Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Before we dive into today's conversation, I want to take a moment to thank this episode's sponsor, Audible.
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[00:00:13] Speaker A: I write them, I read them, and sometimes when I can't sit down long enough to open a book, I listen to them. Lately, I've been listening to Audible while I walk, travel, or even sometimes while cooking dinner. There's something about hearing a story performed that makes it come alive in a different way.
I just finished.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Julie Chan Is Dead by Lian Zhang, an Alice Feeney book, Blue Beautiful, Ugly, and the latest Linley book by Elizabeth George.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: So I'm gonna be honest. This is how I do it.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: I get a book both on Kindle and on Audible, and I go back and forth listening to both. So when I'm driving in the car or with my son at some activity, I will listen to audiobooks. And then when I'm home, I read them on Kindle. And Audible makes it easy to switch back and forth in the app.
Honestly, I do it every time. I just, I want to keep the book going while I'm driving. And so I just switch, switch to the audiobook. And then when I get home, I switch back to the Kindle because honestly, I can read faster than I can listen.
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[00:01:31] Speaker B: let go, including my own Casey Court
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[00:01:47] Speaker B: Hi, and welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, Amy Austin.
We are doing the deep dive on Ransom.
So right now I'm starting chapter nine. It is. Oh, my God. I'm sorry, I have to look at the date.
It is. Oh. September 29th in the Casey court. September 29th, 2003 in the Casey court universe. And what's interesting is that at this point, she's taken on Claire as a client.
Claire has signed that retainer agreement as well as Marissa Ellingworth.
And she is doing what? I think we would say that private clients, there's what we call paying clients pay for, which is bespoke service that's. Let's just call it that. So in when I was practicing, we had a docketing service.
This is before E filing. Now you can just like upload your PDF and click and File. But back in the day when you had actual documents that you had to print and copy and staple and collate, you could either take them to the court and file them yourself, or you could hire a docketing service. I will say that filing in Cuyahogie county was pretty easy because all the courthouses were in one location, like one, like central downtown location, more or less within a few blocks of each other, and therefore could just like file if you weren't going to do it yourself. I did hire a docketing service. I think it was called like quick docket or something. And they came twice a week, or you could have daily, I think only twice a week. And they would come, take your documents and file them and then return the copies to you with. But all that to say that if you file things in person, you can, you can, you can grease the wheels. I don't. And it's not like it's nothing illegal, but you can get things where you want to. You can get better dates, better service than if you just use a docketing service which is just interested in like they run a service. It was like a hundred dollars a month or something.
So not quite personalized. So in chapter nine, Casey is taking her documents down to juvenile court to file herself.
And while she's standing in line, she sees somebody trying to do something.
And given how our country works, government offices are always overwhelmed.
Obviously it doesn't have to be that way, but it is for a whole lot of structural reasons I'm certainly not going to get into in this particular episode.
But Casey is observing people trying to file for themselves because a judge said this recently. And I don't know if this is true everywhere, but a lot of litigants are self represented. And I didn't know that.
I don't know if I ever thought about it.
But especially in the family court or juvenile court context, people are generally self represented because there's no, within some limits, there's no right to an attorney.
And therefore attorneys are expensive. And the majority of people in court, well, court covers all income brackets. And most people are not making a whole bunch of money in the US or such that they can afford an attorney. Not with mortgages and rents and cars and student loans and all the other things people have to cover in childcare.
So she's observing somebody coming down there and basically what they used to do. And I've seen people do this recently, so nothing has changed. They will hand out like some kind of handout and be like, you should call some Other government office or the public defender or something.
And the thing is, she sees the clerk doing that, knowing full well that when those people call the public defender, they're going to be overwhelmed or legal aid or whatever it is, and they will be back.
But Pass the Buck was the name of the bureaucratic game. It was like put these people out of the door now and then, you know, tomorrow we'll deal with tomorrow.
So in this book it's called quick docket.
Oh God, okay, whatever.
But when people pay, she gets cases expedited.
So. And she says if I left with the docket service, Claire's. Claire Henshaw's papers would languish for weeks or months before anything happened. For my retained clients, part of what they were paying for was keeping their matter front and center at the court. And it says this is unfortunately true. Unrepresented clients suspect it, but no politician would ever say it out loud. You can't say things like that out loud. But. So in this case she is getting Claire Henshaw service. So this is actually true now. So if you pay a docketing service, they will file your documents, but if there's anything that goes wrong or even I heard recently, if the line's too long, they will like not file your things or come back or leave them or something. And I was like, wow, that's interesting.
You pay a service and they're like, it's even too long for them.
But is an attorney, if you go, you are, I don't say 100% guaranteed. Not because an attorney forms. It's not true. You're like 98% guaranteed to get what you want, whereas a docketing service, maybe you're like 75% guaranteed to get what you want. And self represented clients are maybe 25% guaranteed to get what they need.
So she goes in and there's a whole like anti corruption thing that Cuyahoga county established. Before I got there, somebody explained it to me. So I'm explaining to you what I heard. I assume it's true that people were putting the finger on the scale in terms of getting good judges or judges that would be favorable to them, whatever that meant. And so they instituted something called the judge stack, which is a bound, like I would say it's like construction paper, but maybe it's like cardboard, a little bound stack of documents actually. I wonder now where they bind the judge stack and they put all the judges names on them in some sort of random order. And every time they assign a new case, the clerk would use a better Opener or some kind of tool, like slice the judge stack, peel it off, and then that judge would be assigned to you. And then when they entered the case into the computer, it would be assigned to that judge with a new case number and all of that. And then, you know, assign dates and all the stuff that comes with it.
But so she's watching the judge stack, and, well, it's random and you can get a new judge, but it's hard and it's random. It's random. And you hope for the best and you hope you have good luck. So in this random assortment, she gets Judge Conti, right? So. So she's like. Has a whoosh of relief because she's like, oh, great, I don't have to encounter Judge Eamon, the creepy creep again.
But as soon as she has that thought, the clerk is like, right. Conti. I don't know if he died or retired or moved to another king. I can't even remember what happened to Conti before. And it says, oh, all cases assigned to Judge Conti will be assigned to Judge Eamon, which just happened to be the judge stack, because they don't reprint the stack every time the judges change, because there's a lot of judges and who has that kind of time? I imagine now it's computer.
I assume it's an automatic computerized random, actually. I don't know.
So most people try to stay out of court.
So she gets judged even. And, you know, it's just not good.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: So
[00:09:15] Speaker B: she.
In the other part of, like, filing things is you can do something called walk it through.
So if you want any kind of, like, ex parte motion where a motion where. Let's call it an emergency motion, a motion where you want relief immediately and you do not want to wait for the gears of justice to grind.
You have to walk it through. I don't know, this might be another terminology hearing. That's what they called in Cuyahoga County. So you take your little ex parte to the judge, which means that they don't necessarily hear the other side, which is rare in court because you're supposed to hear both sides. But in the case of an emergency, you don't always hear both sides. So you take. She's taking a little ex parte, and all she wants to do is get, like, emergency custody for Claire.
And if you can get, like an emergency order, it'll hold on until the next hearing. And given how slow courts move, that could be two weeks, that could be two months. And so it's kind of important to like put things in place in favor of your client as early as possible.
So she's going to walk it through, but now she's got to walk it through the judge. Even so. So she says, for all the times I'd envied other lawyers and their chummy donation fueled relationships to the judges, I'd have given anything not to be a friend of this court.
So she gathers her resolved and she has to go see Judge Eamon.
So the good news is because she's a friend of the court, she's likely to get the relief for her client that she wants. The bad news is the creepy creep is between her, her clients and the relief they want.
So he, he says, I'll. He says, Bring Miss. Bring Ms. Henshaw in. Which never happens. Like, they usually take the affidavit or the declaration of the client and make the determination on the papers only. But now he is like, ex parte is already, like, extraordinary, like, relief to have only one party in. But now he's willing to, like, hear that party without granting anything to the other side, which is like a level of impropriety we cannot, like, even discuss. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm just saying that as an advocate, I would feel slightly uncomfortable. I would be happy that my client was gonna be getting what they want, but uncomfortable with the way that they were getting it.
But you also don't ever look a gift horse in the mouth.
So she's literally flabbergasted that he's willing to see Claire.
So the next chapter is Claire, which is the same day, a little later. And Claire's like a solo audience of the judge was more than I could have asked for.
And she's glad that she didn't represent herself because clearly she thinks Casey has, like, the magic pull.
And so she goes, you know, she and Casey are sitting out there and like, Casey's like, you know, do what you can to be convincing. I know that this is out of pocket, but. But it will get you what you want. And, you know, we'll discuss the propriety, I guess, of it later.
So Claire goes in and she.
Claire goes in and they just look at him and they're like, we want to suspend visitation.
You know, they're going to go for broke.
So the next chapter is Miles. And I realize it's chapter 11. I realized there hasn't been a Miles chapter in a minute.
He. I believe that he is in maybe the book that comes after Ransomed, which I think is Cage. I think he's a point of view character here. I didn't realize he wasn't a feature as much in this book as I remember. Or maybe he is later in the book.
So now it's October 16th. So it's two weeks later. So you don't know what happened or I don't know what happened. We as readers don't know what happened with Claire and her temporary order. But here we are with Miles, and we're the first time seeing him, like, in his workplace. So previously when we seen him, like, with his parents and with Claire, you know, like, drawing a little thing on the cast and, you know, just as a. Like a. In the satellite, in her world. And now we're like, seeing his work world for the first time. So he's an assistant US Attorney, which means he works for the federal government while prosecuting.
They prosecute a lot of different things, but in this case, I think prosecuting crimes.
So he's just in his room, in his room, in his job, doing his thing, and they're about to have a meeting for the first time. And this is funny because he says so his boss or supervisor, they have all these terms in federal government, but a supervising attorney, I think it was like, we're going to have, like, a meeting. So this is funny. I don't know why I highlighted this. I guess I'll find out in a second. But it says, I painstakingly saved my work because these government computers were ancient. And who knew when the outdated word processing program would blow up in my face? The government, okay, I'm assuming that they have moved on to Microsoft Word.
But back then they used Word Perfect long after everyone else had abandoned WordPerfect. They were like, dead into word Perfect.
And Word Perfect had aged. I. Oh, God. The company had. It was bought and sold.
And you wanted to save your work because, like, attorney work is fiddly. Like, notes and citations and footnotes are fiddly. And you just wanted to save it, just to not have to do it again.
And actually, the note says several of my law school class and I worked for various US Government legal departments after school. It was all word perfect in ancient computers. I can only hope they've leveled up. Oh, my God. So I will say this. So I'm telling you my thoughts without having read the notes recently.
And. And what I'm observing is true of writing as well. So when you're writing, sometimes you're like, oh, I lost the idea and I can't remember what I was going to write. And it feels like the most Perfect idea. But what I have found is when reading my writing or going back to write, I have the same exact ideas over and over again. Because apparently my brain has, like, a certain way it works, and it's exactly the same every single time. So I no longer worry about losing inspiration because apparently I'm just going to come up with the same ideas over and over and over again.
Lovely. Right?
So when he walks into this meeting, he's really surprised to see, like, the whole senior criminal team assembled at the table. But he's a rookie, so he has a. Like, a background. But he took a. He took time off. I believe he was a police officer, which is weird to not quite remember in Philadelphia.
But he took time off between undergrad and law school. And so he's slightly older in terms of being a lawyer, but younger in terms of where you rank. Because the law is really this whole very lockstep, very rigid system. And it's based on. They still do it based on what year you graduated, not any kind of age or experience. It's like if you're a 2009 graduate, then you're slotted here, and if you're a XYZ graduate, you're slotted there.
And that doesn't change for years and years and years and years, if ever. I don't know.
It's way more rigid than people think or know, maybe.
So he's, like, sitting in this meeting, and they're talking about.
They're sitting with the FBI agent called Lou Valspino, who I kind of love as a character. He pops up from time to time.
He's in the FBI criminal investigative division doing government corruption, according to this lore.
And so then they start having this meeting about how they got a call that a local probate judge was reported to have been molesting the litigants who came before him.
And they talked about they were taking him down, but he was smart. He chose victims who were trying to defeat guardianship.
And so often people. Well, I'm thinking about Britney Spears. That's not a good example. But often people have guardianship because there are some kind of limitations.
Mental, physical. There's a whole host of limitations. Why people should not be entering into contracts like signing their own leases, managing their money.
But often people who are trying to become guardians are using it as a tool to manipulate, get people's money or whatever. I mean, it's not a perfect system. I mean, I would say, like, 90% of it's fine, and then 10% of it's like.
And so Often adults who feel that they can take care of themselves try to defeat guardianship, but they have to show a certain level of competence, whether they're completely sane or completely intelligent enough to manage their own lives as adults.
What they had heard is that there was a judge who was taking advantage of people, and. And if they did not submit to his wishes, then he would not grant them guardianship. And they're sort of the perfect victims because the thing that they're trying to defeat, he can use against them.
It's either a brilliant move on my part or just I have a horrible mind.
Okay, so they had heard this, and, you know, they. You know, they Valtespino's like, we don't deal with Idol gossip. And they were saying that they were having a hard time investigating because of. Because the judge's name was Brody.
And everybody's like.
They're like, oh, the Brody is in like the. The guardian. I mean, excuse me, the Attorney General. And they're like, yeah, that Brody.
So because of that, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is like the state equivalent of the FBI, passed on investigating this particular judge. And the implication is that because Bernie was the attorney general and I don't know the BCI or like, the police of, like, you know, the state, that he can decline to investigate, and he declined to investigate his brother.
So then the FBI came in because they are not beholden and they're not beholden to the state. And this actually happens. There's so many cases, and especially like civil rights cases or anything, where there's like, a cop kills somebody in the state or the county or the city are not going to prosecute. And the federal government is beholden. Well, not gonna say beholden to no one, because we can see the federal government now, but are not beholden to the state. And so they often people really call upon them to prosecute in cases where the state or county or city refuses to for reasons akin to corruption.
So they.
They're talking about this case. But one of the issues that had happened after 9 11, and it's sort of addressed in this chapter, is that the federal government, like, turned away from all the other things they were investigating and doubled down on terrorism after 9 11. And resources for crimes that were not terrorism dried up. And so it's been a little bit of an uphill case even in this matter, getting people on board with the prosecution when everything is terror, terror, terror, terror, terror.
So they talk about they've hit dead ends and that the Brodies were connected and this is going to be, like, a little bit of a thing.
But they put Miles on the case to do some research, because there is, I guess, a similar case in Texas, which I think is true. I think there was a similar case in Texas with some cabal of judges that were related somehow that refused to prosecute each other, or judges and lawyers and prosecutors or whatever. So now we know that, like, Miles Siegel basically is now going to be roped into this little, like, little world here where he's going to be working on a case, prosecuting Judge Brody. And we know that Claire is a litigant in front of Judge Brody, and Casey is an attorney in front of Judge Brody. So Judge Brody is just like, you know, he's the son in this little universe here.
So it's.
They talk a little bit about his background being his Miles background being an cop, basically, and then they start talking about some of the litigants in probate court who may have been assaulted by the judge.
And it's always that line because, like, this mom, this grandmother, came in and she was like, I think, like, my granddaughter was, like, assaulted. And people say she's slow, but she's telling me these stories that deviate from, like, the kind of life that she has lived, but people won't believe her. And picking litigants, I mean, picking victims who can't fight back is, like, I don't know, the ultimate, like, abusive choice, manipulator's choice. I don't know. It's just. It's not great.
So he.
They talk about how it has just been so difficult, and because the litigants are already people who are vulnerable, like, mentally vulnerable, that putting any pressure on them is difficult, and they're not going to make great witnesses. And, I mean, we know from, like, the court of public opinion that people who don't make great witnesses, it doesn't go well. And, like, even like this week or last week, there was an interview that Oprah did with the woman from the Coldplay video.
And this is, like, a white woman with money who has, like, the wherewithal to sort of fight back in a system.
And even she, like, really, like, struggled with it. So, like, a poor black litigant with some kind of, like, limitations is not going to do well in the system that we have.
So they talk a little bit about that and, like, the naivete of it and how even though the litigants or people, like, know that doing, like, a sexual favor or being assaulted by this judge is wrong, there is some hope that they could get what they want out of the system.
And, you know, you. You hear about this all the time.
There are. People know they're being victimized, but if it's going to solve a different problem, then they make that trade off. And it's a horrible, horrible trade off to make, but it is made nonetheless.
So you get this. So now we move on to Claire. So now it's November, and we now learn that the judge granted the ex parte. And that in Claire's mind, like, she's sort of, like, moving Darius out of his son's life. And he's four, so. Well, I'm not making it sound like it's good he's four. And so she's in her mind thinking like someone like Miles would be a much better father for his son. Miles is the kind of guy I should have brought home the first time.
Oh, that little regret. She's living with that regret. She's like. She's like. She's like, I thought we made a good couple, a Cosby show kind of couple.
And, you know, it's.
Well, it is what it is. It's a little sad, but it is what it is.
And she's like. So she's. She's like. Like Jenning up this fantasy in her head. She's like, miles is going to fall in love with Luke, and, you know, we're going to be this happy family, and she's just making this whole thing.
And then while she's again living in this fantasy world, who comes up her front walkway other than Darius?
And she's so over them.
But he's walking up the thing. And while he's walking up the thing, he's got a Bluetooth phone thing in his ear. Oh, I guess people now use AirPods. But do you remember people would wear the Bluetooth and they would tap it, and they would be talking, and you think they were talking to you, only to realize and you saw the little blinking thing in their ear, that they were talking on the phone and ignoring you.
And so she had a moment where she snatches the Bluetooth from his ear and throws it from the ground.
And so he.
I guess she thrust. She thrust papers at him, and I guess. I guess he had not.
She got the ex parte. I don't know why it wasn't served on him. I guess he thinks he has visitation, and then she hands the documents to him, getting service. The service was by the sheriff. And it was okay. It was actually pretty good service. It was just not everybody can be served. Not everybody's home. I mean, you know, so service is not perfect. And she says, you're not going to be seeing Luke today anytime soon.
But. And she slams the door, and he's, like, rattling the door, but her son is upstairs. Like, she's in front of the glow of the TV watching Nickelodeon, and she wants to pull him away from the commercials, but she also doesn't want him to see his parents in this state.
And so now Darius is angry, even though she slammed the door and he's rattling the door, and he's just bringing the doorbell over and over and over again. And she's trying to, like, keep her son, like, directed on the tv.
And it's just like a chaotic scene. It's like all the things she doesn't want.
And despite that, like, this chaos is still in your life.
And so when she finally comes back down, he said, I read your papers, and I always knew it was regret that you were a damn lawyer. And he says, am I reading this correct?
And she's like, yes. You know, this is.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: This.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: This is what's going to happen. He's like, why are you doing this? And she's like, you forget the broken arm.
And he's just surprised that she's going to cut off visitation.
And, I mean, look, I've heard a lot of people make a lot of threats about, like, I'm going to take your children. I'm going to, like, you see your children, and all this other stuff, but for the most part, people don't really follow through on that. I mean, I'm not saying that people do kidnap their kids and all sorts of weird things happen, but for the most part, people don't follow through.
And he says, you're not gonna come.
And she's like, I already did.
And so they have this whole argument about, you know, accidents happen, don't cut him off from his father, and she insults his mother. And, you know, that's never. Your mama's never gonna go anywhere.
And he's like, there about getting my son. He's putting his foot in the door. Like, they're just about to have, like, it's just about to go.
And he pushes the door open and the splinters fly.
And she calls the police. And I know as a black woman, she's like, she would hesitate to call the police a lot longer than most people because he could end up dead. And that's not what she wants from him. She just wants better parenting and not a broken arm.
But she calls the police, and she's like, you gotta Go.
And he's not stupid.
So he. He goes. And so the police are like, they're not okay. And then they. Or he doesn't go, I guess. And then they're not okay. And then the police take Darius. And this is awful, but because, like, he. Darius had run upstairs into Luke's room.
And it says, before I could figure out what in the hell was going on, Darius's hand left my upper arm faster than Rodney King could protest.
My baby daddy's face was pressed against the multicolored balloons etched in Luke's carpet. Handcuffs were snapped on his wrist, and a foot was at his back. Another officer was searching his pockets. A money clipped, loose change. And one fat blunt hit the rug.
And the kid's like, mama, Mama, Mama, what are they doing to Daddy? And this is just like. It's just the kind of scene that you never want to have. And if he had just. I'm not. You know, if he had just, like, taken the thing and exercised his rights in a different way other than, like, slamming the door, then this scene would never happen. Would never have happened.
And it's just, like, awful. And she says the police were charged with felonious assault and probably misdemeanor drug possession because he did have the blunt, which is like marijuana. And she says, though I was horrified that I'd put another black man into the system, I was ready to move on.
I don't know. This book is filled with so many hard choices that these people have to make.
And what I think is probably a theme, Recurring theme in all my books is that they have to make a lot of choices, and usually none of them are good.
So this is up to. We're ending chapter 12 in this episode of Politics of Justice.
If you like the video, please like the video. Subscribe to the channel. You may even be able to hype the video. I just got hype points. I'm so excited. So I can hype other people's videos.
I will be continuing on with Ransomed.
The wagons are circling for Judge Brody.
Sa.
