Social Justice - A Conversation

Speaker 1 0:00
You're listening to local programming produced in K, u and v studios. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 2 0:18
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Speaker 3 0:24
Hi, I'm Gabriela Tam, I'm a fourth year accounting student. And

Speaker 2 0:28
welcome to social justice, social justice, our conversation a

Unknown Speaker 0:33
conversation.

Speaker 2 0:36
Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome to I think hopefully unique and special broadcast, social justice, a conversation. Yay. I'm here with my partner, Gabriella Tam. Hello. And we're going to talk a little bit today about the whole Harvey Weinstein situation, because I think I think it really deserves some some scrutiny. As you know, a number of years ago, he was convicted of sexual misdeeds of many varieties. And he was he was sentenced to prison. And one of the one of the things that was the impetus for his for the investigation that was done and him being brought to justice at that time, was the she said movie. And the she said, you know, a series of articles, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Megan, Megan Toohey and Jody Kanter, from the New York Times, seem to be a landmark event. Yeah, in the in the fight against sexual mistreatment of women. And then, of course, the excellent film that Maria Schrader made with, of course, Carey Mulligan, and they had a whole bunch of people in it, Andre Brower, who recently passed away unfortunately, about about, you know, what that whole dynamic was in as far as the New York Times newspaper, trying to get evidence from literally scores and scores of women who are who are harmed. After that, after that, movie was released, and of course, you know, the, the articles are written, you know, he was put on trial and was in prison, actually for for a number of years. Then what happened was, he was also charged out in the state of California, for a number of for a number of similar crimes. And he was sentenced to 16 years in prison there. Anyway, he appealed the decision. That's crazy. And, and somehow, I laugh, you know, I laugh, but it's still it's the laugh of, it's a hollow laugh. It's the laugh of someone who, who knows how the system of justice really works in this country, not what you read in a book. But actually, the practical, the practical ways that people who are malevolent can avoid punishment, because that they they have a sympathetic ear among the judiciary. Anyway, by a four three vote, the verdict was reversed, a new trial was ordered. And there were a couple of things that really stood out to me. One of the interesting things that stood out to me in this case was the deciders with three women, three women voted to revoke this guy's conviction, which, which I really, I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Considering all the harm that this man did, and their their reasoning, their reasoning, visa vie the fact that when when the trial was put together, there were literally scores of people who, who will, who would have been able to testify Yeah, as to what this man did. The judge who was hearing the case, only took four of those people to testify as to basically the basically the modus operandi of how this man worked, and how he was able to position himself in such a way that he could harm these women. Okay, So in this decision that the judges concocted who was found tively found to be overly prejudicial to the defendant, that they that these women were even allowed to testify in that case. And because of that prejudicial effect, they said, the case had to be thrown out, because he didn't get a fair trial.

Speaker 3 5:30
This is, this is so funny to me, because it's like, Oh, he did so much bad stuff. But we can't like, we can't judge him like this on that. Like, what?

Speaker 2 5:40
Well, what's interesting, what's interesting about it to me is that it's very reminiscent of the Bill Cosby case. Oh, because in the Bill Cosby case, with all these different witnesses, I believe, I believe in that case, the judge took five people, five women who testified in that case, and, and they testified, they testified as to, to that part of the experience that they had, that was similar to what the woman who was Prosit, who was the victim in this case was basically the whole system of, you know, inviting the person into the house, or visiting with the person sharing a drink with them, which was laced with some form of sedative. And then after that was done, then sexually abusing woman, of course. And that case was thrown out also on the grounds. It was too prejudicial. What was interesting about that case, though, which made it I don't know if you can say worse than this case, I mean, they're both terrific. Yeah, was the fact that he could not be he could not be retried after he was convicted. And the reason he could not be retried after he was convicted was supposedly, because the prosecutor, the district attorney, at that time, had supposedly made him a promise that he wouldn't try him again, or, or open up the case again. But there was no proof and writing or any document that that actually showed that. Yeah, nor was anybody who was in the succeeding, who succeeded him as district attorney, nobody knew anything about it. But that put the High Court in Pennsylvania, just like the high court, in this case. They they voided out his conviction, basically, and what they're going to try to do what they're going to try to do, I don't think that they're going to be successful in California, because California has a more liberal law, concerning what people can testify to, to bolster the case of a person who's been abused. But I just I really, it's hard to get my head around what actually how this kind of comes down? I think a lot of it. Yeah, I think a lot of it's political. I think a lot of it's fluid. I don't think these cases are decided, wholly, on the facts, the merits or any of that stuff.

Speaker 3 8:43
There's something way deeper that we don't know, people of

Speaker 2 8:46
influence people of influence, to not get the same justice as a regular person.

Speaker 3 8:54
Yeah, that's true. Actually, I was gonna say maybe like, because the three women who voted like that his case be overturned, like it didn't happen to them. So it's hard for them to empathize with the victims. And of course, like, I don't wish that would happen to them. But like, I just, I hope that they find in their heart to like, be like, Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that. Like, oh, that's, that could set up some really bad stuff to happen in the future for other women. Well, that's,

Speaker 2 9:35
that's, I think the ramification of it. Yeah. And I thought, I thought in, you know, reading, reading the decision myself, I thought, a few things, number one, number one, it's going to make it a lot harder for individual women to get conviction against people who, who harm them. Yeah. Because there's going to be a lack of supporting evidence.

Speaker 3 10:10
Not only that, like we've seen in you I've seen in all the movies that you've like, chosen for the classes I've taken with you like these women are like, they're, like torn apart inside the court. Like they're everything about their stories question everything about who they are, is question like, oh, what were you wearing? Oh, you were wearing that? That's, that's why you got like, sexually assaulted?

Speaker 2 10:32
Yeah. So. So that's one part of it. Yeah. Then the second part of it is, even in a state like California, which has a more liberal view of witnesses, a lot of women who might be able to backup the person who's actually whose actual crime is being prosecuted. They're gonna say to themselves, well, this is all going to be made public. So why am I putting myself out there? Yeah, if down the road, they can, they can just overturn it, just throw it out. And now and now, I've gone through I've gone through the mill, as a witness in a trial, and there is no point to it, because, you know, it's like a wasted, it's a wasted opportunity to get justice.

Speaker 3 11:29
It's just another another reason for people to lose hope in our justice system.

Speaker 2 11:34
Yeah. Well, absolutely. And then, of course, the third thing is the third thing is, it's basically is basically, in a sense, an encouragement for people to do these things. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you see if you see, like this man who's done so many egregious things, you know, when you when you see the movie, and the movie, the movie is very, very hard to watch. I'm not a woman, but even even as a man as a human being,

Speaker 3 12:10
it's unsettling. It's unsettling, especially because it's like, it's real. Like, what is it called? Like voice recording? Yeah, yeah. They have like actual evidence in the movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 12:21
And of course, the other thing, of course, too, is that it's a disincentive for any woman to even bring the charges in the first place. Yeah. But but as I did was Jody Kanter wrote an article about it this week. And she said that the damage that this guy did to these people was was, obviously the criminal damage. But he ruined or stopped or Yeah, their whole career careers. And after they went to work in that place, that he couldn't get another job in the industry. And I don't know how I don't know how those very important human things escape escape the judiciary that decides these cases? You know, I'll give you an analogy, which I think is which I think is interesting. Although it's a completely different. It's a different kinds of case. When I was listening to the arguments, in the case of whether the the ex president had immunity, it struck me that it had it was not it was not connected to any reality. In other words, they were asking these lawyers questions, to all kinds of hypothetical situations about, you know, the president honoring a hunter and all this other crazy stuff. But the actual the actual question to be decided, was what happens on January 6? In other words, does the person who is the president of the United States have an immunity from prosecution in a case where he where he encourages? Foster's speaks up about what have you? The nullification of the vote? By the Congress? Yeah. Including threatening, the man was his vice president, and not seemingly interested, that a mob might kill that man, simply because he wouldn't go along with my wishes. And these are the very basic things. One of the things that struck me also, which I thought was, was was very damning toward the court. I mean, they There's been a whole bunch of people since that argument, Lawrence tribe who is probably the most learned constitutional expert in our country. I mean, there's a few people, but he's certainly one of them. He basically said the argument was a joke. Yeah. Now, if you have a system of justice, and you have the highest court in the land, and you have a man who was a scholar and has a great experience in constitutional law, and he's basically saying that the High Court conducted an argument, which is a joke, that's really bad. That's like saying that the system of justice doesn't exist. And then the other thing that was crazy about it was when when the lawyer I guess, his name was Dr. And he was representing the government. Yeah. And he starts talking about what actually happened that day. And we all know what happened that day, because we saw it. The leader Justice League goes, I don't want to discuss the facts of the case. Well, the facts of the case are what judges do. Yes, yes. What you discuss. That's what, that's what you in other words, you're trying to define. You're trying to take a set of facts. Yeah. And you're at what you're trying to you're trying to do is to say, on these set of facts on these set of facts? Is the behavior of the President of the United States protected? And it was does he have the immunity to do these things? And I would say, to most people who are who are, you know, sane and fair minded is? Of course, he doesn't? Yes, he's trying to overthrow the government. Like,

Speaker 3 16:39
okay, I wish we could, like, talk to him. But like, if it was any other president, right, if it was, let's just say if it was the current president who did the same things. Oh, they were they were trying to get him out, like super quick. They'd be like, Nah, we're gonna get rid of him. We're gonna implement a new president. Like, it's only because it is who the ex president is, is why they're taking so freaking long debating on this dumb question. Yeah.

Speaker 2 17:05
Well, the other thing, the other thing, too, which was interesting, like is in a in a rational political system? That's non biased. Yeah. Wouldn't it be to the benefit of the favor of the electorate, basically, the people of the country to have these issues decided before they vote, wouldn't you think that you would want to know, if the person that is running for the presidency, again, was not a person who was involved in trying to overthrow the government? Literally, you would think but but, but it was the same thing was the same thing with the issue regarding, you know, you know, taking them off the ballot and those different sites, they decided that case in like three or four days, this this thing? They took, like 567 weeks, just to hear the argument, that argument could have been heard. I mean, if I was a judge, it would only take me a couple of days to decide it. Yeah. The precedents, the precedents, of, of of the court, what were the two major precedents, the precedent with the United States versus Nixon, where he had to he had to send a turn over to the, to the authorities, all the tapes and all the documents related to the tapes, and United States versus Clinton, where he had to appear before the grand jury in Washington, DC and give testimony. I mean, but this is 10 times worse than what Nixon and Clinton does. Yeah. This is actually trying to overthrow the government. So no, it's okay. He tried to overthrow it, but that's okay. The other thing that's crazy about it too, though, you know, and they've always talking, you know, all these people that are on the court, are always talking about we got to, we got to look at the intent of the framers, we got to look at what the intent of the Constitution. Well, the intent of the framers and the intent of the Constitution was very, very clear. The purpose of America, the purpose of democracy, the purpose of a constitution was to have removed the yoke remove the King George, as the King of England,

Speaker 3 19:26
is what I say like, we are literally where America is now is because we were trying to get away from the monarchy. Exactly,

Unknown Speaker 19:34
exactly. And I'm

Speaker 3 19:37
like it. My God, but like, Trump, the ex President literally wants to become a dictator he wants America do become all these countries that we say we hate. You know, we He wants us to become like China like North Korea, like Russia. He wants us to become like all of these people.

Speaker 2 19:57
But what's crazy about it too Though as he tells you, he literally tells you Yes, it was it was it was like it was like that day. It was like that day, if you analyze what he said, In the speech that he gave us by the White House before these people went to the Capitol, what did he say that he said, he say, I want you to have a peaceful protest. He didn't say that. He says that he said that, if you want to have a democracy, you have to fight for the democracy. So he was encouraging them. He was encouraging them to then then on top of that, then on top of that, according to Cassidy, Hutchinson, when she testified before the committee a lot of these people had weapons that we are aware of that were that were there. And he told he told, I guess, security, whoever was to turn off the magnetometers that could detect the weapon. And he was asked, you know, it was asked why, why he would why you needed to turn it off. Now. Because obviously, obviously, there's one obvious reason that, you know, the President is speaking. So you got Secret Service and everything. So they would obviously, if you went through a magnetometer and detected a weapon, they would take it off you because obviously, it would be a threat to kill the president. Yeah. But what does he say though? What does he say? He says, he says, turn off the magnetometers, he says, I don't have anything to worry about. They're not gonna they're not gonna do anything to me. Okay. So if but if they have those weapons, and they're not going to do anything to you, what are they going to use them for? Who are they going to who they're going to attack? So that so that's, so that's part of it. And then the other crazy thing is like, you know, in thinking about it, and trying to and trying to relate to the, you know, the case that we've been talking about at the beginning of the broadcast. The judiciary, in this case, and the judiciary in the the situation with the ex president. And the How can I put this, the Congress, who initially wants to support removing the president, and by, you know, impeaching him and everything like that, yeah. Where's the moral conscience of all these people, though? Bill Barr is a perfect example of this. I couldn't believe the interview he gave with Caitlin Collins. And he was taught that the woman was talking, you know, he, she said, that you said all these things about Trump. Okay, you said all these things about Trump? And you're saying now that you're going to support them? How is that? And he said, Well, the biggest threat, the biggest threat to America is progressivism and liberalism, how well, I consider myself a progressive, but also a moderate, I am not a threat to this country, you are not a threat to this country. Okay. We're not going out there and saying that we're going to change the country into an autocracy instead of a democracy. But all these people, all these people that are Republican, I don't know what's happened to them. It's like a cult though. Yeah, it's really like a cult, where they know, they know something is wrong, you know, something is wrong. But they don't want to do anything about it. It's the same thing. It's the same thing with if you want to call it, you know, and it's funny, like, you know, somebody was saying to me, like, you know, that we have we have a feminist culture now in America. What's the problem with that? But what I said what I said was, well, feminism, in what way? I mean, feminism is defined as people being protected from people who would go harm them. Is that Is that what you're saying? That we shouldn't have any protection?

Speaker 3 24:16
That reminds me like, there's this question going around, like social media and stuff, and women are being asked if you were placed in a forest, would you rather be there stuck there with a bear or with a man and there's so many women who are saying, oh, obviously a bear. You know why? Because bears are predictable. The only the worst thing that could happen to you is that you get killed which is very dramatic, but like compared to a man like you don't you don't know what their intentions are with you. There are there are so many things that kept a bear could be you know, somewhat of a quick death, hopefully, but like with a man there's just There's so many things beforehand before you could possibly die to them. That could happen that are way worse way, way scarier, like, way scarier, you know? So yeah, like, that's

Speaker 2 25:11
interesting. Well, let me say this on unknown on behalf of the men you know, when I when when you watch the the women talking movie, and you know, August is one of the characters in the movie, the man who's like the scribe, he writes down everything that they say, I loved August in that movie and he was a he was a good and decent man. And and there are a lot of good and decent men.

Speaker 3 25:40
There's there's two men, there's one to understand why women are picking the bear. And there's the ones who are like, What the heck, why would you choose a bear that like that? They don't understand it, you know.

Speaker 2 25:50
But but but but but my thing is, though, that there's certain basic things that a society has to have. Yeah, you know, it's we talk about rules, and law and order and all the rest of those things. And, you know, we can interpret them differently. A woman might look at a certain situation different than a man, we'll look at it. But the basic thing in any society is the safety of its inhabitants. If you cannot guarantee that people of a certain gender are going to be saved, yeah. Because because the justice system, the response from the from, from law enforcement, the the attitude of the courts toward these cases, however you want to put it, then then there's a question of the validity of what's going on in the country. I mean, you know, it's so interesting, because, and I've been saying this for a long time, you know. And I it's very, it's discouraging to me, you know, they had the case, you know, they had the case where they the FBI settled with the victims, the Larry Nasser victims, oh, and they paid like, I don't know, 130. So

Speaker 3 27:16
yeah, you know, that their money and they were like, sorry, did

Speaker 2 27:20
gymnastics? Yeah, the girls, the girls and young women who run the gymnastics team, you know, the girls and women who were on the, into gymnastics academies, the women who went to Michigan State. But I keep saying, though, I keep saying, though, that in these cases, the answer is not the money? The answer is, in the case of the people who worked for this for law enforcement, or whatever they were supposed to be doing. You have a duty, as a law enforcement officer, as a person who's who's responsible for obeying the law, if somebody comes to your office or gets in touch with you, either the person themselves or them in the family, or what have you, repeatedly, in a number of these district offices over a quite a long period of time, and you don't do anything about it. To me, that's criminal. To me, that's criminal. It's not, you know, it's the money at this point, bagged the money, we don't need, we don't need to worry about the money, we need to worry about a system, a system where people are held responsible, where where you can't be indifferent or not be bothered at all what happened in this case, and all the the young women and girls and children that this man abused that was directly related to the indifference of the law enforcement authorities, they didn't do their job. And their job is to protect the citizenry. It's not a matter of whether it's a woman, it's a man, it's a transgender person, whatever it is, that's what you're supposed to be doing. And you know, the settlements that they make, okay, so the government pays pays them money or something like that. But the person's life, the person's life, and their future. And the way they look at things and the way they look at relationships, and how they look at other people is unalterably changed. Yeah, because you didn't do your job. And that's the problem that we have in our country. Largely,

Speaker 3 29:36
it's such a it's such a simple thing. Just Just do your job correctly. And you know, you could save you could save a lot of people. Yeah,

Speaker 2 29:44
well, people, people, I always say that our national, our national illnesses and difference that people, a lot of people just don't care. They don't want to be bothered, then they're interested now in Certain things in life, we see that all the time. But there is a higher standard for people who are working in law enforcement, there is a higher standard for people who are in the judiciary.

Speaker 3 30:14
Yeah, you got to go through all these, like trials and training,

Speaker 2 30:17
trials in training, but but also just that you possess, you possess the moral equilibrium, that you're gonna act when something happens, that you can't just, you know, you can't just blow it off. I can't imagine. I mean, I can't imagine and I don't think you can either. That if actually you had an office, and you were in that in that field of endeavor, and people came in to talk to you about some of these things. And you wouldn't follow up on it. Yeah, there's something there's something deeply wrong there. And I think that that's that's a societal problem, though. Yeah, we don't we don't we don't want to face these things. But that's what it is basically, yeah. It's gonna go away. It's not gonna go away. No problem ever goes away. You know, a site like the guy in the newsroom. That clip we showed in the class a couple of semesters ago, where he says the only the the first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that there is one yeah, if you're going to blow everything off and all that you're going to

Speaker 3 31:28
change won't happen if you don't acknowledge it, change won't happen.

Speaker 2 31:31
Well, on that on that somewhat pessimistic, pessimistic but hopefully hopeful note for the future. We've had a we've had the pleasure of throughout the semester, being able to reach out to all of you. We appreciate greatly. Your your listenership and I look forward to seeing you all and having you as listeners in the fall, and what more than that, all I can say is good night. Thanks

Speaker 3 32:05
for listening tonight. Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at tangi one that is T A N G one at UNLV thought nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles satin charles.stanton@unlv.edu. See you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai