Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, your host, Amy Austin.
I am going to resume the deep dive into Ransomed, which is, nope, I can't ever get this right there.
It's the second book in the Casey Court series.
It is for sale everywhere, I think on Amazon. It may be either $0.99 or $1.99. One or the other. It's one or the other everywhere.
So when we left off, Claire was talking to the police about, I'm so sorry, there's like somebody doing work outside and I can't get away from it. I hope it's not too loud. So when we left off, Claire was talking to the police about Darius and feeling really bad in her heart that she had sort of turned this black man who's the father of her son over to the police. And, you know, it's not great. It's not a great thing to do, but he was. His behavior was not great.
Anyway, so we are starting with chapter 13. And in this chapter, it is a Miles chapter. It starts. The date for the chapter is November 1, 2003.
So he.
At this point, Miles works for the U.S. attorney's office as an assistant U.S. attorney, which is the federal prosecutor's office for this district, which in this case would be the Northern District of Ohio, which is Cuyahoga county, and who knows, some other counties up there.
And I don't know off the top of my head.
So in his capacity, he knows that the office is investigating the Brody family.
The thing about these sort of dynastic in control families is that sometimes there's corruption. Feels like all the time, but maybe that's the only ones we hear about.
And then sometimes there are investigations. But that tension is always there, that if you launch an investigation against a powerful family and you're unsuccessful, the repercussions are going to be great.
But in this case, Miles is not the most advanced. I think he may be the least senior person in the office.
So for him, perhaps the stakes are not going to be great.
I mean, if successful, great, great. I mean, I know some people who built a lot of success off of being the least senior person on in a very like sort of famous case.
So that is where we are. So they have sent Miles out to do some investigative work or talk. To talk to potential witnesses.
So in the beginning of this chapter, he's plotting his way to the apartment of somebody, a woman named Tracy Price.
And Luvel Despino, who is an FBI agent, had passed the name along, but without much comment. And Often if an investigation is done well, often the police or law enforcement will turn over a witness and let the attorney develop that information themselves rather than telling them what to search for.
If people are true investigators and not just trying to nail people to the wall or, like, put people in prison, whether they're guilty or not, it is an effective investigative tool. So he's doing it on Saturday morning, which is, you know, this is the hard part about being an attorney.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: You work 9 to 5.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: People work 9 to 5. And so meeting with people during working hours is often difficult.
So he is plotting his way to her apartment. And the thing I love about this chapter, like, one of the first highlights, is that. So he has a boss or the deputy for the.
There's a strict hierarchy in, like, prosecutor's office. Everybody has a title. I don't know all the titles off the top of my head. But Charles, who calls himself Chaz, is above Miles and therefore can sort of assign duties.
And while he's making his way to this woman's house or apartment, Miles talks a little bit about Chaz. Chaz was a fan of the brick by brick theory. He didn't believe that cases were prosecuted with airtight confessions or flashy courtroom presentations. He thought it was about building an immovable wall of evidence that neither defendant nor his counsel could break through.
So I was on my way to find out this case could be built on bricks or was merely on stilts and shifting sands. If it were the latter, we'd wait for a flood of disinterest to take the case away.
And I think this exists a little bit more in the federal context than it does in the county context where we're dealing with, I don't call it run of the mill crimes, but rape, murder, assault, drugs, which are a little easier to prove because people are selling drugs or assaulting someone. And there are witnesses to that.
When you get to this sort of, like, corruption, the people who are the victims of the corruption are loath to speak out. And people who are witnesses of corruption are also loath to speak out. So the cases become, like, in order of magnitude, more difficult to prosecute because silence benefits almost everyone.
So he's in this apartment seeing this woman who he.
I believe her daughter in this case was the one who was affected in when Judge Brody had been in probate court.
So she offers him breakfast, he says he walks in and smells like grits, eggs and sausage and the stomach rumbles. And he said he really wanted to say yes because he misses his mom's Sunday Breakfast. But he, you know, he. He adults and doesn't. Doesn't take the food off her.
I. I've been to people's houses where you walk in and you're like, oh, that smells great. But, you know, as professional. You take some water, you ignore the
[00:06:28] Speaker B: food, and you go home.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So she says, so he's there to talk to this daughter. And the adult woman, who is maybe a mother, maybe a grandmother, I don't remember that part, says, make yourself comfortable. And he says in the highlight, comfortable did not make for good interrogation, which is true.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: People are like.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: I have talked to people who are, like, splayed out on the couch and, like, eminently comfortable, and they do not make for the best witnesses. You sort of want people, I hate to say this, like, at a conference table, conference room table, or like, not on their couch or at a dining room table if you're in their house. So they're, like, sitting up and a little more attentive.
So he introduces himself and he says, the. Tracy comes out who, like, she said, Tracy is, like, in pajamas and she's a little rumpled. And he extends his hand to Tracy, and he said, there's a long delay while Tracy considered my hand. And so Mrs. Perkins says, Shake his hand.
So it turns out she was in an accident where it says a private ambulance at the side of the number seven bus. And she was seriously injured and has had trauma and any. And if you know anything about head trauma, it is.
It can present a myriad of ways, but in many ways, it makes. It often makes thinking or speaking or one of those things. We have to put together two different skills sort of difficult.
So, you know, so basically she was in an accident. She was in rehab, and then she went to probate court because there was a settlement. So when children are injured, I mean, I'm sure you've seen signs like billboards, you know, injury lawyers. So when people are injured, they get settlements. When adults are injured, they obviously can take care of the money themselves in most cases.
But when children are injured and receive a settlement, there needs to be a competent adult who can handle that.
So she was in court trying to manage the settlement. Also.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: What.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Who was going to take care of Tracy?
So it's unclear as to what happened. But unfortunately, Tracy, who is the potential victim of Judge Brody in this case, has difficulty with speech. And unfortunately, this is the kind of victim that is often easy to take advantage of. It's why people in nursing homes or people in certain, like, hospital wards are easier to take advantage of because they cannot, they could like physically fight back or whatever, but they cannot adequately explain to other people what happened to them, which is, it is just one of those things.
That's unfortunate. So they got three settlements, she said. They got one from the driver's insurance company, one from the ambulance company, and one from rta, the, the public company that runs the bus, which is about $2 million.
And the issue is in this case that Tracy wanted to move out because while she may not be fully that was. It may not be incompetent.
She's confident enough to have her own wishes, but probably not confident enough to manage her own money. But this is often happening and even happens in California. People who are conserved or in a conservatorship, they.
And this is like all over the place because people in conservatorships can be victims as well.
They would like to manage their own lives and there are people around them who don't think they can. Now, whether or not they can or cannot then becomes the subject of like, of court. And the judge has to decide whether the person, despite whatever the limitations may be, mental, physical, debilitation, some kind of debilitation, are able to manage themselves. And it's, it's a thin line. I mean I, I literally just heard a podcast with somebody who could manage themselves, but the people around them wanted to take advantage of their money. And the lawyers they had, and even the one they hired for him were interested in the money and not interested in his well being. And it's just like one of those unfortunate sort of intersections where people can be taken advantage of by the people around them as well as the court.
There's.
The law reveals many deficits.
So one of the reasons that she did want this is because people like have been trying to take advantage of Tracy.
And now that she's 18, Tracy wants to take advantage of herself.
And what he learns in this interview is that in the language is crude. So I probably won't say because I found stricken from, from YouTube with the video of this is that Judge Brody came on to Tracy and sort of like, how do I say this? He took her to like a third location and said that if she perform favors for him, then he would grant her autonomy.
And whether Tracy. This is like this. Here we go. Whether Tracy can autonomously make those decisions is one question. And whether or not she should is another question. And the person who has to make the decisions about whether or not she has the autonomy is also the person like accused of abusing her is a whole cycle of craziness that Miles has just. Just walked into.
So he is like, you know, this is a lot.
And he says, like, one of the things he thinks is. But the visual Judge Brody following this girl. She's like, 18, 19, out in public like he owned her. Me, my blood boil.
And it sort of hit. Hearkens him back. He said every movie had ever seen where slave master took what he wanted from an unwilling woman came to mind.
And he said, but it's unfortunate, because hearsay rules would prevent Mrs. Pull Perkins from testifying about what had happened. And unless Tracy is able to articulate that herself, she would not be the best witness in court.
Relies on witnesses to prove or disprove things. I mean, there are documents and there's other evidence, like videos and stuff like that. But firsthand witness testimony is the primary vehicle for getting information, disseminating information in court.
So all of this, he was like.
It sort of turned him. At the beginning of the chapter, he sort of thinks, like, the. Like, they're tilting at windmills by, like, chasing Brody. And he understands that there are a lot of people in town who don't like this family. But after he's heard this story, he said he's ready to put this judge, this violator of the public trust, behind bars, no matter how many bricks it took.
So then, you know, so this is where his mind is. And then Claire calls, and he's like.
I mean, not. That's probably not. That's how I feel.
Maybe mild feels better, but it's a lot that she has called, and now it's another emergency. And it's not that he doesn't like her or enjoy dating her, enjoy company, but now she's coming with, like, a lot of.
To say it unkindly, I guess, baggage that he.
In a. Like, their dating relationship, he's not yet ready to handle. And so this time, it's that the police are there and that Darius is accused of domestic violence. And so he's like, okay, so he drives over because he's a good boyfriend, I guess. And he says the highlighted portions is another car pulled up in the driveway of Claire's townhouse the same time as mine. I nearly collided with the erratic driver. One look at her car, and I figured she didn't care much what happened to it. So this is the time that.
I mean, I was just saying, because I know it happens, is that Miles meets Casey. So they don't know. I mean, there are a lot of attorneys. There are both a lot of attorneys, and not that many in Cuyahoga County.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: But you don't always know them all. And because Casey doesn't work in federal court generally, except for maybe one book that comes up, who knows, later, then she would not necessarily meet an ausa.
So they. He's like, who is that? He's like, claire didn't have any friends. I'm sure I'd met them all.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: So she.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: He's thinking like, she's a domestic violence counselor, social worker, something, especially based on the fact that she has a very dilapidated car, her old Honda.
But.
So they are both in.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: So Claire.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: When they both get in the door, Claire says, thanks. Thank goodness you could both come. They meet each other, and he realizes that Casey's there to represent her in the custody case that Claire is. Has lodged against her baby daddy.
So.
So at this point, oh, God, this is one of these things that happens in real life. All the.
Miles wants to be a nice guy, but he is starting to realize that, given his morning and meeting this woman who was abused by this judge, that that case is going to be difficult to prosecute and therefore a lot of work to gather evidence.
And he's starting to realize that he cannot hold, like, these two things
[00:16:49] Speaker A: in
[00:16:49] Speaker B: his mind at the same time, like this Brody prosecution and Claire's, like, ongoing trauma with her baby daddy.
So he.
He says the chapter, I think we need a break.
And it's.
Then she's like, a break. And he's like, I think we want to break up. You know, and she's like, you think or, you know? He's like, I know, but it's. It's hard. And, you know, like, when I wrote this, like, I understand Miles's issues because, like, this is. This is like, hard stuff. Like, hard adult stuff that he is sort of not ready to deal with. And he's not in that phase of his life, even though he has enjoyed dating Claire. And Claire feels like the world is like this. The sands are shifting under her feet, because this is the time where she needs the most support. And, you know, her boyfriend is, like, peacing out.
So Claire starts crying, and then Casey urges him to go.
So at this point, we're on chapter 14, Casey, which is November 14, 2003. So two weeks later than the last chapter.
And in this chapter, so Casey. It's. Casey and Tom are out to dinner, and they're at some wine bar, and she talks about, like, so he invited to a wine bar, but she didn't grow up in a, like, a wine sort of family. Her parents are immigrants, and they. That is not their culture.
So they're out, and she lets him choose the wine. But she's also, like, in this sort of spiral where she doesn't truly believe that Tom is back for.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: For the right reasons, I'll say that. So.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: And she keeps bringing up his acts like the beautiful Lizzie con for Concrete Francesco, which I don't even have a vision of in my mind.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: It's just this.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Such a good vision of her. It's this idea that he dated this beautiful. He's, like, one of the most eligible people in the county. He comes from the Brody family. They have money, they have position.
And while she had hoped to sort of, like, take advantage of that when they were in law school and hope to marry him and then be a part of that, he dumped her unceremoniously. And now he's, like, back.
And she still wants what she wanted before, but I think the bloom is off the road a little. And she wants to know why, if he was dating this beautiful, available woman, why suddenly he has dumped her? Who could, like, you know, burnish his image, be the perfect, like, wife, you know, family woman, help him build his career, whatever. Why he dumped her, why they broke up. And he's back to Casey, who has all of the issues that she had before. She's still poor. She's still not connected.
And while she might make a lovely and dutiful wife, that he knows now that she could not necessarily perform all those functions in the way that he expects.
And so there she's on the spiral of negative self talk.
And they're in this bar, and they both know people because it's a.
It's a place where young lawyers frequent.
And so she is in the restaurant. I think Tom walked away, went to the bathroom, did something.
And at this point, Miles is in the bar, so he's like, mind if I join you? She's like, I guess not. And then he realizes. I think it was because the tables are full. He realizes that she's the woman that, in his eyes, almost hit him the other day. And they're both discussing. They were both driving like a bat out of hell and her scrap metal car.
And he.
When Tom gets back, he's. He's a little different.
So because Tom is one of those people who, in her mind, acts as if he could take her a lever at this point. And she doesn't really trust in his interest for all the reasons I mentioned before. So the first highlight is, surprise. Snapped my spine straight tomorrow.
[00:21:41] Speaker A: Tom was usually way more suave.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: He came from a political family that never alienated. Alienated anyone with the right to vote.
And the note that I wrote, which makes me laugh, is there are two kinds of people I've met who've never alienated anyone if they could. They're politicians and people in the entertainment industry, which is so true. These are two people who never want to say no to you because they don't know when you might be useful later.
So Miles and Tom are sitting at the thing. They're doing the thing that men do where they're like, where'd you go to school? Where'd you go to school? Where do you work? Whatever.
So the next highlight is when Tom says he's a county prosecutor.
Miles. And I'm just gonna be honest, like one ups him because there is a hierarchy in the law. And I'm not going to get into who's the top and who's the bottom, but let's just say in this case, he says, I'm a county prosecutor. And then Miles is like, well, I'm an assistant U.S. attorney. And the highlight is this is the highlighted portion. Tom's eyes narrowed in the high stakes game of legal Rock, paper, scissors. Siegel had just smashed Tom scissors with a rock.
Sorry. It's sorry.
And the note says. Which is actually awful because the note says, I shouldn't laugh, but I kind of have to. I can't count how many conversations I've had like this or observed where another attorney was trying to one up each other.
It's a whole thing. You need people. What firm do you work at? What firm do you work at? Where do you went to school? Like, you know all of that. And there's a strict hierarchy. I mean, there's a hierarchy among schools which is obviously like rejiggered a tiny bit every year with like the U.S. news ranking. There are law firms that have a rank and there's. There are like blogs and whatever that are dedicated to like the ranking of law firms based on money and prestige. So these are like searchable rankings. And then there's rankings in areas of the law. And while criminal law is not necessarily high ranking in and of itself, being a US Attorney is slots higher than working for the county.
So, you know, at this point, I think you.
Biles realizes, and it's not from his point of view, but you. That Tom Brody is related to the Brody that he's investigating, which takes him aback a little.
So at some point, Lulu, Casey's best friend, also joins the meal. I think it's a lawyer's Function. Actually, I'm. I'm not sure I'd have to go back and read that in more details.
So Lulu says you should investigate the birdies here. They're as corrupt as they come. And Miles choked a little less pizza.
And it says, hey, that's not fair, Lulu. Tom protested.
And Lulu says, I think family legal dynasties are anti Democratic. That's all.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: And
[00:24:43] Speaker B: the note I wrote with this is that there may be a little bit of me in that statement. Political dynasties aren't my thing.
They aren't. And I'll leave it there. So later Tom.
Okay, so since he can't like one up Miles in the where he went to law school and where he works department, although he does have a more successful political family, he tries to one up him in the woman department.
So then he's like, for the first time probably ever in the relationship, Tom is like, really affectionate in public with Casey. And the highlighted. The highlight is I didn't remember Tom being big on public displays of affection. It felt really good that he was willing to acknowledge our relationship in public.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: So I think Chase is a little
[00:25:27] Speaker B: blind to what's going on here because Tom is doing the like, macho sort of play. And she's like, oh, you know, here we go. And actually the note. This is. This is. This is funny. The note says, I love the. Casey's naive to Tom's territory marketing behavior.
I love that for her. We should all believe that, you know, whatever.
So then they sort of.
Lulu is being a little bit of a troublemaker here because she's like, you know, Miles is like, talking about how long they've been dating and all of that. And Tom had made it seem like they've been dating since law school, but obviously that's not true. So Lulu, like, is like a few weeks.
Like, he's like few years. And she's like a few weeks. And Lulu's just.
Is just in here. She's like, then he dumped her like toxic waste.
And Casey's like, ugh.
So they talked about the Strohmeier issue. That sort of like brought that to the floor. And actually it's in the outcry witness. Nope, wrong book. Sorry. That son of that book.
It is in the Casey court novella. That's like Nicole Long novella. Wrong book is up there.
So he starts singing the you'll be a high flyer song, which in my
[00:26:56] Speaker A: head is iconic because I made up
[00:26:58] Speaker B: the jingle, but it's not iconic anywhere else. Anyway, the next highlight is when Tom asked if I was ready to head home. I had my coat in person hand faster than teenager at the end of a church service.
Because she's really uncomfortable with the situation. She's not clear.
Well, she knows why Lulu's being an ass, because Lulu is really upset on her behalf that she's spending time with this guy who dumped her and is back in her life without any sort of plausible reason.
And Lulu doesn't believe in his, like, you know, refound love story.
And Miles is making her uncomfortable. And so she's like, let me just get out of here. So it says that I had my coat on, purse on, fast. And the teenager at the end of a church service.
So they are walking down and he starts talking a little bit about his uncle and what like, that his family. There may be issues with his family. And she's like, based on, like, sort of hints from Miles. And she's like, you know what? What happened between consenting adults was none of my business.
And then my note is, accept when it is, because you know what? Of course, given the way that my books go, it's going to become her business.
So I know I only did two chapters, but I'm gonna end here for today, and I'm excited. Like, I. It's so interesting to go back in these books because there's so much of the writing that I like, like, in my head.
Okay. I know what the flaws are with books because you go back and you can see the flaws. But there's some, like, great things that I like, and I'm so happy to be able to share with you, like, the parts that I like in the little, like, backstory and the sort of things that I think are, like, well written or sort of funny and sort of iconic. And how naive Casey is sometimes. Like, you just want her to be something. I want to beat her about the head and be like, come on now. You know better. But naivete is what it is. It only works because it works.
So let me say that well. Okay, so, Casey, this video is sponsored by Audible.
And this week I am reading and listening to yet another book. And this book is We Don't Talk about Carol by. Actually, I'm just going to look on my Kindle to see the other Kindle app to see who the author is. Hold up, it's spinning. Oh, we don't talk about Carol. It's just updated by Kristen Berry. Sorry, I've downloaded through the book since I guess I was in that one. Kristen Elberry. And it is.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: I guess I don't even know how to Describe it.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: It's as if a true crime.
It's like the combination of women's fiction and like a true crime podcast. So the main character is investigating Carol, who disappeared in the 60s.
Yeah, I think it's the 1960s.
And it was her. Was.
Is her aunt who disappeared. And these people have been missing for 60 years, I guess. No, they would be in the 80s, 40 years, maybe.
And in the book.
So it's a combination of that. And so she listens to a lot of trifu crime podcasts. The main character, and she sort of takes up the mantle. She used to be a journalist, left journalism to go in corporate, which a lot of people do, because journalism is a contracting industry.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: And.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: But like, she's very interested in this. And the really, the thesis of the book is that all of these black girls disappeared from Raleigh. I'm so bad at this. Wherever Shaw University is in the Carolinas. Let me just say that in the Carolinas. And she's like six or seven black girls disappeared who were like 18.
And there was no investigation of it. And the author spends some time discussing how if you were to, like, ask or make a list of, like, white women or girls who disappeared in the last, let's say, 20 years or were kidnapped or whatever, you could make a list very easily. But if you had to make a list of black women and girls who have been disappeared, you would not be able to make a list. And that 40% of, like, the disappearances, I think, are black women or something. It's really high. And given the percentage of black people in the population in America, which is somewhere between 14 and 12, depending on the day, I think it's now down to 12.
So there is that. So she marries this investigation into why these women disappeared. There's a lot of political talk about why she believes that there was no investigation as to why these women disappeared.
And then there's like, the women's fiction aspect with her husband and her fertility struggles and her feeling about her mother and her sister and her father and her families.
The narrator. And this is the problem with Kindle. Now I'd have to look at the other way.
The narrator is actually really great.
I have encountered some not so great narrators. So I have to open the audiobook because I was looking at the Kindle.
Oops, it's. Oh, God.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: It just.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Sorry. The whole thing up. It updates. Let me just hit. And it should have. Oh, God. National bestseller. Yada, yada, yada. Why would they tell me who the narrator is?
It's not Easy to find. I'm looking on the. Unfortunately on the iPad.
So the narrative is really good. I think she's a woman. She does women's voices well. She does men's voices well. You can distinguish between the voices very well.
So that part is interesting. I think the book may be a little preachy, but, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm okay with that. I know probably I looked at reviews, people are not okay with that. So even though I agree with the ability, the. Not the ability. I agree with the idea of clearly delivering political messages in the book.
Subtle. There's something to be said about subtlety.
So the narrator is great. I would really recommend that. The. When I'm reading the Kindle part, it's fine. But I think.
Actually, I think my biggest issue with the book is that it's a little, honestly overwritten. It reminds me of like, when people write early Romance, if one more person discusses how they feel about their curls dancing on their face, the curls laying on the pillow.
I don't think that it's. I don't like it when writers write about people and I know they're trying to describe the person. So like.
Like at some point there's this one woman who's like an older woman who's. I don't know, she's my aunt, sister, or whatever that she talks to during her like, citizen sort of investigation.
And she's like, her copper curls did this and her copper curls did that. But even the protagonist at the beginning talks about like, I did something and my curl swished about my face.
And I'm not a fan of that. I know she's trying to like, convey how people looked and like, this person's cinnamon colored and this person's whatever color. But I.
It's not my favorite. Not my favorite in writing at all. Although I will say I read a book recently where the character never talked about himself, which I think is probably realistic, but nobody else reflected what he looked like. And so I was like, well, this person's a void and this person is too much. But what are you going to do?
I will include the link in the show notes. You could get the book on Audible, and if you're not a subscriber, it would be free to you.
And. And I'll also leave the Kindle link in the description should you want to try the book. It's one of the better ones I've read lately. I'm constantly looking for different ways that people interpret crime rather than just the procedural or just a psychological thriller. And this is an interesting way to go about it.
So that's all. I will see you in the next episode of Politics of Justice. Have a great day.
