately, I think I view myself as a frontline defender of the public.

900
01:08:29,297 --> 01:08:39,291
I I know it's kind of oversimplification, but for folks who can't defend themselves and
folks who this system, and I don't call it a criminal justice system, because I think

901
01:08:39,291 --> 01:08:41,337
oftentimes justice doesn't exist in it.

902
01:08:41,337 --> 01:08:44,103
It's a criminal penal system, in my opinion,

903
01:08:44,355 --> 01:08:53,890
That system is oppressing them, it's keeping them down, it's labeling them in ways that
will follow them around for the rest of their lives, is making it so that they can't get a

904
01:08:53,890 --> 01:08:58,563
job, they can't get housing, they don't qualify for this program, they don't qualify for
those services.

905
01:08:58,563 --> 01:09:09,478
We are there to try to make sure that those resources and those opportunities are, or
could possibly still be accessible to them in the future.

906
01:09:09,478 --> 01:09:11,286
So, yeah.

907
01:09:11,286 --> 01:09:17,252
I know, just, feel like we're on the front line trying to keep this system from keeping
people down.

908
01:09:17,252 --> 01:09:20,174
And that's what gets me up every day.

909
01:09:20,174 --> 01:09:21,235
You know, it's not just that.

910
01:09:21,235 --> 01:09:23,397
It's also fun in many ways.

911
01:09:23,397 --> 01:09:26,850
It's great to cross examine a police officer and catch them in a lie.

912
01:09:26,850 --> 01:09:29,042
You know, that's one of the best things.

913
01:09:29,042 --> 01:09:32,446
The two best words in the English language, in my opinion, are not guilty.

914
01:09:32,446 --> 01:09:33,266
But.

915
01:09:33,590 --> 01:09:42,910
So it's a variety of reasons that I get up every day to do it, but ultimately all of that
feeds into we're protecting people from a system that, in my opinion, was designed to

916
01:09:42,910 --> 01:09:43,886
oppress them.

917
01:09:44,137 --> 01:09:46,660
ah You heard it there, Will, did you hear that?

918
01:09:47,222 --> 01:09:49,345
Designed to oppress.

919
01:09:50,994 --> 01:09:54,504
If not originally, it has been manipulated to that degree.

920
01:09:54,504 --> 01:10:00,296
The incentive is yeah, once they're in trenched interests, they have to protect themselves
and that's what they're doing, right?

921
01:10:00,812 --> 01:10:02,386
Yeah, I think so.

922
01:10:02,387 --> 01:10:10,318
So, well, Seth, it, I was gonna ask Seth, are there any questions you wanted us to ask
that we haven't asked or anything you'd like to share?

923
01:10:10,569 --> 01:10:19,092
I mean, I guess I can talk a little bit about the Dallas Public Defender's Office that I,
you know, I think so twice I have applied to work at the Dallas Public Defender's Office.

924
01:10:19,092 --> 01:10:27,506
It's been years since I applied, but prior to moving to Texas and taking the job in
Austin, I wanted to work there.

925
01:10:27,506 --> 01:10:30,468
My partner, she's from that area and so family is up there.

926
01:10:30,468 --> 01:10:37,474
But what I had learned and it may be different now, but what I learned was that they have
an expectation, not like a

927
01:10:37,474 --> 01:10:45,478
unwritten expectation, like it is their policy that if you're a misdemeanor attorney,
you're taking 100 misdemeanors a month.

928
01:10:45,729 --> 01:10:48,631
A month, that's three new ones a day.

929
01:10:48,631 --> 01:10:53,533
You cannot possibly do your job if you're taking that many cases.

930
01:10:53,533 --> 01:10:55,294
You just can't, not correctly, right?

931
01:10:55,294 --> 01:11:02,878
There's been too many instances when I have watched body camera footage and you go, yeah,
okay, all right.

932
01:11:02,878 --> 01:11:06,670
Oh, wait a minute, they left out that they didn't Mirandize this person.

933
01:11:06,676 --> 01:11:08,596
it wasn't in the offense report.

934
01:11:08,596 --> 01:11:12,496
They left out that that blinker was working when they pulled them over.

935
01:11:12,496 --> 01:11:20,416
And the only, I tell all the people I supervise, I'm like, you have to watch it all
because it's the five minutes you don't that makes the case.

936
01:11:20,667 --> 01:11:30,047
And so if you're taking a hundred cases a month, I don't know how you possibly get through
all of those cases and do a proper job.

937
01:11:30,207 --> 01:11:33,951
And I think they had some crazy statistic like 50,

938
01:11:33,951 --> 01:11:38,333
50 felonies or something, maybe 30 felonies a month, which is crazy for felonies.

939
01:11:38,333 --> 01:11:41,991
So, I mean, there are examples that you guys have talked about.

940
01:11:41,991 --> 01:11:44,356
The cliche is a cliche for a reason.

941
01:11:44,356 --> 01:11:48,980
I got lucky, I worked in two offices that were very well resourced, different models.

942
01:11:48,980 --> 01:11:57,265
And I will say, while there's a threat of crushing caseloads, it has not yet appeared, at
least not here, but just up the road in Dallas.

943
01:11:57,265 --> 01:11:59,147
Like they've been living with that for decades.

944
01:11:59,147 --> 01:12:00,724
Some of it by design.

945
01:12:00,724 --> 01:12:03,245
um some of it not.

946
01:12:03,245 --> 01:12:14,651
they are, from the people I know who have worked there, they got out as soon as they could
because it is every bit the cliche that we have come to think about.

947
01:12:14,651 --> 01:12:24,066
People who are really good attorneys when they get here, but couldn't be when they were up
there because they had unrealistic expectations of how many cases they were gonna take.

948
01:12:24,317 --> 01:12:28,264
Your mileage may vary depending on which PD office you're part of.

949
01:12:28,414 --> 01:12:32,316
Absolutely, and we're trying to build an office here for the long haul.

950
01:12:32,316 --> 01:12:35,898
We have had people leave, to Joshua's point.

951
01:12:35,898 --> 01:12:37,919
We've had people go to Harris County.

952
01:12:37,919 --> 01:12:48,175
We've had people um go to the Office of First Defense, which for clarification, the Office
of First Defense is essentially, because of the size of our office, we can't staff all of

953
01:12:48,175 --> 01:12:52,626
CAFA, all of Council at First Appearance, the Magistration.

954
01:12:52,739 --> 01:12:59,735
And so somebody does, somebody has to, it can't be that some people don't get
representation and only the folks who end up with the public defenders do.

955
01:12:59,735 --> 01:13:09,293
So what the office of first defense is, is they represent folks at CAFA who are not
represented by the public defender's office or the court appointed attorneys.

956
01:13:09,294 --> 01:13:13,838
And then what ends up happening is those folks end up going to other court appointed
attorneys.

957
01:13:13,838 --> 01:13:16,281
So they get an attorney, it's just not a public defender.

958
01:13:16,281 --> 01:13:18,651
And so we've had a few folks go there.

959
01:13:18,651 --> 01:13:23,891
And that could be life circumstances.

960
01:13:24,091 --> 01:13:28,371
Sometimes we've got kids who just had, or we have people who just had kids.

961
01:13:28,371 --> 01:13:33,991
And so it's a little bit of an easier work-life balance because you don't actively
represent the case.

962
01:13:33,991 --> 01:13:36,411
You're just representing that magistration.

963
01:13:36,662 --> 01:13:45,002
So yeah, we definitely lost folks and we're always fighting for fair pay because it's
always an issue.

964
01:13:45,253 --> 01:13:48,377
Yeah, I mean, we're going to continue fighting for that fair pay.

965
01:13:48,377 --> 01:13:51,400
But we are building an office for the long term.

966
01:13:51,400 --> 01:13:53,942
We have been able to keep a lot of really great people.

967
01:13:53,942 --> 01:13:58,354
And the way we are assigning and training folks, think, will lend itself to that.

968
01:13:58,354 --> 01:14:06,710
Our hope is that in five, 10 years, we have a core of folks who have been here for very
long and can take any kind of case.

969
01:14:06,710 --> 01:14:08,661
Yeah.

970
01:14:08,957 --> 01:14:11,371
Have you considered unionization?

971
01:14:11,372 --> 01:14:13,855
We have a union in Texas.

972
01:14:13,855 --> 01:14:15,107
Many of us are a part of it.

973
01:14:15,107 --> 01:14:17,680
Sorry, Texas in Travis County.

974
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:20,243
The building is literally across the street.

975
01:14:20,243 --> 01:14:23,146
It's the AFSCME is the union.

976
01:14:23,398 --> 01:14:28,322
We've had talks of like, are they really serving the PDs as well as they could be?

977
01:14:28,322 --> 01:14:34,686
I think there's a lot of issues when it comes to the union here because.

978
01:14:34,937 --> 01:14:45,219
I think that when you don't have, as Will knows, having gone to law school here, and I,
Joshua, I don't know if you spent any significant time in Austin, but it's a blue island

979
01:14:45,219 --> 01:14:46,370
in a sea of red.

980
01:14:46,370 --> 01:14:52,321
And while that's fun in a lot of ways, it means it's a one-party city in a lot of ways.

981
01:14:52,321 --> 01:15:00,276
And when it's a one-party city, you don't get competition, you don't get people really
needing to stake their positions on things.

982
01:15:00,276 --> 01:15:02,676
And so it's not very clear often.

983
01:15:02,708 --> 01:15:05,840
um People aren't advocating, in my opinion, as much as they should be.

984
01:15:05,840 --> 01:15:09,943
Take, for example, the most recent budget funding last fiscal year.

985
01:15:09,943 --> 01:15:21,216
There was a debate over whether or not they should do a across the board, a COLA, or they
should adjust people based on what the market demands.

986
01:15:21,216 --> 01:15:25,082
And I think you cited a statistic that like 75 %

987
01:15:25,082 --> 01:15:31,016
I don't know, was it our office or attorneys generally are underpaid, but we pull

988
01:15:31,016 --> 01:15:33,050
within your office.

989
01:15:33,050 --> 01:15:42,310
Yeah, we pulled every employee in the public defender's office, the district attorney's
office, the county attorney's office.

990
01:15:42,550 --> 01:15:45,530
We pulled their salaries because it's all PIAable.

991
01:15:46,230 --> 01:15:53,010
we looked at what the county said the medium average salary should be.

992
01:15:53,010 --> 01:15:57,074
Something like 85 % of people were paid below market.

993
01:15:57,325 --> 01:16:03,265
And it's like, well, if 85 % are paid below market, yeah, it's a county-wide problem,
sure.

994
01:16:03,516 --> 01:16:11,316
And the union advocated for a COLA, which got everybody 3%, which is great.

995
01:16:11,316 --> 01:16:16,776
But when you did the math, it meant $2 million less was going towards employees.

996
01:16:17,027 --> 01:16:20,367
And I'm just like, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

997
01:16:20,702 --> 01:16:28,062
your job is to advocate for employees, why are you advocating for the, and there were like
three options, why are you advocating for the one that gets employees less money?

998
01:16:28,062 --> 01:16:36,682
And it was because fundamentally they had issues with like, well, but this one, everybody
gets 2%, but then some people only get 1%.

999
01:16:36,682 --> 01:16:41,562
It's like, well, yes, but those are the folks who are already close to what their market
rate is.

1000
01:16:41,562 --> 01:16:47,190
So there were a lot of those kind of internal like questions and politics and like
positions and.

1001
01:16:47,388 --> 01:16:55,762
In my opinion, because it's just a one party city or one party county, nobody really
pushes them one way the other.

1002
01:16:55,762 --> 01:16:57,623
And that's the outcome.

1003
01:16:57,943 --> 01:17:00,234
So do we think about unionizing?

1004
01:17:00,234 --> 01:17:01,174
We've talked about it.

1005
01:17:01,174 --> 01:17:04,095
The idea of it, like, is there a way?

1006
01:17:04,095 --> 01:17:05,506
But it's still Texas, right?

1007
01:17:05,506 --> 01:17:07,387
Unions just don't have a lot of power.

1008
01:17:07,387 --> 01:17:09,077
They don't hold a lot of sway here.

1009
01:17:09,159 --> 01:17:11,943
Yeah, I live in I live in Dallas for 10 years.

1010
01:17:11,943 --> 01:17:17,828
So I'm more more familiar with the legal system there in Dallas specifically, but I mean,
Texas as a whole.

1011
01:17:17,828 --> 01:17:21,532
I currently live in Oklahoma now in the Austin of Oklahoma.

1012
01:17:21,532 --> 01:17:25,435
But I after living here, didn't feel like the Austin of Oklahoma.

1013
01:17:25,435 --> 01:17:29,319
And so I asked him when sometime was like they described this as the Austin of Oklahoma.

1014
01:17:29,319 --> 01:17:33,001
And they said, yeah, but it's still the Oklahoma of the United States.

1015
01:17:33,107 --> 01:17:43,406
And so we don't necessarily have that problem, those same problems uh here in Norman,
which is where OU is, we don't have that problem here in Norman.

1016
01:17:43,406 --> 01:17:48,010
There's plenty of pushback on whatever side of the issue that you're on.

1017
01:17:48,010 --> 01:17:49,661
But I can definitely understand that.

1018
01:17:49,661 --> 01:17:56,516
I I will say that I sometimes wish I lived in a predominantly blue city, but that's just
not in the cards for now.

1019
01:17:56,516 --> 01:17:58,307
We'll see what the future holds.

1020
01:17:58,545 --> 01:18:07,545
Seth, I really wanna thank you very much for taking the time to be here with us, for
answering our questions and giving us a lot of insight.

1021
01:18:07,545 --> 01:18:11,145
I really hope that our listeners enjoyed it.

1022
01:18:11,145 --> 01:18:13,605
I hope you had a good time hanging out with us today.

1023
01:18:13,885 --> 01:18:17,705
I certainly did, and hearing your perspectives and your viewpoints.

1024
01:18:17,705 --> 01:18:23,745
Do you have any questions for us or any other comments as we come to a close?

1025
01:18:24,191 --> 01:18:27,573
No, I enjoyed the episode I listened to.

1026
01:18:27,573 --> 01:18:29,154
You all are great.

1027
01:18:29,154 --> 01:18:29,975
I learned things.

1028
01:18:29,975 --> 01:18:30,895
Let me just say that.

1029
01:18:30,895 --> 01:18:32,966
I learned a lot listening to it.

1030
01:18:32,966 --> 01:18:34,458
This is the field I'm in.

1031
01:18:34,458 --> 01:18:37,839
So I appreciate the depth with which you all research and prepare.

1032
01:18:37,839 --> 01:18:39,370
It's certainly impressive.

1033
01:18:39,370 --> 01:18:42,311
Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing.

1034
01:18:42,619 --> 01:18:44,080
Excellent, well I appreciate that.

1035
01:18:44,080 --> 01:18:46,901
And to our listeners, make sure you're subscribed.

1036
01:18:46,901 --> 01:18:48,362
We hope you enjoyed this content.

1037
01:18:48,362 --> 01:18:51,122
We hope that this is the kind of content you're looking for.

1038
01:18:51,122 --> 01:18:56,164
If you wanna tell us that this is the kind of more content that you're looking for, please
leave us a message.

1039
01:18:56,164 --> 01:19:03,106
You can go to our website, you can check us out on Apple, Spotify, all of the other places
that you might receive your podcasts.

1040
01:19:03,106 --> 01:19:10,368
Make sure that you're subscribed to The Overlap on whatever podcast app that still allows
you to download an RSS feed without the premium subscription.

1041
01:19:10,560 --> 01:19:20,365
If you want to join in on the conversation, get away from the corporate social media silos
and talk about, know, nerdy stuff that we talk about on the regular in real time.

1042
01:19:20,365 --> 01:19:22,166
Come and find us on Mastodon.

1043
01:19:22,166 --> 01:19:27,009
Our instance is at fof.foundation slash at overlap podcast.

1044
01:19:27,009 --> 01:19:31,291
This is fof.foundation slash at overlap podcast.

1045
01:19:31,291 --> 01:19:35,174
We're building a community of people who are tired of being tenants in their own lives.

1046
01:19:35,174 --> 01:19:39,716
We're trying to empower people to understand that we have more in common than we don't.

1047
01:19:39,774 --> 01:19:44,006
While you're at it, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever
you're listening.

1048
01:19:44,006 --> 01:19:50,250
It actually does help the show to reach more people who are waking up to the reality of
this 2026 landscape.

1049
01:19:50,250 --> 01:19:53,192
Until next time, I appreciate you being here, Seth.

1050
01:19:53,192 --> 01:19:57,974
Will, again, as always, thank you so much for hanging out and for doing this show.

1051
01:19:57,974 --> 01:20:01,606
We will see you guys next week and Seth, we will see you again soon.

1052
01:20:01,713 --> 01:20:02,838
Sounds good.

1053
01:20:03,089 --> 01:20:03,856
Take care everyone.

1054
01:20:03,856 --> 01:20:05,080
Always a pleasure.

1055
01:20:05,325 --> 01:20:06,301
Bye.