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.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: You know how much I love a good story.
[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 perform that makes it come alive in a different way.
I just finished okay, Julie Chan Is Dead by Leanne Zhang, an Alice Feeney book, Beautiful, Ugly, and the latest Linley book by Elizabeth George.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: So I'm going to 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.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Honestly, I do it every time.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: I just, I want to keep the book going while I'm driving.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: And so I just switch to the
[00:01:14] Speaker A: audiobook and then when I get home, I switch back to the Kindle because honestly, I can read faster than I can listen.
Anyway. The best part is that with Audible you get a 30 day free trial. You can start listening today. You get one audiobook you can keep forever even if you cancel. So if you've been wanting to read more stories that Pull youl In and Won't Let Go, including my own Casey Court series, which are all available on audible, go to audible.com the link is in the show Notes or in the alternative ebooks buzz Audible.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Hi and welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, your host, Amy Austin. As promised, I am back. I am going to record all the rest of Ransom over the next couple of days. This is my goal. It is mainly because it's about probably, I don't know, 40 degrees Celsius, a thousand degrees outside here in Budapest, we're in the second heat wave. I fortunately missed the first one as I was out of town, but it's about a million degrees. They're going to turn off the power, well, the nuclear power plant, which is half the power in Hungary because there's not enough water because the Danube is dry. I went there this morning. There's literally no water. It's the bizarre thing I've ever seen because I've seen it flooded so many times. I've never thought about drought because this Is not like a droughty place.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: La.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Dry riverbed. Yes. Here, not so much.
Okay, let's see. Here I am recording with a little microphone because I just don't feel like getting the other microphone out. I have a tiny desk here. It takes up a lot of space, yada, yada.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: So when I left off, we were at chapter 26.
So when. When we left off, Claire was in the unfortunate position of having the judge solicit her, I guess. And she is in a quandary, because if she doesn't do what the judge wants, she may lose custody of her son. And that's, for her, the absolute worst thing in the world.
So at the beginning of 26, it's January 30, 2004. She has bathed and gotten herself together and dropped her son off with his father. And trying to figure out how she's going to avoid the thing that she doesn't want to do, but feels like she has no choice.
So she's looking for, literally, like, trying to figure out. She pulls in a map of Cleveland because it's pre cell phone days, and is figuring out how she's going to get to the judges.
Sexton. I don't even know a word for this.
Anyway, the doorbell rings, and it's Miles.
He says, this is awful.
He said, I was driving through the neighborhood. I thought I'd stop by to see how you were. I could feel my shoulders come down along with my hopes.
I'm fine. Miles still counseling women in prison, still in court over custody.
So she's really saying that she's surprised that Darius is putting up a fight, but obviously things are going in his favor, so why wouldn't he?
So he says, he comes out of the gate with, not much is going on with Casey. And she. Claire's not kind, she said, but Casey's keeping it on the court's front burner. You remember Casey, right? Frumpy girl. My attorney, Miles, struggled with keeping his cool. Guilty. I knew it.
How he could prefer her over me, I don't know. And Miles is, like, trying to make excuses. She says, spare me. I know you're seeing her.
Are you here to assuage your guilt?
And she's like, look, Luke's not here at this point. She's a little bit over it. Like she's got bigger problems than hoping that Miles becomes her son's stepdad.
So she puts him out, and she gets on the road and hits, like, every red light on the way there, which is probably a sign, but what are you gonna do.
So when she gets to the judge's den lair, he says, I knew you'd come eventually.
And she says the broken down apartment isn't what I expected. Plaid couch in a studio apartment listed to one side, a double bed with a sheet barely covering the mattress, and there's a tiny fridge and no heat.
So he's like, take off your coat and get comfortable.
But she could see his breath in there and she's like, it's cold. Turn on the heat. I guess he was so hot or hot for her that he didn't realize it was cold.
So she says, I think we need to talk, your honor. And he's like, call me in and take off your coat.
So she pulls off a Parker. But she smart girl, smart woman. She's got on like the big the thing you try to do when you don't want to be noticed, although honestly it doesn't really work. So she's got on the huge sweatshirt, like, like baggy jeans, like baggy, you know, and like big sneakers and just trying to look as unappealing as possible.
And he says, you want to keep your son within you, then you'll do what I want.
And she is, she thinks to herself, she should have bought a recorder, which is true. I don't know why she didn't think of it, but she's really trying to like string him along and like, you know, not do what he wants. And he laughs softly, softly, menacingly, think you're the smart one? I went to Northwestern Law, I said, and he lets her off the hook this time, probably because it wasn't as exciting as he wanted, or he has bigger plans.
So he goes into a small trunk, pulls out something small and red, and shoves scratchy fabric into my hands. You're aware that next time you come, why should I come back? He says. I haven't shown you what I can do.
So the next chapter is A Miles chapter. It's chapter 27. It is January 30, 2004.
He says, I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Claire had stared at her map with a certain fatalism.
So while my ex girlfriend sat in her car waiting for it to warm up, I punched Casey's number to the phone.
Who's the judge on Claire's case? I asked before I thought to say hello.
She paused a beat before coming back. You're crossing the line. Juvenile court proceedings were confidential, and this is true. Actually, I don't even know what they do in the computer era, because when I was practicing There were barely computers keeping things together.
So juvenile court cases in Ohio were confidential to protect, to protect minor children.
And you as an attorney, actually, everything's confidential, but in a bigger way. You can't really talk about this at all. I mean, if you, you know, in criminal court or divorce court or anything, those like have sunshine laws. They're completely open to the public. The records are open to the public for the most part. And so there's really no hiding there. And so people did talk openly about cases they were working on, who they represented, et cetera, et cetera.
But in this context, you really didn't talk about it much unless you were like in the hallway, in which case, how much secrets can you, how many secrets can you have?
But she tells him, she says her side was long and drawn out, but in the end she trusted me. That was something. Judge Eamon, Judge Brody is her judge.
He doesn't sigma, he hangs up and then he starts following her and like, so while he's driving and he talks about like he, he was in the force, but he wasn't doing like this kind of detective work. So following Claire was not difficult, but it did require some attention.
So he said, I don't know which upset me more, the idea that her so called boyfriend was stepping out on her or the fact that good old Tom was cut from the same cloth as his uncle, flouting the law, was sworn to uphold it.
The judge, the Brodies, gave all new meaning to the oath of office.
I don't know. Corruption always stinks.
It's always awful. When people are able to, they, okay, we live in a society in the US where we talk about the law being above everything and everybody having to follow the law.
But if you live there for more than 14 seconds, you know that there's law for some people and not law for others.
And this is true actually at all levels of court. It's a reason why a restraining order doesn't protect you.
So it's one of those things that I think is always at the tension.
Well, the U.S. legal system and the core of my books is that there's law for some people and not law for others.
So he sees Claire coming out of the judge's apartment with something in her hands.
And at that point he decides that he needs to act. He calls Casey, says I'm coming over.
And Casey's like this, you know, I, I can imagine she's like trying to like keep this very, very small.
And he says, she says, miles, I don't know if this is A good idea. He says, not about us. It's about Claire.
So he gets to her place, and I love this. He's. Even the sound of the buzzer letting me in was reluctant, but I pushed my way through the front door, made it to the fourth floor, and banged on the doors.
Now he knows better. He knows better. So her neighbors, one of Greg comes out, and it's like, everything okay?
And Miles takes a step back as a black man, because he's like, if the. If Greg calls the Cleveland police, they're not going to be as lenient on him as they would be on Judge Brody, which is so true.
So Casey's declares everything is fine. And he comes in, and at this point, Miles tells her that Claire is Judge Brody's next target.
And she's like, what am I gonna do?
And he's. He's. He's. He's gonna call on the card. He says, bring her in. I think she could be the linchpin. Because at this point, he can protect Claire from whatever inevitably Judge Eamon's gonna do to her, protect Claire's son. And he feels some guilt over, like, having ditched her. And then he can also prosecute his case and come with a witness who would be a better, far better witness, more educated, more savvy, more aware than any of the other victims that they already have. So we're chapter 28, January 31, 2004. 2004.
So at this point, Claire and Casey are at the FBI at the FBI office.
And it says, I show. We showed our. I think Claire and I showed our identification about 20 times before we got into the little FBI waiting room.
I was in the FBI office once or twice in the time when I was practicing. I guess maybe you did have to show ID a lot. I guess I would have had my driver's license. I probably had a bar card, so I probably got in a little bit faster.
But I remember being in the office, but I remember having how I got in, but clearly just didn't let me walk in the door.
Who knows? Long time ago, I only had, like, a couple federal cases.
Long story, that one. Okay. And I've never written about it.
So Claire and Casey meet Lou Valtospino. And.
Excuse me, Miles is there. So they assemble in the windowless conference room, and they say to Claire, we want you to wear a wire. Claire looked at me, her eyes widening. It was easy to see that this whole thing had morphed out of control. I didn't know what to say to her. I'd Made her a sacrificial lamb of sorts, hoping that if I turned over Claire, I could keep my role of attorney and they'd forget my role as witness.
So, sadly, because Casey is wrapped up with Tom, she really wants to minimize her role in this. And this is presumably the primary reason, like, Tom is involved in her life, in order to minimize his accountability by using her as, I guess, both a beard and a shield.
It's pretty awful.
So the worst thing that's happened is when I practice. Oh, God, this is so long ago. Like court actions and decisions, the notification would come literally on a postcard, probably because it was cheap to send, and they were printed out like dot matrix and perforated and somebody put them in the mail.
So she takes out a postcard. They're green and white. Does. I remember. I haven't thought about it a long time. They're green and white. And it's a motion to show cause. While respondent Darius Gaines, Seniors should not be allocated parental rights.
And Miles read who filed this. I called Dinwiddie wasn't him. Acted like Christmas had come again, though. So Esponte mild asked about the judge making the decision on his own, I'm guessing.
And so Claire looks at them.
So, long story short, the Claire on the. The judge on his own motion decided to terminate. Well, not terminate award custody to Darius so judges can make their own motions in court and make their own decisions. So espante. How often does it happen?
Not that often, to be frank. Not that often. Suisse Bontes are usually dismissals for time or for want of prosecution or something, but they have. Judges have enormous power and they use it as they. As they do.
So in this case, he's using it to tighten the screws further because she didn't put out that first time.
You know, the first time he was, like, entertained Darius in court. And now that she didn't put out, he's like, initiating something to award custody. And yes, there are appeals and there's ways to get around it, but by the time I have done juvenile court appeals in Ohio, and by the time this woman, like, reasonably appealed the case, Darius could have custody for, I don't know, two years.
It's not a fast process at all.
I don't like to get a transcript. You have to get, like, lodge and appeal. You have to, like, you know, file briefs. People have. Oh, my God, so many extensions are allowed. You have to get an argument day. You have to wait between the day of argument and the day of decision.
It's. It's a long process. And it's actually, it was very hard when I had clients in juvenile court, because even if the court reversed a bad trial court ruling, which I was able to do, you're still stuck with the fact that you haven't had your children during this bad ruling for a long period of time. Six months to two years, maybe even longer, depending on people when they finally got their crap together to appeal.
So they talk about.
So Casey and Miles are going on and on about the appeals process, and Claire's starts crying. She's like, this is my life.
So she's at this point, she's willing to wear the wire. Because while they're having the back and forth, you know, Claire did go to law school. So she understands what's being said, even though it's like, a visceral, like, feeling for her.
And she knows that, like, wearing a wire may be a shortcut to circumvent this whole process of injustice.
So she agrees to wear the wire.
And, you know, and Miles tries to, like, make it better. And it's like, you know, we've never been able to catch him in the act. You can help us. I don't want this to happen to anyone else. Which is fine in a big global justice way, but not so fine for the person who has to wear the wire.
Chapter 29. Miles February 13, 2004.
So superstition had no hold on me, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong.
Claire had found childcare, taken the day off work, and made the call to Brody from her house.
So they bring this equipment over to record the call because they don't know if he has caller id. So she can't call from, like, the FBI office or something like they do on tv. This is before we had sophisticated technology where people had cell phones so they could call from anywhere. People did call from their house. People did. We didn't call her id.
So.
So Judge Brody sort of weasels out, and he never says anything on the phone about it being a tit for tat.
So she does come over, she puts on the lingerie. I mean, I'm sorry, she doesn't put on laundry yet. But she does come over bringing the lingerie, and she again, really, like, bides her time.
So he's like, are you wearing it?
She says, I couldn't do it at home. Can I change here?
Go on ahead. He says, can I use your bathroom?
So in the bathroom, she's speaking in the wire, she's putting on the Damn. Nightie. This better work.
And so the judge again, is disappointed. He's like, where'd you get the bathrobe?
She's like, on the. On the hook on the back of the door. So the bed springs squeak because they're listening, you know, in the van or whatever. Come here. The judge growled, not so fast. My lawyer got it. Noticed that you're thinking of giving Darius custody, and I need some guarantees. So then the judge, and this is pretty awful, hands over because she is more sophisticated than other people, but he's gonna get what he wants, so. And the child, to him, you know, Darius Gates Jr.
Is expendable. So he hands over a judgment entry, giving sole custody of parental rights to Claire. And he says, that's what you. You. That's what you wanted. You got it. Now come here and give me what I want.
Take off your clothes, Claire said.
And Miles says, damn, the girl was cruel. It was below freezing outside.
So with a single go from Valdispino, the agents pour in and they arrest him.
And at this point, how can I say this? Claire acknowledges.
She says, and this is sort of sad because, like, again, she's having this, like, moment where her life is not what she wants to be, what she wanted it to be. She says, we could have been good together, motioning between us with her index finger. Maybe I gave her. But you need a committed father for little Lou. I hope I pick better the next. The second time around. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be standing here with tacky lingerie and an evidence bat. She said, thrusting the plastic into the hands of the female agent, blowing her hands and getting into her car.
I even. I even I feel for Claire. It's just a crappy, crappy situation to be in.
Chapter 30. Casey, February 14, 2004.
Valentine's Day.
Get out of here, I said to Greg, Jason and Lulu. My bedroom was the smallest room in the apartment, and it was getting hot with the steam heat rising from the beveled radiators. And four bodies, they're all there, helping me get ready for the soiree.
So this is the one where she knows from at least that phone message that Tom is going to propose. There's a highlight here that says, you know, she's thinking about, like, all the stuff that's going on is swirling. Like, what she heard about Tom, what his uncle's done, declare Miles over here, like, swinging around, too.
And she's really thinking about the Brodies and Cleveland power structure. And she's like, but I Wanted. Love, marriage, children, a secure job, recognition, Cleveland's top legal and social circles like her wants. I don't say they're small, but they're her wants. And we're like two bucks in. And you know, again, she's close to getting what she might want. Oh, it says the post it note. It doesn't change. It says this had always been all that Casey desires. Love and legitimacy.
I want that for her. I really do.
Fifteen books in and yeah, well, yeah.
So not everybody gets what they want.
Not everybody gets what they want.
Oh, well.
So at this point, she's in the room with Lulu trying to like ease into Spanx.
And I remember the Spanx era. I don't know if people are still wearing Spanx. We go through Bob's potty TV now there's no Sempex. Maybe nobody needs Spanx anymore. What do I know? But I have worn them post baby because your body is never the same. Wish somebody had told me that. And they.
I don't even know how you can't go to the bathroom because they're like, oh my God, it's hard to go to the bathroom and you can't breathe. And yet I've done it. And so I get it.
So she says, Lulu says, but it's worth it. And she helped me get my legs situated and straps on my body from shoulders to knees was gripped in Spanx. It was supposed to make me look sensational in any dress. So then she puts on a chocolate brown faux wrap dress. For some reason, I think Casey looks good in brown. I always don't really like in creams and browns and sometimes navy, which I think looks good on no one.
So.
So she's sitting on her trunk and putting on. She's borrowing some shoes from Lulu because Lulu always has the great stuff.
And she's like, but it's a special occasion. I don't need 4 inches heels. The gift for my mom's to be gentle because Lulu's mom's always trying to get her to level up her game in what she thinks is important.
So then they gave her like a bag that weighed more than the sandals themselves. She said the shoes were a few straps and gold beads on the heels, nothing more.
So Casey's like, how am I supposed to freeze to death? And the thing is, you just do. So she said the form fitting underwear made me look like a size 8 and elegant. I might not be as beautiful as Lizzie, but I didn't think anyone would blink and bat their eyes at Tom and me for Once I thought we'd fit together.
She wants so bad for she wants us so badly. I want it so badly for her, Alas.
So when they get to the Cleveland, Lulu's driving her to the Lakewood Country Club.
And she's like, are you really going to marry Tom?
And Casey's like, I don't have to decide now.
And they're like, Lulu's like, what? She's like, I'll see how it plays out.
And Lulu's like, is it Miles and Casey's? No. I answered too quickly, even for my own ears. It was only a kiss. Looked like more to me. He broke up with his girlfriend, who happens to be a client of mine. That water's too complicated to wade in.
So the thing is, and I'm looking at the highlight here, is that Lulu does ask her if the reason that she's not willing to date him is because he's black.
And Casey says, I like the Miles just the way he is. And I did too much for my own good, but he wanted me to do things that would make my life a thousand times harder than it already was. You might still believe in the justice system, fairness and all that. I was a seven year veteran of unfairness, revenge and injustice.
And the note is relationships are hard when each person has a different view on fairness and justice. That is so true.
So I feel, I think, and actually I don't remember what happens in this book, but in my head I think that Casey probably believes that Miles is interested in her partly because it can help him prosecute this case and move his career forward.
And he's conflating that with attraction.
And as always, Casey, in order to like, move justice forward, could possibly lose the thing that she wants. It's life's hard.
So they get to this soiree. She's like, Tom is there to escort her. Everything is beautiful, elegant.
Tom is very standoffish with her, but it's like a huge public party so she can't expect more from him. So she's like, after dinner, she danced with his father, Patrick, his uncle Liam. She says, for the first time in my life, I understood the fairy tale princess fantasy.
So she gets sidetracked. And the Brody family people are like whispering desperately.
And she says, she says, I walked toward them as fast as I could on teetering heels. What's going on? I asked. And the huddle broke up. Liam and Patrick looked from me to Tom.
She's going to be family. She should know. Liam said, eamon's been arrested by the FBI. For what? I asked way too loudly, feigning surprise. Sorry, I whispered in a lowered voice. What's going on? I asked innocently.
And they're saying deprivation of some civil rights under color of law, which is actually what the original title of the book was.
And so they go on about what's happening, and at this point, the lights dim.
Oh, the song that comes on is Brian Adams Heaven. I love that song.
Then Tom was on stage with his own microphone.
And he does this thing.
He'd been with me through good times and bad. He knelt. A second spotlight lit his hand, and it sat a small velvet box. I nearly covered my gas with my hands, but must have missed because I heard the sound as if from very far away. The box opened, and a single solitaire sparkled as if it were on fire. You do me the honor of becoming my wife.
I took one deep breath, then two, then said the one word that would change the rest of my life.
And of course, that's the end of the chapter.
And it says, I love this line. It's the best kind of chapter ending. I do love, like a mini cliffhanger, because you gotta. You gotta turn the page.
So the next chapter, of course, is not the answer. The next chapter is 31, and it's Miles. It's February 17, 2004.
So Miles is at his office with the deputy criminal Chief, Charles Fitzgerald, who calls himself Chaz.
And he said, did you go in with guns blazing?
Did you have to go into guns blazing? Because obviously, with there being a Brody, there was backlash. The Brodies may not be able to control everything and control, like, federal officers, but I'm sure that there were phone calls.
And Miles says, judge was going to destroy evidence. I explained.
And he said, was there probable cause? He's like, no, but the woman. Was that your probable cause, the destruction of evidence? Because you do. You can't just, like, enter people's house. We do have, like, a Fourth Amendment, which does provision search and seizure.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: And,
[00:28:16] Speaker B: you know, sometimes you have a consultation and you. So you just. You really just can't go in with Glenn's blazing for no reason. You do need probable cause. So the destruction of evidence can be probable cause. It usually is what it is in drug cases like the flushing toilets. And you got to go in because otherwise, how are you going to get the drugs? But in this case, he says, was that your probable cause? He says, no, the woman wearing the wire was.
And he goes on to say, you know, this is not the way we do things, especially after Waco and this Is true. After Waco, there was some hesitancy to go in with guns blazing, lest the people inside kill each other, kill themselves, those kinds of things. So they're going before the grand jury with the evidence and Miles and Rachel Schaeffer on this case. And back to the brick by brick theory. The first brick was Claire.
So she does. She testifies in front of the grand jury. And then it's like Kiana and Shanice, the two. Like one of the women who works with her and this other woman witnesses.
And so it's just. It's just awful because he says the Williams was probably 20 something. She didn't look a day over 15 sometimes. I hated the kinds of people I had to prosecute. They preyed on the weakest among us, whether it was hooking troubled kids on drugs, turning girls out, or sex crimes.
He said he offended my frustration within the confines of the criminal justice system because I wasn't a cretin like them. But in another country or another time, I'd love to have seen them drawn and quartered. Or as everybody in my family says, there are certain people that you take behind the barn and nobody discusses.
So it discusses all the crimes, like how he threatened people with custody of their kid or dealing with them in probate, how they're gonna. How their money was gonna be controlled. And they couldn't say no to the judge. I mean, it just goes on to all the. Through all the bad things he did. But basically, he wanted sex from these vulnerable women, and he was willing to do whatever to get it.
So, you know, they said, do you think they'll indict when they're waiting in the conference room after the grand jury grand jury testimony?
And it says, of course, everybody knows a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. I gotta stop using that line. I don't even know where I heard. I heard it in Cleveland when I was.
When I first got there, because I.
When you're in law school, or at least when I my naive self thought that, like, a grand jury process was this. You had to come convince these people. And I know it's only the prosecutor. We have to convince these people that it's more likely than not that this person committed this crime. And you have all these, like, witnesses testify, and the grand jury really spends all their time, like, really, really deliberating. And that's how they make it sound, especially when there's grand jury investigations.
But truth be told, they have a high indictment rate. Grand juries are secret, so you don't know, but I never had a client who wasn't under suspicion, who wasn't indicted. In many cases, I didn't think the evidence was against them was great. But I'm not going to get into the main thoughts about the criminal justice system right now. But an indictment is not the most difficult thing to get.
So, you know. So the Brody family seems to have tentacles everywhere because they are worried about, you know, it's when you're growing up, people who flout the law and engage in corruption, there's no telling what might happen to you.
And so he said, that's state power. They don't have any sway over the federal government, he said. I'd almost have believed it if Brody hadn't gotten out of jail in 10 seconds flat. On a weekend, no less.
And maybe I shouldn't have been nervous, I said, trying to be as confident as she was. Nervous is good. Keeps you sharp. She looked toward a quirk and nodded. They're ready for us. A few minutes later, I had an indictment.
This has been the Politics of Justice with me, your host, Amy Austin.
If you like what you hear, I to like, subscribe and keep listening. If you would like audio, the version's always up on the podcast feed and there are supplemental materials. I'll say that I sound like a teacher. Available on Substack. It was great talking to you. I will be back soon. This book is going to be done this week and I can't wait to get to the next book because, yeah, because it only gets worse.
But I. I like the. I like the way the stories go in Casey's life. I feel for her. I feel for her. She wants what she wants. Does she get what you want?
But alas,
