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Listen to the episode RM114: Michigan Explained w Josh B Hoe

Andy 0:00
registry matters is an independent production. The opinions and ideas here are that of the hosts and do not reflect the opinions of any other organization. If you have a problem with these thoughts fyp recording live from fyp Studios, east and west, transmitted across the internet. This is Episode 114 of registering matters. Good evening, Larry. Happy Saturday. How are you?

Larry 0:23
Fantastic. I just got finished doing some political business.

Andy 0:27
I was going to ask you, did you did you fly? Are your arms tired? Or did you? Were you driving? Were you all over the state? What’s up?

Larry 0:36
Just some three primary stuff that we have to do that for those who were active in their Ward level politics and I got some training on how to conduct the elections that we’re doing next week and the following two weeks later. Did you guys have an app? We’re probably not gonna follow. Probably not gonna follow that model.

Andy 1:00
I did want to ask you about that. What? Do you have a take on what happened in Iowa?

Larry 1:04
I do not. I don’t understand it. I noticed that the national party chair was expressing that it can never happen again. But I don’t I don’t understand what happened.

Andy 1:15
I all I know is that the app what’s which seems to be to be something like it’s not. It doesn’t seem complicated to me to say, Okay, here’s the precinct, you fill out your precinct number and you write in who had what votes. It doesn’t seem like that would be that very, like complicated. It’s not even like you’ve got a Can you imagine conducting an election and you have a very small window and you have to bring in 100 million something votes hundred 20 million people’s votes, your system would be very seriously stressed. But there’s not that much going on in in Iowa that they would need some big Google sized system to handle an election of so many delegates. It doesn’t seem like it’d be that hard. But anyway, the system failed, apparently. Anyway. Did you hear a chuckle in the background?

Unknown Speaker 2:00
Did I heard I heard a chuckle Do we have ghosts in the room?

Andy 2:04
No we have we have a guest we have a guest it is it is Josh whoa from the decarceration nation podcast joining us Josh How are you?

Unknown Speaker 2:12
I’m good Andy are you doing man?

Andy 2:14
I’m very well thank you so much so much so much for coming. Oh no problem. You are like mister mister Twitter that’s what I refer to you as

Josh 2:23
I was just thinking when you were talking about Iowa is that uh you know, there was this great kind of all the experts on breaking the people who do the hardcore number crunching for all the for all the different newspapers and, and all the different media outlets were getting together and pointing out all the all the mistakes in the tabulations and I was refusing to correct them. They were all increasingly frustrated throughout the entire process because they they were clearly mistakes of the Iowa Democratic Party was refusing to acknowledge any of them. I just remember watching this in real time. It was pretty Pretty interesting to watch.

Andy 3:02
The other thing that happens to me like in my day job, I can only test something so far before I have to like, I’m just gonna throw this out there into the wild and let the chips fall where they may and either I have to pull it back and not use it or but these are not like it’s not life or death certainly and it’s not life or death for the for an election but they’re kind of important that you wouldn’t want to have anything get messed up like this and maybe you would run the old system in parallel with the new system to make sure that everything is like exactly copacetic kosher pick your word there

Josh 3:37
are there’s some some candidates in some campaign spent, you know, six, seven months on the ground. They’re spending millions of dollars to have to have everyone

Andy 3:47
Yeah, it’s everyone just be like, don’t really know who tell me tell me what your most recent interview was on the on the end

Josh 4:00
That’s a good question. I guess I had the kind of famous activist who participated in you everything from occupy the CIA to occupy wall street to Standing Rock. You know, she wrote a pretty relatively famous activist named Lisa Fithian who wrote a book called I think it’s a light it up or tearing down or something like that I forgotten the name of the book, which is terrible, but it was really into it was a really interesting interview. And she’s, she’s really, you know, one of those people who’s been on the ground and all of the big actions that have happened over the last, you know, two or three decades So, it’s pretty, pretty fascinating to talk weather.

Andy 4:39
Awesome. Um, and where do people find that just before we move on,

Josh 4:44
you know, you can find it at decarceration nation at, you know, essentially on iTunes, Google Play. All the normal places really anywhere you find podcasts,

Larry 4:56
sweet, drugs or by you shouldn’t do drugs. If you do them, you’re

Unknown Speaker 5:04
good. It’s a bad thing to do drugs. And

Andy 5:12
Larry, we are going to dive in. And I totally just wanted to leave this in there. This has nothing to do with the register or anything like that. But this leads me down the path of you have a certain set of rules like just sort of like generalized rules that you live by. So this first article comes from the Associated Press, it says package labeled bag full of drugs leads to Florida ress. And I’m pretty sure that you put this one in there. What was this article about?

Larry 5:36
Oh, well, I do have that since I’m a criminal defense. I always like to learn from what I see as very unwise choices. criminality is is unwise to begin with, but if you’re going to engage in it, you ought not to make such stupid mistakes. But it’s all I have. I have general general rules that I’ll tell people if you’re going to do certain things, you know, don’t do this. Don’t do that did this just learning from from what others have done but as a general rule, I would recommend this comes out of Florida. This two guys run super under supervision, and they were driving 95 miles per hour on it. Now anybody who was driven on Interstate 10, and Florida realizes that it’s a congested thoroughfare with lots of traffic and you’re gonna count if you’re lucky enough to run 95 you’re probably going to be spotted anyway. And, and themselves when they when they pulled over then when their NCIC check comes back down under supervision, then they were asked does they mind if they search the car and of course they say we’d rather you not so they bring the dogs in and the dogs alert and they find a package that says, drug package, and it just had a list of drugs you believe of what they said they recovered. I don’t even know the names of some of them. But but so I would recommend that if you’re going to run drugs, and I would prefer that you don’t but he You are going to don’t drive 95 miles an hour. If you that would, that would be my first advice to you. And it and if you if you if you are going to drive 95 miles an hour with drugs, don’t label the package drug package

Andy 7:23
might as well just put like, I don’t know paint your car orange and say drug runner right here on the side of it perhaps. I can’t, I can’t really this one’s just really too funny for me. And I just want to move on in there for the comedic though I

Larry 7:37
agree that what it was about like the well, it’s not the same scale but the guy who who killed a person and put them in the barrel under his house and left a bunch left the person over there 30 years and forgot about it and sold the house that whoops, at least, you

Josh 7:53
know, time frame. You had some time between the

Larry 7:57
CIO and the role that I would rather A mental that if you have put a person in a barrel, and I don’t recommend this either, but if you do kill a person, and you do put them in a barrel, and you do keep them under your house for 30 years, when you have sell the house, take the barrel with you. All right,

Andy 8:17
I honestly think that we could talk about this for a really long time, but I’m just going to end up like, I’m gonna end up with a bellyache from laughing for so long. But I think we should move on, we kicked this article back to we just didn’t have enough time last week. And there isn’t much to go over with this, but it comes from propublica. And the title of it is about it. They’ve compiled a list of quote unquote, credibly accused clergy. And I’m pretty sure that this go flies in the entire face of anything that would be due process, and I just wanted to cover it from and get a more elaborate sense of terminology and what is so deeply wrong with this, that propublica which I really respect, I like what they do a great great deal, but This one seems highly misguided.

Larry 9:02
Well, this is clergy abuse. And and it does it does cause me great consternation. And this will be interpreted as that I want to sweep abuse under the rug. No, I don’t. But this is the church to Catholic Church released a list of credibly accused of misconduct and some of them are dead, and some around the ministry, but they released this list. And I’ve always grown to believe that until recently that personnel records are largely private. So if a person has an issue of some sort of misconduct on the job that’s normally not broadcast to the world. And since these people have not been accused of a crime and a formal setting, we normally don’t even really release the names of people who haven’t been formally charged, which means that I believe that the Catholic Church has capitulated to all the pressure They’ve been under as a result of all these crushing numbers of lawsuits, and multi millions of dollars that they’ve paid out in settlements and attorneys fees to try to do something to, to satiate the mob, the angry mob out there. And there’s a justification for being angry. For years and years, the Catholic Church just moved these abusers around and they sent them off to glorietta, New Mexico or robot servants and apparently it’s rehabilitation center was and then they put them in another Parish, and they started up the same thing they had done before. But you don’t fix a problem by blowing up our whole system. And that’s what I think that this this list is. That’s why I wanted it in here is to say, I find this list very disturbing.

Unknown Speaker 10:45
Josh, I’m sure you have something to add.

Josh 10:48
You know, I mean, all of these things. You know, I mean, there’s such a mean, you know, for me, the big one is the the what’s the victims rights law that they’re passing all over the country. Murphy’s Law Murphy’s Law. I mean, that’s the one that always just drives me absolutely batty. Because, you know, I mean, the, the parties in a in the victim is not a party in the case, you know. And so I mean, there’s all these things about due process that, you know, and just the whole notion of what’s private, what’s public and how you deal with the courts and all these things that just seem to get ignored in kind of the rush to, you know, these kind of sex panic moments, and in the case of the Catholic Church is not, you know, it’s been a long it’s been a long unfolding crisis. And so it’s not, I wouldn’t say it’s a panic in the same way, but it’s certainly you know, I mean, yeah, things should be done about the, you know, the horrible things that happened, but like, like Larry said, I don’t think the way you go about it is by burning down the system.

Larry 11:52
So we agree on one thing tonight.

Andy 11:54
Watch out. Okay. I’m going to keep a tally on this side. So we have on the side of agree versus two screaming of one for agree

Larry 12:07
that the ponies staged crime

Andy 12:11
went up like, Hey, we can’t trust the cops. And then over it reason calm. We have an article, it’s undercover cops hired 118 handyman than the rest of them all for not having licenses. And I’m pretty sure See, I’m going to say that this is a what’s the word entrapment? And Larry’s gonna say no, it’s not. But it seems this is very, very much like bait and switch. This is I mean, isn’t this the equivalent of almost like the sexting stuff where

Larry 12:33
this is actually getting a lot closer to entrap, but the things we’ve talked about previously, the dividing line is going to be and this goes to my basic belief that law enforcement has too many resources. And I keep saying this over and over again, and people get so angry with me that I, I have to duck the rotten tomatoes that are hurled at me when I say this, but this is hilarious. Rowan County I believe that’s Tampa, Florida, where this where this happened where they read the state. But the word you gotta have entrapment potential. Is there things that handy handy men can do and this is their title not mine because I know this is you’re supposed to be gender neutral so you are a handy person. There are a lot of things that handy person can do that doesn’t require license. But then what often happens and it’s it has eliminated the article is that while you’ve got the the person there, then you start asking them if they’ll do additional things. Okay. And often the handy personal segue Yeah, I know how to do that. Well by dead you’ve got a rapport with them because you’ve done a good job on picking up the weeds outside or cutting off the branches on the pirate canta tree and you’ve you’ve done the basic stuff and and there’s a report developed in the person says oh, by the way, I’ve got this faucet here the bathroom and I will It’s dripping. Can you put maybe you don’t need a license for, but it’s some jurisdictions, the most basic plumbing you need you need, you need a license if you’re gonna do it for someone other than yourself. So that person is all of a sudden put in a position. Well, this thing’s grip and hit that hit the toilet turn off. Can you replace this for me? Well, yeah, I don’t know how to do that. I’ve done several of them. And they end up doing those things. And then they say, I got you. Right. Okay, well, well, there’s there’s for the entrapment is that person, depending on what ad they answered, to show up, which I don’t see those details here in the story, but depending on what ad they answered, if they answered an ad to do drywall repair, for example, and then they were confronted with a plumbing issue that required a license, and they had no intention to go out and do plumbing work without a license. They might have been entrapped. If they, on the other hand, if the ads if the ad was less clear that there’s jobs to be done, and the person calls if anybody actually makes a phone call anymore and said I can help you And they say, by the way, I’ve got some plumbing work. And don’t you supposed to have a license for that? Yeah, yeah, that’s probably saying I’ll have time to watch this kind of thing. I’ll come over there, put a couple of pictures hold it up, but I’ll put a new bikes ring and then it that that’s where it’s not in trap. But if the person had the, the mindset to break the rules, knowing what they were, and they go out with the intent of breaking the law. I have a question for you.

Andy 15:26
Are you ready for this question?

Larry 15:28
I’ll try

Andy 15:29
to you have a plumbing license to change out the the showerhead.

Larry 15:33
Bill and I’m doing that for myself.

Andy 15:37
Okay, Josh, you had a question? I heard I heard it coming.

Josh 15:41
Yeah, I mean, isn’t the problem also that in a lot of cases, you know, in the kind of last several decades of all the kind of rolling back the protections on this stuff that the lot of a lot of entrapment is actually legal anyway, like the notion that you’re, you know, but the fact that something’s in trapping is problematic. I think to us all about You know, we probably think that’s true, but I don’t think legally it’s always the case. Am I wrong about that? Larry?

Larry 16:05
You’re absolutely right. They, it’s the legal test is whether the person had was predisposed to break the law. If you go out looking and trying to keep this a family program, you’re going out looking to have sexual favors, and you’re willing to pay for it. And you make an offer to someone who happens to be a cop. Your predisposition was to break the law because you know that you’re not supposed to pay for sex. On the other hand, if the cop comes up to you, and you have no inclination to have sex, and they say I can make you have a fun evening. Oh, yeah. What could you do? Well, you know, what fun is your, your your healthy your man, Archie? You know, for we can have a lot of fun. What if you had no predisposition to break the law? And the COP is the instigator of breaking the law. Did you have a defense of interest but that just might work. But but most of the times A person’s predisposed to break the law and that’s why they’re trapped by defense breaks down because they were already predisposed to do something that was unlawful.

Josh 17:07
Well, there’s a fairly famous case where the FBI convinced a bunch of people when they were basically doing this they were going around to mosques and they eventually found some people that they convinced us in essence to commit a crime provided them all the weapons for it. And then when they went to go pick them up to go commit the crime, they arrested them all. There’s a documentary about it I forget the name of the exact case but where it seemed pretty clear that they didn’t necessarily even have the intent ever committed crime. But still because of the nature of the crime though the trapping wasn’t. I’m sure you’re right about that. I just remember reading about cases where even that wasn’t necessarily held to be enough to to throw the case out or whatever is that Does that ring a bell for you at all or it doesn’t it

Larry 17:55
doesn’t ring a bell but you can’t let them trap I get to a jury If you’ve left the crowd by get to a jury, if you can’t, if you can’t get the judge to find it on some some preliminary emotion that that this, that this even if you stipulate everything, it’s true that this was entrapment, because the person wasn’t predisposed to commit the crime and to hold the law enforcement initiated the idea and participate in the planning and the motivation. If it gets to a jury, a jury is normally not sympathetic. They should be because these are the resources being wasted. I mean, this is Hillsborough County, which I think is Tampa. And I’m sure Tampa probably has other things to do other than chasing handyman. There, they’re doing things without a license. But on the other side of that coin, there are people elderly in Hillsborough County that are being victimized by folks who don’t have the proper licenses that are going out charging people to do things that are not qualified to do they’re either not doing the job or they’re doing a botched up job. And so that does that does necessitate some level of intervention. Why? the right level of intervention is as always a judgment call by the people who decide how to allocate those resources. But this seems like a significant intervention. They must have a big problem with unlicensed people in Hillsborough County. They got a whole hundred 18 of them

Andy 19:15
who knows how many didn’t get caught? You know, because they didn’t respond to that particular Craigslist ad or whatever that was.

Larry 19:22
What that what are the defense attorney said that the smarter ones don’t respond to this kind of stuff days for the rookies. Oh, so there were so many

Josh 19:30
of them that 118 of them

Andy 19:33
got swept. And those are the stupid ones are less sophisticated. I don’t mean to call them stupid per se, but less sophist.

Josh 19:43
It is the people who drove down the thing in the street with the drugs in the

Andy 19:47
definitely definitely not that needed. And then they put their bags the drugs in a bag that says drugs here.

Larry 19:54
That one makes me giggle. Well, I made I made a joke. I wonder if I took my vehicle. That I currently drive and either had it wrapped by a professional or if I just had some signage made that said drug writing machine and started driving it around here. I wonder if I would get any attention.

Andy 20:11
I’m sure you should get a vanity plate that says drug rNr or something like that drug runner. So I think

Unknown Speaker 20:17
they would let that like you should try and get that vanity plate layer. That’d be

Unknown Speaker 20:21
funny. I don’t think they would give you that one.

Unknown Speaker 20:25
I’m gonna figure out a way to to obfuscate that so that they don’t pick up on it.

Larry 20:30
So but but yes, I I am sympathetic to people who are big, who are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous but I’m not sure that that this rose to that level, I’d have to know why I have to be able to defense team on this to see what what the real facts are but it it to run a state like that where you bring in 100 plus people. That’s an enormous amount of of personnel takes to put that together.

Andy 20:54
But Larry, you don’t want these people out there in the civilian sector. You don’t want people that are calling to have faucet replaced or a socket put in. You don’t want them to have some shoddy work and that makes their house burned down from a short and electrical socket. That’s why we need strong regulations.

Larry 21:10
Well, there’s some truth in that

Andy 21:12
is you don’t want the big bad government stifling that small entrepreneur from rising up to be successful and picking himself up by his bootstraps all by himself.

Larry 21:20
Well, that that is the careful balance. Absolutely. We do want people to be able to be creative and go out and offer services and and work with their hands and do things. Absolutely we won’t. But we don’t want people to go out and do complex stuff in a shoddy fashion that are not qualified to do and charge people for it and leave them with shoddy work or either dangerous. I mean, it’s it’s regulation is always a careful balancing. People think that this is simple. It’s not everybody who agrees that raika sub regulation is necessary. Almost everybody agrees some regulations necessary, trying to figure out where to start. The balance is always the tough thing of how far do we go with regulation before we are intruding, I find it frustrating myself with some things, what I deal with. We go in the whole podcast and some of the bureaucracies I have to deal with here in terms of complying and I say, wow, that no wonder businesses are so frustrated. But this stuff comes about because self regulation has proven not to be successful. When when you allow what you allow people do what they want to do.

Andy 22:28
I guess on the other extreme of that, I mean, you do like I mean, to pose as a handyman, you may have taken classes while you’re in prison, and you know how to do these things or you’ve got taught by your dad, whatever. And not to make a gender thing maybe your mom taught you, but you could have somebody that’s actually saying Sure, I can install a socket and they’ve never done it before and literally just walk in there trying to steal people’s money. Like I mean, that’s the the the far extreme of some do for showing up that doesn’t even know which way the larger

Josh 22:57
there’s a larger issue here too, which is that a lot A very large amount of all construction work, and plumbing work and electrical work all gets done under the table. And so a lot of this may be actually in good faith, and it’s just not, you know, these people actually know what they’re doing, they just tend to work under the, you know, you know, not an official capacity in the way that the law would like for them to so they might not be, they might do good work. They’re just not doing they’re just not officially licensed or whatever that have that especially in construction areas that happens a great deal. Doesn’t mean that they have mal intent, per se, but there’s still an interest for the state to regulate that stuff, at least theoretically.

Larry 23:43
Well, and and Josh has a fantastic point because I living in a border state. There are a lot of folks here who provide those type of services and they do some fantastic work, but they can’t get licensure, but for various reasons. They may have a criminal record. They may be here illegally, but they may be they may be A very good skill, their their skills may be second to not. But they’re not able to operate legally. It’s kind of the debate we had about driver’s licenses for three illegals in it, it wind up losing a debate with one of the few states that actually gave illegals driver’s licenses what made the argument that since there’s a regulatory scheme for licensed people, and and in order to have your vehicle insured, you have to have a valid driver’s license, it’s very difficult to find an insurance carrier, they’ll ensure a non licensed driver, I mean, try one day find out how far you get with that. And so we we made the argument that that that to bring more people into the insurance structure that we needed to give them licenses to make them authorized to drive while the other sides as well if you do that, they’ll come in by the 10s of thousands and they’ll they’ll they’ll they’ll devastate all of our social service infrastructure, and that all those costs will outweigh they bringing down the the rate of uninsured. Well, actually, we lost that debate. And we no longer issue we will we will issue a permit that this different license But, but that’s kind of the whole whole idea behind that was to bring these people into the system. I feel the same thing. People who are working illegally, I want their tax money. I want them in the system. I want them to be participating in the system and paying for the benefits and privilege of being in this country.

Josh 25:18
There’s actually another reason why that stuff happens, which is that people don’t want to pay full price for their for their repairs. It’s not just that they’re being taken advantage of. Correct.

Andy 25:29
Is there a Do you think there’s any angle for the homeowner or the person that’s hiring the unauthorized unlicensed work? Is there any culpability on their side?

Larry 25:39
It’s just fine. It’s a good point that I’m comfortable of that when I call her and get estimates I like the one from the unlicensed generally a whole lot better. It’s a more attractive, it’s a more attractive proposal. It I did about I did about ,000 worth of work on my own house it actually yours the licensed everything. And I assure you that that 15,000 water, probably drop to at least two thirds of that if I if I use somebody who didn’t have a license a couple years ago.

Andy 26:06
So does that mean you have to go to jail because you hire you would have hired, not you somebody else didn’t Since you didn’t hire somebody that wasn’t licensed. Do you think the homeowners have any culpability there?

Larry 26:16
Well, that’s hard to say in terms of whether you should insist on a license or whether you should be prosecuted if you don’t. I don’t know what to think about that.

Andy 26:24
All right. Well, I’ll ask you next week

Unknown Speaker 26:26
for reforming our criminal justice system.

Andy 26:29
Too many people are locked up in American. Let’s talk about an article from the New York Times with a jailed woman in need of cancer surgery, moved to state prison. She got sentence for like some 10 months in jail for Larry she got sentenced to 10 months in jail for . I will say that she does have a history of theft convictions in the in the past several years. So but like, do we not have any compassion for someone to stay with their They’re there. The doctors that know the case that are actually, you know, they’ve worked through the process of treating and so forth, the diagnosis and all that stuff that they would be the most experienced persons to handle the cancer treatment. But now she’s in jail in prison.

Larry 27:16
Like you did lay the story out correctly. It’s a very short story, but but from what we have here, this was 10 months sentence for a theft of a person who has a history of previous convictions. But I always, always like to apply an economic analysis to this, if I’m a jail administrator, if I’m a corrections administrator, I do not want to take care of people’s medical unless I have to. So if I’m looking at this roster of inmates and I’ve got a person who has got a relatively modest fence, and they they even though they repeated it, I would rather not spend our resources on them. So I’m going to be looking for a way to get them out of custody, which is sounds like Exactly what they did. They got them shipped off to state prison.

Andy 28:05
So the county just kicked the can down the road to the state

Josh 28:08
just explained how most problem most funding issues work out in the state in most states between the counties and the states.

Larry 28:16
But But if if it would have had both states, it would have been a felony level offense, because in most states, they don’t send misdemeanors to the state creation system. Those are usually served in local jails, as well.

Josh 28:30
Yeah, I mean, it because since fallone, generally means a year. Yeah. Yeah, but there are certainly misdemeanors that can get you in prison. I think in most places, Is that wrong?

Larry 28:42
Well, they get you incarcerated. But normally, in most states, you serve you serve misdemeanor time, if that’s your highest level offense,

Josh 28:50
you’re likely to serve decimeters under a year, you’re right.

Larry 28:52
Right now she only got 10 bucks, but 10 months doesn’t mean that’s all. it it’s it’s the it’s whether it’s a felony of fence, if you have a felony, and they sent it to you to less than that than a year, you can still go off to prison and my state for for that conviction because you’ve been convicted of felony your you belong to the Department of Corrections. But but it sounds like that the jail administrator there locally got it Lebanon county got rid of her and got her off to state prison. But whatever I’d be interested in, though if she was a person who legitimately should have been a State President, because if that was a misdemeanor, hundred is a pretty low level for a felony.

Josh 29:31
Well just think about the cost, the relative cost between the time for that hundred to protect people from her stealing that hundred you’re probably a year in most state facilities is like 30 K, and then you’ve got the medical treatment on top of that which in theory could have been handled, I think in some states would would become a Medicaid thing outside but maybe not when you’re in so cost benefit analysis doesn’t work very well for the state on any either. No,

Larry 30:03
I that’s what I’m saying is that as a corrections administrator, I would be wanting to get this person off of our books in every way possible. Now, Larry, don’t you understand if we had a system like that, that everybody would magically become sick, and everybody would fake that there, we have these medical needs, and we’d be having the floodgates open of people who’d be released from prison, and they would all flooded and try to use the same I mean, Larry, don’t you understand that? That’s what the people out there would say, is counter to my position, they would say that it would open the floodgates.

Josh 30:35
Except, you know, we have Medicaid expansion, for instance, in Michigan and everyone, pretty much everyone I know who comes out of prison applies for Medicaid expansion when they come out of prison or jail here in Michigan. And the economic analysis of it done afterwards says it actually is generated a lot more income than its cost, but you know,

Larry 30:56
well, yeah. Particularly since the fans are paying for the bulk of it. Of course it does. Yeah.

Josh 31:01
Sure, but we are talking about state, how states to Aspen for analysis. So,

Larry 31:07
Yep, absolutely. But they Yeah, this is a bizarre thing.

Andy 31:12
I am still kind of conflicted on the side of it that, you know, you know, you would have somebody say, well, you should have thought about that before you stole the hundred bucks. But I’m going to assume that she wasn’t so well off that she did the hundred dollar theft just because it was fun. She probably needed it. And I’m not saying that justifies the crime, but that puts into perspective that that hundred bucks could be some sort of life changing monetary situation for her at that point, like, you know, for food or diapers or, you know, whatever else is going on in that person’s life at the time.

Josh 31:45
What if she was a kleptomaniac, you know, I mean, that we have, I mean, what if there were, I mean, there are other things that and, you know, obviously, being incarcerated didn’t fix it. So, my guess is, you know, there’s probably another solution that might work better. mean, you might say that? Well, you should have thought of that before. But that doesn’t mean that either putting someone in jail or prison is the correct move from an economic perspective, or from a deterrence perspective or from a solving the actual root problem perspective.

Andy 32:14
I thought prison solved all problems. Come on,

Larry 32:19
it absolutely does for a temporary period of time.

Josh 32:22
But it actually that’s not necessarily true, you know, that though she could

Andy 32:26
be in prison, she can be still in soups from all kinds of people at other boxes.

Josh 32:30
That’s very true is one thing that doesn’t get counted as the violence and crime that occurs in prison that definitely intends to be under counted because people think that that’s justified. But in addition to that, the long term studies suggest that the longer periods of time you spend in prison, the more likely you are to commit crimes when you come out that they’re criminogenic. In fact, I’m trying to remember the where the study is from, I can probably find it and put it in your notes or something later, but one of the longest running studies says that, that even accounting for incapacitation, which is what Larry just said that prison actually generates more crime than it solves.

Larry 33:10
Oh, now that’s a different discussion. But if you take a person who is who’s doing things that that are not acceptable to society as as as a whole now, the prisoners don’t count in this analysis just for the purpose of whether it be making obscene telephone calls, whether it be whether it be embezzling from your employer, whatever you do, wherever you cry, home burglaries for the period of time that they are incarcerated, doing hard time. They’re not burglary, rising. They’re not making obscene telephone calls. It does provide

Unknown Speaker 33:44
it’ll do all those things.

Larry 33:46
But but I’m saying to society as a whole to the people who are out working paying the taxes and playing by the rules. There it is stopping and providing a level of protection for the period of time but doesn’t fix the long term problem if you got a person’s making obscene phone calls, they need problems worse. It can do absolutely can do that. I’m not advocating the policy. I’m just saying it does work for the time the person is incapacitated. They’re not doing those things to society as a whole. But, but it depends. It depends on how it depends on how you define work, whether it’s working, it is working in terms of stopping society from being victimized, but society is going to be victimized again when it come out because Dodger lying issues haven’t been dealt with and that’s what we don’t do very well in this country is figuring out there are a lot of people who would not be committing crimes but for there are some people who commit crimes regardless. I’m not naive enough to believe that they’re just being people out there they there they are. But there but but but but the whole criminal population is not just mean people.

Josh 34:55
Oh, that’s definitely true. But there’s also like this thing that I think people miss a lot of times which is that People don’t necessarily stay me and people, you know, like one of the, you know, most common things that all studies show is that people tend to age out of crime. And so right I personally, for example, know, people who committed pretty brutal murders, who ended up doing a lot of really good in the world, you know, I mean, it’s to say that someone is always one thing is probably an accurate, you know, and so, yeah, you know, I might meet someone when I was in prison, and I was in prison, I would meet some people that scared the hell out of me, you know, but, you know, that doesn’t mean they’re ever always going to be that person or that they that they’re beyond redemption, or that they can’t change. It also means it doesn’t mean that they can’t get worse. You know, I mean, that prison, you know, there was a lot of pressure for, you know, on people in prison in a lot of different ways. And it can make you, you know, I know a lot of people, for instance, get extorted into being parts of gangs and stuff like that, and they end up becoming much more violent than when they get out there much worse.

Larry 35:56
Absolutely. And we’ve talked about on this podcast about the ages. out. That’s why I don’t believe in Long, long periods of time of incarceration. I believe that for whatever benefit that prison can be can can be had from prison. That benefit can be had in a much shorter period of time than what we impose in this country.

Josh 36:16
Hillary and I agree again, put down on the on the board.

Andy 36:19
Oh, gosh, man, I stopped kept keeping track because there’s a lot of disagreements in there.

Unknown Speaker 36:24
I definitely agree with that last one.

Andy 36:26
Let’s move over to an article from what looks like 92.7 w OBM. Ocean country’s best variety. This is this goes with the next article to that Megan’s Law initiative introduced, that they’re trying to expand it this particular article there, they’re increasing the the advance notification that someone in your area is going to be moving in. So they’re going to notify people by email when someone gets a new address or they change their zip code. I this registry has been shown To not increase public safety, it increases certainly people’s anxiety of it increases violence against those that are listed on those websites. But yet here we are getting more and more registry notifications and like further entrenching this whole thing in our culture and it seems that a bad plan to me

Larry 37:19
this is a jersey isn’t it?

Andy 37:21
I have absolutely no doubt if it is where the the the schmuck that created the whole thing started, then that would be but this is a this is Ocean County Senator Chris Connors. It could be could be jersey. I don’t know where it is.

Unknown Speaker 37:36
What do you

Larry 37:37
have a look?

Andy 37:38
I know how many days there aren’t a week. How did these things keep happening there, Larry, that they? You know, how would the government have the resources and the the sort of looking for the mechanisms to employ getting email notifications out to the citizenry, that someone has changed their address in their neighborhood

Larry 38:00
Well, you’ve probably better qualified than me to answer that. But on the technological thing, I’m assuming that when you, when you do your updates with the technology we have today, either clerk at the registry office that they require in person notification, or in the rare instance, where you might be able to go online and update your information yourself. I’m guessing what the person would do would be like they do in state prison systems where you sign up for alerts when the person is going to be eligible for parole hearing or when they’ve been released or when their institution assignments been changed, I’m guessing what would happen would be that that you would, that you would you would sign up for an alert notification, as as a person whose interest that particular offender and then up supposing what would happen would be when a change was either manually input input by law enforcement or by the registrant that would trigger an alert to the people that signed up for the met with the one bad visualize it would work.

Josh 38:52
Yeah, I was just gonna say most places, it’s an opt in system. So right.

Andy 38:56
So Ocean County is in the south east. corner ish of the state of Jersey, New Jersey?

Larry 39:04
I thought so. But yeah, I would, I would say would be an opt in thing where people would sign up for it. And then as the changes were made, they would just go out in a form of a blast. Anybody who solved that offenders watch list.

Andy 39:15
I have an idea then so the citizenry should boycott this system, the registrant should go door to door knocking Say hi, I think that you should oppose the system and you should opt out, and then they wouldn’t have any blast go out.

Larry 39:27
Once you never opted in, I guess you would officially be

Andy 39:29
opted out, would you? Oh, that’s totally true. But I’m assuming that people will be running to go opt into this because they have to be notified of the impending doom of having a registrant move into their neighborhood.

Larry 39:42
Well, play devil’s advocate which gets me in trouble of the, of the of the people who have been victimized and I don’t consider a lot of things on the registry to I consider them to be victimless crimes. I don’t consider a decent exposure to have a true victim. I don’t consider Consider sex where they’re close in age and what happens to be a few days under 18. And one is a few days over 19. I don’t consider that. But where there’s actually been a brutal attack and there’s been a victimization. And the person has done their time and they’ve been rightfully released into community. Is it possible that the person who was the victim of that offense would feel some at ease, knowing where the person is and proximity to them? I mean, is it remotely possible that that would be helpful to them? I think

Andy 40:34
that the person may feel better, but that’s just a, you know, it’s just the warm and fuzzy, but it doesn’t mean they could just actively go check the quote, unquote, the website looking for that information to find them, but where they could hire a private investigator so that they know their whereabouts at all times.

Larry 40:52
But wouldn’t it be would it be far less expensive if the person is a great distance away from them, say a state that has like 58,000 square miles that you live in. and 159 counties if they were living down in the southern part of the state, and the victim was living up in the northern part of the state in tusa. County, and all of a sudden that person moved into katusa. And it wouldn’t have to be an adult with an adult victim. It could be it could be a word that was a child victim, where that was actually a forceful I mean, there are forcible sex acts that do occur on children. They’re not as as rampant as we would like as Libya would like for us to believe. But would it not possibly provide some reassurance to that family if they knew when that person was getting closer to them? I’m not advocating this. I’m just saying is that not possible?

Andy 41:46
We know that you are the the stealth supporter of these laws. Wouldn’t it be possible then for the judge to couldn’t even be the judge could banish a person From a county or a handful of ones. So we’re,

Josh 42:04
we’re getting into some tricky places here. Because, you know, I’m not sure that the point. I mean, this is like one of the and, Larry, I know you probably do a lot to since you, you know, you work with the legislature a lot. But there’s a certain things that become like magic words and start seeping in and everyone starts believing them like, essentially that whatever the victims advocates group say, is the way they it should be, you know, and I’m not entirely sure that someone’s Liberty should be constrained, based on the idea that it might make someone else more or less comfortable once they’ve already served their time. I’m kind of have the belief that once you’ve paid your debt and move on, you know that that’s, and so at least to take your hypothetical situation, it seems to me. I’m not so sure that I mean, well. It is nice to make people more comfortable. I’m not so sure that you know, you should constrained people’s liberty and privacy and, you know, maybe you should I’m just I’m playing devil’s advocate.

Andy 43:10
Well, not to devil’s advocate each other.

Larry 43:12
I agree with you all deliberately, the person should be able to move right across the street from the person. In America, if you’ve paid your debt to society, you should be live wherever you want to. But then the question becomes, we’ve we’ve we’ve accepted this that people have the right to know, I mean, I disagree with that also, but since that’s ingrained in every sex that everyone asks, Does they have a right to know? They’ll inevitably say yes, but but it to the extent that that there’s no intrusion in terms of not being allowed to move there, if they’re just simply the person who signed up to be alerted that you’re going to be there just simply gets simply gets the information. Then the other issue implicate would be your right to privacy, which is a significant right. That was a significant right of privacy, but the

Unknown Speaker 43:58
party Liberty

Larry 44:00
Well, that’s the whole day. But the Supreme Court has said that a person who has been convicted of a crime doesn’t have the right to privacy.

Josh 44:11
Well, that’s the thing so you don’t have any break.

Larry 44:14
Well, they said if you’ve been convicted of a sex crime, but just Connecticut Department public safety versus Doe, they said that if you didn’t have the right to privacy in terms of in terms of that connection, and they said that criminal records in general were public, unless I unless they’ve been suppressed or expunged or one of those things so so the fact of the matter is what what I agree that we’ve gone down a slippery slope but devil’s advocate, it might help the victim if that’s what we’re in this for, which just seems to be that that’s a big part. Even people on our side say that I’m all for the victims. Wouldn’t this help can save me some victims?

Josh 44:52
Oh, I definitely agree would probably help. I’m not sure that I guess what my devil’s advocate be all For the victims that we should be, you know, cope and we definitely should be trying to, you know, make the world as good as it can be for victims but not at the necessarily at the expense of personal liberty. Great Again, Josh. That’s three or four, right? Oh my gosh,

Andy 45:15
it’s going to be a tie before the end of the night. Ready to be a part of registry matters. Get links at registry matters dot CEO. If you need to be all discreet about it, contact them by email registry matters cast at gmail. com. You can call or text a ransom message to 747-227-4477 want to support registry matters on a monthly basis, head to patreon.com slash registry matters. Not ready to become a patron. Give a five star review at Apple podcasts or Stitcher or tell your buddies that your treatment class about the podcast. We want to send out a big heartfelt support For those on the registry, keep fighting. Without you, we can’t succeed, you make it possible. I want to bounce over to this other one because we’re starting to run a little bit long and I want to get to this thing with Michigan. But this article comes from patch calm, which we all know is our favorite publication for being honest and fair. But I specifically wanted to highlight in this article that like the way that they are coloring the effectiveness of the International Megan’s Law, from the previously mentioned schmuck named representative Chris Smith from New Jersey, that he’s the one that introduced international Megan’s Law. But what they said is that the law is working. And in just about two years, 10,500 covered sex offenders had been noticed by the had been noticed by the US government to foreign countries, and 3600 individuals as of July who were convicted of sex crimes against children were denied entry into those nations. But the false piece of information like the information that isn’t said there’s were they traveling just to go on vacation? Or were they traveling actually to commit some sort of sex crime, sex trafficking, whatever. And it doesn’t say that and I have another paragraph there to

Josh 47:10
what, what, what the heck does working mean?

Andy 47:12
Right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So you know, you had some number quote unquote some number of sex trafficking that this law was introduced to stop. So, that would be a number that I assume you could quantify. And then this law is enacted and now this number is appreciably reduced to quantify that, yes, it is working. This whole thing is bullshit to me and, and really, really irritates me because there’s just like, Hey, we’re gonna throw out these numbers to you. But they don’t mean anything.

Josh 47:42
This might be another one that that we all agree on. But Dan it just there’s very few things that make me more angry that will make and in particular, it makes me very angry because the whole purpose of The government’s existence is essentially you enter into the social contract with the government, and they’re supposed part of what they’re supposed to do is protect you when you travel abroad. The whole the whole point of international Megan’s Law is the government is working against your safety, which just this totally ridiculous to me. It’s just like an ascetical to everything that why would I ever joined in a contract? As you know, with the government that’s that’s working against my safety? You know, I’ll be it’s just, I mean, we it’s just hard for me to explain how much international Megan’s Law makes me angry.

Andy 48:40
Do you love it, don’t you there?

Larry 48:41
Well, I think that the key point what he said is how you define working. And the way they’re defining working, it’s working exactly the way I intended it to work, that they will your life while you want to. But what they intended to do was to provide the nation for the nations of the world to provide each other noticed when people who had certain types of, of convictions were traveling, it’s not a pronouncement that you’re going to commit another crime. It’s a pronouncement that this person is traveling, you can decide whether to admit them, you can decide whether to reject them. It’s an information empowering thing. And it works both ways the US gets information from countries where people have been convicted of sex offenses are going to travel to the red states. And we choose not to admit them. Now, I’m not a big fan of marking passports and all this stuff. But if you want to say, is it working, what what it was intended to do was to give notice to foreign nations to share notice about a particular type of person who was traveling? Well, if this many notices had been set, by de facto it is working because that’s what they intended it to do.

Josh 49:50
Yeah, I guess my point is, is that that sharing of that information is antithetical to In my opinion, the purpose of the government in terms of Israel relationship with its citizens, or at least its citizens that it’s, it’s identifying.

Andy 50:06
There’s another paragraph in there that is completely pointless says For example, at least 4500 us passports were issued to registered sex offenders in 2008. alone. Also passports last for 10 years. Like, okay, who cares?

Unknown Speaker 50:20
What does it What does that mean? What does it tell us?

Larry 50:24
Well, what, what on the 4500 passports what he’s telling you, he’s trying to the rider that’s trying to tell you that if there’s 40 501 year that you can extrapolate, and the years it’s passed, how many how many sex offenders have got passports, and what they’re trying to convey is that these people would be traveling now was, was more information available to to the nations to the host nations are traveling to about what things they’ve done in the past. That’s all they’re conveying to you. I don’t support this. I was dead set against their member of the Republican Congress that passed this. for eight years. He tried to get this passed. Could, but he got it passed in 2000 and 2016. And, and and it’s if you defined working as far as what he intended to do, is working exactly as he intended it.

Andy 51:12
We’re just you’re setting the bar stupid low for working as being that they just are announcing our arrival to a foreign nation.

Larry 51:21
Well, but you’re you’re overlooking the part that a foreign nations are announcing arrivals to us. That’s the part that all Americans seem to overlook. It’s not just the US isn’t the only country that’s participating in this. The US is on the receiving end of notices. Also, not as many because yeah, countries.

Josh 51:39
What you’re saying, Larry, I think my point is just that we don’t have a contractual relationship, social, contractual relationship with people from other countries, we may benefit from getting that information. But in order to get that information, we’ve essentially made us citizens hostage in a sense to get that information and I know you don’t necessarily disagree. I’m just Clear.

Larry 52:00
Yeah, well, well, well, arguably, if we’re keeping out bad folks that would do bad things in America, good things are happening for our population as well. Right?

Josh 52:10
Sure. I don’t I don’t necessarily disagree with that. My point is that we have obligations, the government should have obligations to its citizens regardless of the other consequences or whatever.

Larry 52:22
Will Smith would argue that he’s making that obligation. He’s protecting Americans from bad people that would be coming here by entering into agreement to share information about bad people he would tell you he’s doing exactly that.

Josh 52:34
Oh, I know. That’s what he would say I just disagree pretty vociferous Lee that that’s a appropriate use of the government powers. At least using that bargain.

Unknown Speaker 52:44
It’s a fate worse than death to put kids on the registry

Andy 52:48
and it never ends. Let’s bounce over to an article from Fox 17 calm at a national Tennessee teen rapist to be charged as adult added to sex offenders. Industry under bills, pretty short article, but I figured it was right up your alley as far as certain states do nothing to charge minors as adults and other states. In this particular case, this is a 13 year old boy being convicted of something and they’re going to be charged as adults. thoughts, Larry,

Larry 53:21
what is their response to a to a situation where that the judge sentenced him under the juvenile code. So it’s one of those things to do a carve out to make sure that that doesn’t happen. Again. It’s correcting a non existent problem. And and because of a young person committed a heinous crime, does that mean that you should scrap the juvenile code as it applies to people under under 14, but that’s what they’re likely to do in Tennessee. It’s going to be tough to stop this because you’ve got the sensational sensationalization of the victims of the family member of the high profile. I can’t believe this whole decade. I can’t believe that got such a life sentence and this is this is an overreaction, but I’d be surprised that they’re able to stop it is a 213 year old boys were convicted of holding down a Clarksville girl raping her and filming it. Just when the girls family thought they would get justice I judge handed down I sit on some home a six months of juvenile detention for one boy and six months probation at home on the other. The other boy was added to the sex, sex sex sex iteration. Well, that’s exactly what should happen to a 13 year old you shouldn’t be added to the sex offender registry Hello. Nobody should be added to a particular 13 year old.

Andy 54:34
Josh, let me ask you this question. How much in your experience? Do you think that the public as a whole does not understand what the impact of the registry is?

Josh 54:48
You know, I mean, it’s I think, I think there’s two I think there’s a lot of people who don’t care what the impact of the registry is. They think every single every single person on it is convicted of the absolute worst thing which I personally, I don’t know, whatever people are convicted for, I think the registry is a bad idea. But, you know, a lot of people think that that’s the case of them. I think there’s a lot of people who have no idea, you know, I, anecdotally, given speeches all over Michigan, not all over, but quite a few of them where I talked to people about the registry, and I’d say, you know, well, over 50% of the people at every event have, are surprised by something I say, I give a training for social workers pretty regularly, where I go through all the things that people just the, the the amount of things that people have to register and unregister so that they understand how to work better with their clients who are on the registry, and they’re always shocked. So, you know, I think there’s a large amount of ignorance and then there I think there’s also a percentage of the population who, you know, no matter how harsh it was, they they wouldn’t really care.

Unknown Speaker 55:53
Yeah, they like it’s not harsh enough. We need more.

Larry 55:56
I agree with I agree with Josh. I don’t think that I think the biggest What percentage people do not understand? But I think the people who do not understand there’s a significant segment who could care less. It’s like, Don’t tell me your problems. I’ve had people tell me when I start talking about conditions on jail, and I start describing horrendous conditions. Well, I don’t care if they have to sleep standing up. But it tells me we’ve got three people in a cell that was designed for one. They said, Well, like I don’t care if I sleep setting up well, that’s kind of the attitude about the registry. Well, maybe it is a bad in some regards. Don’t tell me their problems. I should have thought about that. A 13 year old can’t think about such things that is not going to be going through their analysis.

Josh 56:36
There’s also so much evidence that suggests I mean, especially with the juvenile life without parole cases before the Supreme Court, just all the evidence of how juvenile brains develop. And you know, that there’s a huge difference when you’re that age is to your ability and your ability to process information correctly, etc.

Larry 56:54
Thankfully, we’ve learned that it keeps going up page 25 or before person of particular male brain fully develops

Unknown Speaker 57:03
for present company?

Larry 57:05
Well, you know, of course.

Andy 57:13
Josh, give it give me the synopsis of what happened. What was it Wednesday this week?

Josh 57:17
Well, it’s I mean, hopefully everybody has some idea who listens to this show that there’s been a very long period of dealing with the those vs. Snyder case here in Michigan, which was a victory for folks on the registry. And unfortunately, you know, the legislature didn’t follow up after that was found unconstitutional and kind of make the changes that need to be made. So the ACLU went back through and did a class action suit. So I mean, basically anyone who was on the registry was impacted by those, if they were arrested, could probably use those as precedent to you know, get any of the chain you know, if they were arrested for instance, for you know, any like, like a technical violation that was covered underdose or something like that, then you you could use that as, you know, a reason to for the court to let you out. But you still have to go through that process. So the ACLU went back through and decide to do a class action so that the original dose case, which I think only applied to six people, would be, you know, kind of universally applicable and kind of hopefully force more change or at least, invalidate a large portion of the currently existing Michigan registry. And so that process has been winding its way through and it’s finally gotten to the district court. And the district court had its hearing on that case on Wednesday, and judge Cleveland heard the state’s arguments and the ACLU arguments and that’s where we’re at.

Andy 58:47
And I think that like immediately goes to Larry, I have a question for you what in the heck is severability like cuz Josh just brought up about like, you know, if a certain part could we just like shut down the whole thing. Can you can you give me the rundown of what severability would mean?

Larry 59:04
Well, it’s the doctrine of of whether, when you look at a statute, very few statutes just have one section. So if you were look at the Michigan Registration Act, there would be a number of sections and the act, and they have their number. And they have there may be they may be subsection so it’ll be Section A one I or whatever. So the question becomes when when you talking severability in the dose versus Snyder’s The Sixth Circuit decision, all previous challenges against Michigan’s registry had been found to be without merit, and the Michigan’s registry was a civil about punitive regulatory scheme. But as in most states, they could not help themselves. So they kept adding so in 1999, for example, the legislature added the requirement to have sex offenders register in person, which it previously had not been in person, much like the Alaska escape, and then in 2006 They amended their registration, to prohibit registrants from living without working with or lording within 1000 feet of a school. And then they couldn’t stop themselves there. Then they had the Adam Walsh Act, which Congress passed in 2006, that same year, and they decided to seek substantial compliance on 2011. They went, they went and changed the registry in dramatic fashion. And they added the tears and which resulted in a lot of people that were near the end of the registration, having their terms extended. And, and they they did the tears based on the offense. And the inference to the population is that if you’re a tier three, you’re dangerous, but but there’s been no determination to that. It’s just merely that the offense of conviction. So the 2006 add on the 2011 ad, almost what was so troubling to the 11th circuit? because those were made retroactive. I’ve been to the Sixth Circuit Excuse me. The those those two atoms were What trouble the Sixth Circuit panel when they said no You can’t do that, at least retroactively. But then the question becomes if you take those two sections out, do you have a surviving statute? Well, well, I say you would, because you had a surviving statute before those were put in. So it only stands to reason unless you repeal the complete statute, which I don’t know what they did in Michigan, 2006 11. But I’m assuming that they just added these requirements, and they didn’t repeal, but unless you repealed the complete registry act, and implemented a new one. I would argue that if you simply strike those, you go back to what the registry looked like previously, without those two, Adams. Well, my understanding is from my conversations with the lead attorneys out of Michigan, was that they were hoping for something better in the way of improvement. Simply rolling those two things out and striking those still leaves a pretty bad registry of Michigan. And they were hoping for a grand improves but that wants does wants to their Syria. Thank was that was the legislature. Here’s how bad this registry is. And it gets stricken on constitutional grounds that they’re going to want to rise up to the challenge. And they’re going to want to develop much more streamline a constitutional registry and make better public policy choice. I never had great optimism that was going to happen. So we get back to this question about severability. Can this registration scheme survive legally, if the court prohibits enforcement of those two provisions, that’s where this case is headed? That’s where it’s ultimately going to be resolved, as what to do with the things that that the court has found unconstitutional. What the remedy is I’m going to talk a little bit more about remedies after I give a chance for Josh to jump in here.

Josh 1:02:47
It was gonna say we have a few I mean, we were talking about courting we have disagreements kind of about what’s going on. But most of the stuff we probably are in the some of the same places. I don’t think my understanding is that the legend The court strategy by the ACLU is actually to try to force the legislature to, to change the statute, because the alternative would be that it would be mostly found, you know, struggling, it would basically not exist functionally for people who were sentenced before 2011, which is when the Adam Walsh Act went into effect here. I also there’s another set of requirements that were in an earlier decision by the same judge that just heard the case on Wednesday, that found that there were other reasons why that the the registration was constitutionally problematic, mostly based and void for vagueness. So my understanding of what happened Wednesdays at the ACLU made the argument, they literally took the statute and went through everything the Sixth Circuit said and went through everything Cleveland said and essentially showed how much would be marked out of the document and what was left was nonsensical. And so their argument is that There is no more. I mean that the seven severability doctrine, the idea is that you’re only supposed to get rid of what you can what’s unconstitutional, and leave the rest of the will of the legislator. And in this case, there would be nothing left there that was functional. And so the idea is that, you know, rather than have the judge, try to write something in there to make it work. You would leave it to the legislature to fix or invalidate it and give people or injunctive relief until that point which the legislator acts, that’s kind of my understanding of what happened.

Andy 1:04:36
Is this something Larry where the legislature just wants to have the judge make a decision so they can be lazy?

Larry 1:04:44
Not really, although this that’s the cynics view. It first of all, it’s not the judiciary. The judiciary is not supposed to be making public policy for us. And I challenge people think about this, if we could just Pick the size of the court, whether it be five, seven or nine if we could just put robes on people, and they could decide important public policy decisions without any input from the people. And they would decide what the level of income taxes, what it levels fuel tax what the Clean Air standards would be, what public education would look like what university standards would be? I mean, would that be a great country if we just delegated all that to people who were ropes and who were probably the least prepared, which I agree with Scalia, one of the clips we played on him, the judiciary is not prepared, not equipped, not qualified to make these public policy decisions in terms of significant so it’s not the courts role. It’s not a question of being lazy. It’s not their role to do that. Now, from a political perspective, since we do live in a political system, that anybody who’s holding public office, unless they’re at the end of their political career, they don’t seek to be an office anymore. And I give an example like alan simpson from center from Alembic, but he found I got began to say And he started talking about the knotch babies who were claiming that they got beat out of Social Security money. And he called a greedy something and other I forget what his term was. But he said that there was nobody got cheated, that they were just simply greedy because they had to they It was a formula that will screw up in social security that paid those people way more than what they should have. And they corrected it. And it was a group of people that were born a certain years where they made the correction, and they didn’t do it and all one fell swoop. So the knotch babies were complaining that they that they, and he called, he called him greedy. Well, the politicians are looking at this, okay, I care about my schools in my state I care about, I care about the environment. I care about seniors, I care about so many things I’d like to do to make for a better future for and I am not going to put my political future on the line by wanting to make things better for sex offender so I can be vilified for doing that. That’s just not in their DNA. They’re not wanting to take that risk. So the comfortable position from a from a from an elected position of potentials perspective is to have it forced down their throat by the courts. That’s the most comfortable position for them because they can say, Well, you know, saurez they call it Michigan is has been weakened, but we didn’t do it. The courts did it. And they have they have plausible deniability that they didn’t do the weakening,

Josh 1:07:24
or even better, they could say that, you know, if it hadn’t been for their act, there would be no registry.

Larry 1:07:31
That’s correct. And that’s when they’re going to act and people keep wanting to know when the alleged national legislature is going to act. I’ll tell you what they’re going to act, when when the courts finally decide that they can no longer enforce the status quo. If you’ve got the status quo still being enforced or 44,000 people from a political analysis, there’s absolutely no reason. There’s nothing to gain from legislating and there’s everything to lose from legislate. The only way you can safely legislate would be you would have to make music Sora tougher. But if you do anything to relax the standards of Sora, you’re going to be potentially vilified. So until they’re faced with non enforceability of the of the registry and the thing going dark, they have virtually no incentive to legislate. And I’ve said that from the beginning, and I had a lot of Rotten Tomatoes thrown at me when I said that, but that’s the reality of the political situation.

Andy 1:08:22
Josh, is there an angle for the the DA in there? Or the excuse me, the AG, Miss Nestle?

Josh 1:08:29
Well, I mean, essentially, she’s representing the state side of things. And at the same time, there’s a separate case. It’s called bets that’s working its way through Michigan that’s similar and has some of the same kinds of questions. And I think, you know, what they’ve really the state, oddly enough, has been an agreement on a large amount of the issues of dough. Those I’m sorry. And so I think we’re going to win a pretty substantial victory in some sense. It’s just how how much of a victory and Really the only thing the state’s really pushing back on are things like their ability, they’d like to just be able to remove the unconstitutional parts and leave the statute the way it is. And they’d also like to have the Michigan State Supreme Court resolve the issue instead of Judge Cleveland. And those are kind of the main issues. There’s also an issue about the tier system having to be risk based or not be risk based. But for the most part, those are the main issues that the state is pushing back on a great deal of the other stuff. They’re not really contesting which is unique because our previous attorney general who was basically pushing it even past the point where it made sense to push it.

Andy 1:09:39
Well, I guess what I’m asking is about Dana Nestle is I have at least read at least two there was one like when she was elected, roughly, that she came out against that this, this whole situation is stupid. And then there was one even more recently, I guess it was an amicus brief, maybe it was just last week. Yeah. Those are all in the basket and working been going so yeah, she they’re on separate tracks. And so she is definitely

Josh 1:10:07
it’s not it’s very rare that you see the top

law enforcement official in the state come out against the registry kind of standing in the face of everything that Larry just said about elected officials. But she’s done it not once, not twice, but now three times, and I definitely will always appreciate her for that. But it’s odd that she’s also that has to represent the state in this in this dose versus Snyder two case.

Andy 1:10:34
What what I want to ask I want I want there. I want you to chime in on this one is that as I recall in the previous administration, that Obama directed his attorney general I don’t remember who it was was that Eric Holder perhaps that said, Can you hit these guys and gals with like drug offenses? Can you hit them with kid gloves like shoot for minor stuff, shoot for diversion, whatever, and you know, then so can can the ag tell her Da so then not go after the, you know, try to reduce sentencing reduce the conviction kind of the what is being convicted being charged? Couldn’t they kind of diminish everything just from that level without doing anything with the law? So Good question. But the analysis doesn’t flow the same way because the US Attorney General serves at the pleasure of the President. The state attorney general serves at the pleasure of the people because it’s an elected position.

Larry 1:11:26
It’s an elected position and the prosecutors in the state of Michigan they’re all elected and in their own right, so they don’t take direction.

Andy 1:11:33
There’s no hierarchy. Hmm,

Larry 1:11:35
yeah, yeah, there’s not the say the US and the US. President Trump decides that we have the Attorney General that we have but your current is bar. Previously you know who it was from Alabama sessions

Josh 1:11:47
would advise and gets into the senate

Larry 1:11:49
with advisor consent which you’re almost always going to get the consent of the other set. And then the the assistant US Attorney General’s you have You have a US Attorney for each each district who asks are theoretically to the Department of Justice in DC and then their assistance work under them. But you have you have a command structure where things come flow from Washington in terms of directive policies, you don’t have that and state. The Kent County prosecutor’s office doesn’t answer to Lansing to turn gentle Nestle, whatever she wants to can’t kind of prosecutor comes out. That’s really nice. Appreciate your advice. But I estrogen senses here in Kent County.

Josh 1:12:28
Yeah, that causes that definitely causes a lot of problems. You know, for instance, one of the problem that’s happened over the last several years is that the attorney general’s office definitely right now is not prosecuting people, for instance, for distance violations or whatever, but a local prosecutor could. And so when you get what you’ll get is a lot of times in the county, you’ll get county prosecutors who are you know, have their own kind of view on what should be done and usually much more punitive on this issue. And so you do We have a lot of inconsistency across the state

Larry 1:13:03
does does the ag office in Michigan have concurrent jurisdiction on prosecution of some sort? Because in some states they don’t like in Ohio. He has very limited prosecutorial powers. So does he break those prosecution? I don’t think so.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:21
Okay. Could you could you delve into that? I’ve never heard those terms before.

Larry 1:13:25
Well, the, the the Attorney General, oftentimes has very limited prosecutorial powers. If you look at a state what the duties of DHS I don’t even know how George’s as organized and what their, what their responsibilities are. But what day G is consistent, typically they are responsible for defending the states do enacted laws, and they do consumer protection almost in all states I’ve ever lived in or been close to. They have they protect consumers from from abuse and fraud and adults but in terms of being able to do prosecutions they Agee’s offices are generally very limited. They don’t have concurrent jurisdiction. If you think back a few episodes will wait to talk to about crasner. But crasner said I won’t prosecute these things at Philadelphia, and then the conservative legislature who says that they believe so much in local control and how much that they respect and admire the decision maker at the local level, they gave the the Attorney General power to do the prosecution’s that they previously did hope didn’t have. So that’s what I’m talking about.

Andy 1:14:30
And in Michigan, that hypocrisy clip right now.

Larry 1:14:32
Yeah, yeah, we need that we need that hypocrisy, because they they certainly I filled with it. But But we I don’t know what what jurisdiction, concurrent jurisdiction of the Michigan ag may have, in terms of prosecutions.

Andy 1:14:47
Maybe we can travel down the path of, you know, rolling back to when the decision was made by the judge saying, these particular pieces were unconstitutional. Then what Shouldn’t that engage a mechanism to force the legislators to go legislate since they said it was unconstitutional? What is there any sort of mechanism that does that?

Josh 1:15:10
You know, not really not in the sense that you’re talking about the The point is, is that a court, you know, you’re operating on separate tracks. So, you know, so for instance, if I had been under the under before this, this new case, those two women were back under dose after dose one was decided, like I said, if I got picked up for like, one of the things that have been found unconstitutional, the courts when it came, you know, a local prosecutor might prosecute me for that. But the courts would then say, Well, those found this unconstitutional. That doesn’t require the legislature to do anything. You know, that process happens independent of the legislature for the most part unless they pass a new law. And as one of the legislators here in in our legislators said, when they heard that the course were, you know, hoping that they would do something as unless they start You know, driving tanks down to the Capitol. There’s not much that’s going to happen on sorne or on Sora. And that’s really what’s played out. And so you know what? The real risk I think what Larry said is true. The real risk is that judge Cleveland basically invalidates the statute. A large swath of the people on it and then the legislature be have a lot of pressure on them to act not because of the way it’s going to play out in the courts. It’s because the public would now see that they were allowing there to be no SORNA and no sora

Larry 1:16:35
and then that incentive would bait to legislate and they would they would do, likely they would follow the model and Pennsylvania, they would likely come in and try to recreate as much of it as they possibly could, knowing that you that they have the presumption of constitutionality, and they would try to reenact what had been put what the judge has to halted force, but he has to not just declare it as our Constitution. that’s already been done. But the judge has to give a date certain with the lights will go out. And when that happens that the judge says you’ve got 180 days and I’m turning out the lights on this, then all of a sudden there will be an incentive to legislate. And then they will try to reenact and recreate as much as they can. Now, we can wish that they would have this epiphany that they saw us hoping for, and that they would like to believe that they’re somehow going to come to believe that it’s a bad public policy, and they’re going to streamline the registry and remove a bunch of offenses from the registry, and they’re going to do all these great things. I don’t have much evidence to inspire me to believe that that’s going to be the likely outcome. Although I always hope I’m bra when I make such a prediction, but I tell people I don’t say these things because I want to be cantankerous I say these things because I want to tell you as best as I can, all my life experienced from a political analysis, what they’re likely to do, and what they’re likely to do is to try to reenact as much of it as they possibly can, so that they can be tough on on people who’ve done evil things. That’s what they’re likely to do.

Josh 1:18:06
I mean, I know we both talked to Miriam, I don’t, you know, I mean, the only thing I’ll disagree with, I think most everything you said I agree with their, with one exception, which is I don’t think the ACL use strategy was that they’ll just have an epiphany and this is good public policy. I think that a they thought the original says decision, at least in the immediate point could serve as political cover and be if the judge were to invalidate the statute, do what you just said in terms of a date certain, although making it unconstitutional for the for the entire class would be a little bit of a different thing. But you’re right, that they’d have to he’d have to probably have to do both. I don’t know. I think that the hope was that, that that would I know that one of those two things would force the legislators to access the first one failed. This is the second you know, because there was a working group and it was involved. The legislators The state police, the attorney general’s office, the governor’s office and that went on for quite a while and there was some progress made but it didn’t end up doing much for the results you’ve already elucidate.

Larry 1:19:10
Well that’s that’s insane when you when you when you legislators are good people by and large and when you go to them and say the courts have found a problem with with with something, the initial reaction is more likely gonna be vocal, what do we need to do? And so they’re going to be very receptive to but then when when you start getting into the nitty gritty of what you need to do, then they start putting a political analysis oh my gosh, I can’t do that. Oh, they want us to not can’t do that either. And it’s kind of like giving an example the California with the with the with the tiered registry that that California has lifetime registration for everybody. And then they decided they wanted because the balloon registry everybody agreed even the law enforcement people agreed that the registry got too large in California, surpassed 100 210,000 whatever the number is, and they wanted to find a removal process. Then they brought in Everybody the table the victims advocates and everybody the table, and they created the most awful process that could ever be imagined. And not a soul will ever get off the registry under that process that they did. But they all agreed that there was a problem. So that’s what you’ve got a Michigan all these lawmakers. Oh, yeah, we’ve got a problem. But I can’t help you with it. Cuz you’re asking me to do something that’s far too risky for me. I’ve got to help. I’ve got to have I’m sorry, I’ve got to have to have the course do this. I can’t do what

Josh 1:20:29
promises actually was moving pretty far along and a lot of progress has been made. My understanding of what it up happening is what you know, part of what you’re saying is correct, which is I believe I you know, obviously wasn’t in the room, but from what I’ve heard, the the it was actually the governor’s office that got cold feet and decided to basically let the courts deal with

Unknown Speaker 1:20:49
it. That’s the safest posture to take.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:52
Yeah, from a political standpoint, it’s the correct

Andy 1:20:55
let me let me toss this out there. It seems that let me try and make this comparison. That we continue to learn more about all things about the world science moves forward, new formulas are made, etc, etc. population increases. So there’s always this like creeping forward. Is there ever a chance that laws roll backwards? I mean, it seems that every state in this case in every state in the United States is continuing to push forward and make it more make it more where does does it ever stop? Does ever ever someone go, Hey, this is good. It’s got good enough. We don’t have to do anything. It doesn’t seem like that ever seems to happen.

Josh 1:21:33
In this particular instance, and Larry can certainly correct me. We’re pretty much guaranteed I think more or less guaranteed that there’s going to be a pretty drastic change for everyone who was sentenced before 2011 or was found whose crime happened before 2011. I always keep saying sentencing was actually the crime date. And, and I think that if there is a new constitution of the registry of Larry said, it’s mostly going to apply to people who were suddenly post the animal shack implementation, and only within the boundaries of this new kind of constitutional agreement, because the one thing that that that that those court did find is that that all these elements that were ex post facto are also, you know, invalid. And, you know, I imagine that the injunctive relief will have something to do with everyone who’s been says for 2011. And so if you made a bunch of new stuff, that would also be it seems to me ex post facto, I could be wrong about that, but suspect of

Larry 1:22:33
my my expectation is it’s going to go beyond 2011. And I believe that the disability is imposed in 2006. With the restrictions on where people can live and work and be present and mortar. I think that those are going to going to be included in the belief and could turn out to be wrong. But I think the 2011 damage where they link to the registration terms, to me was was devastating, but what they did 2000 sex was was equally devastated when you can’t live and work and be present places. So I think I think that the really, ultimately will will go beyond what they did 2011. But as Josh says, if your crime was committed after these, what are these dates, whichever one if they if they focus on the 2006 with a focus on 2011, whichever whichever data is to cut off, or that tipped it to be unconstitutional, you’re screwed until there’s new litigation, do litigation that proves that, that that the register is unconstitutional as applied to people give other crimes after one of those states?

Josh 1:23:34
Yeah, it’s gonna be real, it’s not going to be a great. I mean, they’re going to be things that get better for people post. I just use 2011 because it’s the later date but both 2006 2011. But for everyone posts, that big spike it mildly better, but it’s, you know, not going to be it’s not gonna be the same kind of substantial under this decision most likely.

Larry 1:23:55
Well, I think Andy was asking one question, I don’t know if it was specific to the registry to things ever Turn backwards. Yes, people, legislators all over the country are recognizing that they’ve gone too far on criminal penalties. And they’re pulling back and they’re looking for alternatives. But in terms of the registry, I don’t know that there’s a lot of pulling back yet. I don’t I don’t see that I don’t see the lawmakers pulling back down the courts forcing courts have forced, I should say to have enforced a change by by judicial order. But as far as legislation is coming together and say, well, gee, we’re going to make it easier, better registry i’d none of those are coming to the top of my list of where the where the states have said we need to make this registry more more relaxed California, you bike a site that’s an example because of the theoretically you, you can get off. But the flop process is so flawed that very few people are going to get off until they change that process. Missouri improved, there’s where they were they made it 2018 where people can get off, but the process is so flawed that very few Will. So I guess there is some indication that that is largely getting better, but not much. It’s coming from legislative improvement as mostly coming from judicial, from courts.

Josh 1:25:11
I agree with that. I mean, I think we’re in a situation where,

really over the last couple years, I mean, I think about three years ago, we had a thing. And, you know, I still think you’ve got the, you know, essentially the sex offender version of the Morton problem, which is what we’ve been talking about all night, but there was a lot of momentum. And I think over the last, you know, probably year and a half, I feel like a lot. There’s, it seems like it’s dissipating a little bit in the least. I don’t feel like there’s the same momentum as there was a couple years ago. Outside of the courts. I hope I’m wrong. But I

Andy 1:25:48
don’t want to rehash this whole thing. I think we already covered but I wanted to Larry and Larry and I we talked about it earlier, as I recall in some of the gerrymandering cases that have been going through the various levels of Supreme Court’s and then that sometimes the Court has said, No, this is an unconstitutional districting map gerrymandering set up. And they just said, you guys fix it. And then they give him sort of some sort of amount of time. But other judges have then said no. And they actually kick back a redistricting map. They say, hey, this one works might not be what you want. But this is this one does work and accomplishes the goal of giving you districts that aren’t gerrymandered. Could we not end up with a situation like that, where the judge says, Well, here’s a constitutional registry that you guys could have to live with?

Josh 1:26:39
Well, I mean, I think that’s what the Alaska case was, in a way. But on your gerrymandering point, I feel like the problem with that analysis is that the Supreme Court ultimately kind of decided that, that Yeah, they could you know, that that none of that, that that they didn’t care about the maps period, but you know, back to your kind You’re you’re kind of example. I think we’re, you know, yeah, I just I think that the best we had and I think one of the things that’s helped us is that they set sort of parameters. They said that the Alaska case was essentially, the Alaska registry was essentially was constitutional. And the reason we’ve had success since then is because like Larry said, People kept adding and adding and adding and let alone and those are the things that have ultimately been found unconstitutional. When they’ve been found on institutional. Am I wrong about that? Larry,

Larry 1:27:36
you’re absolutely correct. And, and I, I would not want to see the day where the court starts writing the laws that would be very frightening to me, in our in our democratic system to have have the courts writing the laws. What I would like to see the courts do is tell the state, well, you know, we’ve given you a lot of time, and there’s been no progress. So we’re giving you one final deadline and the lights will turn out At that point, and you can figure out what you’re going to do after that.

Andy 1:28:04
And when you say lights turn out, like the website goes down with nobody listed and no violations for perhaps proximity violations go into a vault.

Larry 1:28:14
Well, therein lies that’s where the nuance comes. Because my position is that the Michigan Supreme Court should accept the certified question because this is a state law. It’s not a federal law, Michigan Sora is a state law. And whether or not state laws can be severed and survive in pieces that is for the state if it’s not into statutory scheme, and apparently it is I haven’t spotted no one’s told me that it says that. This should any section of this be declared unconstitutional. remainings shall be enforced. That as for the state of Michigan’s highest tribunal to tell to guide the Federal Court, which is a court of limited jurisdiction to tell them that we believe that essence that it can or cannot survive, what separates but if they sever the surviving portion of the cost is your portion, then that would mean that the people who had offenses that occurred before 2006, they could live and be present where they wanted to. That means that people were under the previous scheme where they were going to get off in 20 years, they would be back in that 20 year track. If they finish it, they would be done. So people who had been finished, who would have typed out of the old system, their their registry light would go dark. The people who had not timed out, but had an obligation to report once a year or whatever the frequency was prior to AWS, they would go back to what it was the law was like before the 2011 enhancements came in. So some people would go dark, some people would still have a registration obligation, but it would be far less onerous because it would look like it did in 2000, prior to 2006. That’s what I think the court should do. And that’s what I think the court ultimately will do.

Josh 1:29:55
Yeah, I think the courts going to go farther than that. And I also think that they’re probably this is One thing we were kind of arguing about before the show is at least from what I understand from the hearing on Wednesday, one of the big discussions is over if it should be remanded. I mean, if the Michigan Supreme Court should ultimately decided or judge Cleveland should, at least from the observers of the room, and the lawyers in the that I’ve talked to, they seem to feel like that decision was probably going to remain with judge Cleveland that he was probably going to go ahead and decide that himself. You know, if I’m wrong about that, you know, that’s just that’s just hearsay. Obviously, I’m just getting information from people who were there so

Larry 1:30:38
well, well, people like to read judges and they like to interpret. And I do believe the judge Cleveland would be capable. He’s got it. federal judges have very competent law clerks and I think they could research Michigan’s case law. And I think they can figure out whether it’s whether it’s several will based on existing case law. Being that I like to be concerned But not have if I were a judge, I wouldn’t want myself subject to being overturned. I would want to give the Attorney General of Michigan, something to appeal. I don’t know if Nestle would appeal, but I wouldn’t want to give them that. I would want to go through the most careful thought process to make sure that there’s not an appeal to a Sixth Circuit. And I would I want to get the court a chance to take the certified question.

Josh 1:31:22
Although you have to remember that I think all the parties understand that the Sixth Circuit is extremely sympathetic to the to the ACLU case in fact, at the end of the Sixth Circuit decision they said we also think a lot more of this is unconstitutional but you haven’t brought beat that case yet. So if you want to keep bringing stuff will listen. Like they’re a hostile audience. So that was one of them. One of the more conservative judges on the on the court, I

Larry 1:31:51
I’m just telling you from a search head strength strategy standpoint, Nestle could die in a plane crash tomorrow, and the agency’s office demeanor could change company pletely overnight. And and if I’m sitting as a US District Judge, I don’t ever will be. But if I, if I were sitting as a district judge, I wouldn’t want to give every deference to the state to tell me before I make because I may be turning thousands of people off the registry and taking them outside the zone of public scrutiny. And before I do that, I want a little bit of cover also, though, I don’t need it. But I want to make sure that that every T is crossed, every eyes been dotted. And the thing about it is that the judges waited so long, given the state all this opportunity to legislate which they never got to legislate. He’s probably going to feel pressure now to not wait longer because while the certified questions going up, that would cause another delay and if our day so you got to be arguing judgment. We’ve waited since what was it may of 2019. Oh, they’re making that argument. That’s what I would be saying that, you know, we’ve waited long enough. We don’t have time for a certified question.

Josh 1:32:59
They said wait. too much damage has been done already. You know, we needed to relief all that. Definitely right about that.

Andy 1:33:06
So have we missed anything? We haven’t missed a thing. I didn’t think so. Josh, is there anything else that you think that we should dive into on this before we call it quits?

Josh 1:33:17
No, just everyone should keep their fingers crossed. This is a pretty big, pretty big decision. So if we go

Andy 1:33:23
well, let me ask you this. Larry, I obviously this has no impact on any other state, but at the same time, it has a huge impact on other states, what would be the impact of them rolling things back on another state?

Larry 1:33:36
Well, I think I would say that this actually does have impact this case is cited probably more than if you did a search climate briefs this I decided to have that Sixth Circuit case those verses Snyder it cited repeatedly. And it’s it’s only binding in that territory, the Sixth Circuit, but it’s very persuasive.

Andy 1:33:54
And if that’s what it means, so it doesn’t have any direct impact on states outside of those but like you said, it’s persuade So this could affect a Georgia could affect New Mexico whatever in push it rolling things back to some 2006 ish level of situation.

Larry 1:34:11
it very well could if if if if the Michigan legislature chooses not to legislate. And the courts just simply say you can enforce if there’s enough of a SORNA left a SORNA, as they call it, there are sore, I think they call it there. But if there was enough left, that that they simply say you’re going back to where it was in 2006, then that that would be monumental, because I’d like to roll ours back to where we were prior to 2005.

Andy 1:34:37
And does that set some sort of standard for what it would be and then all of the states could file lawsuits to roll them back to some level like that?

Larry 1:34:46
Well, it doesn’t set a standard because it’s not binding but it gives a framework of legal analysis for for judges who are skittish to look at civil Wow, this was thoroughly analyzed by this panel and the Sixth Circuit and it seems pretty good job.

Andy 1:35:00
Yeah, I just it’s so hard. It’s so hard to conceive of. And I use this expression all the time. But we are 50, quote unquote, individual little countries. And then we have the the appeals courts, and then the district courts, whatever. And then the Supreme Court, so like, everybody is their own little operating entity. And it’s so hard because we can just travel so freely, that it’s just fluid and we just bounce around, get on a plane and you’re in a different time zone in a different state. It’s no big deal, that these things are isolated and encapsulated in their own little regions. And they do and they don’t have influence on others. It’s really hard to conceive of really,

Josh 1:35:40
it really, that all of us know that when you get on a plane and you go to another state, you have to learn the rules of the other state. No kidding.

Andy 1:35:45
No kidding. That’s very true. And watch out for the Geiger counters. Larry, we had a conversation about some Geiger counters, didn’t we?

Larry 1:35:51
We’ve had that conversation before that. Josh, do you know what the Geiger counter detects?

Josh 1:35:59
You’ve lost wheeled Geiger counters I know what a Geiger

Larry 1:36:02
well if if if a state has a particular number of hours that you can be physically present before you have to register the Geiger counter goes off when you when you go one minute past that

Andy 1:36:13
and then and then it has to be and I know you haven’t seen this movie later but Monsters Inc that they had the little the little detector thing that if you had any of the the the humans on you know on user they had like a detector to detect the human stuff anyway, just kind of silliness. I’m sure you’ve seen Monsters Inc. Josh.

Josh 1:36:30
I do know what you’re talking about.

Larry 1:36:32
And then after after the Geiger counter reacts, then a hovercraft appears. Yes. And the hovercraft hovers over you until they apprehend you.

Andy 1:36:42
Now and I look to

Josh 1:36:44
go ahead, Jessica, is it kind of like a what was it a one of those alien movies where they suck you into the machine or

Larry 1:36:51
short? And I was

Andy 1:36:54
we make these the we play light on the situation that if you go to a state Let’s just say you go to Florida where they had like the stupid 14 hour requirement and your one minute over. Yes, you are violating the law. And yes, there’s a huge penalty for it. But does anybody know if you drove into the state? Like, how do they know when you actually cross the line? Like, anyway, with playing fair with it?

Josh 1:37:16
I was just gonna say, I also really hate these laws, that we’re, you know, strict liability laws in general, no harm done to anybody. But they’re still strict and harsh penalties. That’s just very problematic to me.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:31
Yes.

Andy 1:37:32
And then, and we’re poking fun at the extreme nature of what you’ve just described, and we’re poking fun at and somewhat kind of give us some crap about it, I guess.

Larry 1:37:39
Well, and and it’s a serious thing, because the, the law is on the blocks in some states that that bear, being physically present does trigger a registration obligation. The point we’re trying to make is you assign yourself a far level higher level of importance than that, first of all, they’re not following you with a hovercraft. They don’t know It would be rare that we come into contact with you. And if they did, I have never seen a case where a person’s been prosecuted for being on the 49th hour of a 48 hour limit, if they’re visiting. Now I have seen cases where people have been prosecuted for big over the three days where you have to register if you if you become a resident, or if you become a student become whatever the triggers a finite you become attached to a state. But of all the horrible out there and being of the national defense lawyers list big on the state defense lawyers list. And all the attorney contact I have, I have not been able to Earth a case of a person having been prosecuted for being slightly over the amount of time they can be physically present. Now I don’t law enforcement has too many resources, and they prosecute frivolous stuff, I get that. But I would think that I would have heard about such a case. What I do hear about is I tell people you got to get registered, but I’ve never heard of a prosecution of a person. You’re 49 hours and that’s 60 minutes to Long I haven’t heard of that.

Josh 1:39:02
Yeah, well, I’d hate to be the first case. Yeah.

Andy 1:39:06
You’re the dummy test. But you know, we cover that article with the the guys and the handyman is going to change a light bulb and they get they got arrested. So, but well, we should shut it down. Josh, who do you have that you are interviewing in the near future?

Josh 1:39:21
Well, I’ve done quite a few interviews in advance, I guess I’m pretty excited that I have an interview with Wayne Kramer, the people might know, but was the guitarist for a band called The MC five who was pretty much one of the foundational bands in kind of what became garage rock. And then punk rock influenced a very wide range of artists, including the clash. In fact, they wrote a song about him. And then later he went to he went to prison. And then when he came back out, he kind of had a really good reclamation story. So it’s fun to talk to him about to do a big episode. On the crisis in Mississippi were 15 people have died in the last like month and a half. And I’m having a bunch of the activists who have been really working on the ground and some folks from the reform Alliance I’m sure everyone’s heard Jay Z and some some other rapper sued the state of Mississippi over this. And so we’re gonna have someone from reform Alliance, which JC is one of the owners of that.

Andy 1:40:23
That’s where the governor said that the cell phones are what caused all that?

Josh 1:40:26
Yeah, and I’ve been pretty much one of my least favorite arguments in the world is Department of Corrections argument that cell phones where the violence it really bothers my soul. They make that argument to the point where I usually explode on Twitter if anyone follows me on twitter you’ve probably seen that I think I even have graphics on it now that my one of my people made or something like that. I think Graham has a

Larry 1:40:53
weight we categorically rejected that just last episode of the episode before it’s the silliest, silliest thing I’ve ever heard.

Andy 1:41:00
I have a clip of it it’s really quite funny. It’s very humorous to me that he says the gangs are using the cell phones to do these things like okay all right.

Josh 1:41:08
Anyone who’s been in prison knows you can use the regular phones

Andy 1:41:12
yeah No kidding. It’s just a lot more expensive to do it that way.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:15
Sure, but they don’t care

Josh 1:41:20
they’ve been doing they’ve been doing bad things the gang is getting robbed all the presence of the entire state pretty much as long as there’s big presence. Yeah, you’re

Andy 1:41:27
not allowed to have weapons either but somehow that works out to have a quick little story when I when I first got to this particular place in Georgia and it was a it was like a war zone there was no staff oversight going on and I’m doing some detail cutting grass, whatever and we’re walking down the whatever the heck they call the grinder, but that I don’t remember what they call anyway. And passed by somebody on a yard and he’s just he’s just filing down some piece like, does not anybody see the guy making the shake on the garden? A man. I was like, I was baffled baffled method. All right, we got to get out of here. I know right, Josh, thank

Josh 1:42:05
you so much. Tell us again where we can find your programs and follow you on the Twitter’s and stuff. Sure. decarceration Nation com or iTunes, Google Play or any of those places and then my Twitter is at Joshua

Andy 1:42:18
HRV. Very good. Larry, as always, you are the man the myth, the legend. You have all the informations and I greatly appreciate you hanging out with us on a Saturday night again.

Larry 1:42:29
It’s my pleasure to be here and and I appreciate all the listeners that are stacked up in discord now, of all those who are going to be listening to coming week that for some reason another they just keep coming back. I don’t know why they do.

Andy 1:42:44
I always thank them and appreciate that they’re there because they feed questions and make my job easier. Go hit the show notes at registry matters dot CEO and you can find where to contact us on Twitter, watch us on YouTube, download the podcast, all of that handy dandy stuff. And with that, Josh thanks You can appreciate it and Larry as well. Thanks guys. Have a great night.

Larry 1:43:04
Good night. You too.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai