WALKING THE CIRCLE-PRISON CHRONICLES-J. Tony Serra

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has gained national prominence for his closing argument techniques. He is a lifelong tax resister who has spent time in federal prison in protest of what he perceives to be an unjust political and legal system. Tony Sarah has been a criminal defense attorney for over forty five years. He has been involved with numerous high profile cases, including the Black Panthers and the Hells Angels. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including an ACLU Civil Liberties Award and

Lawyer of the Year from the Criminal Trier Lawyers Association. Recently, he was incarcerated for federal taxes. He decided not to offer a federal government he considers hostile to the poor, immigrants, Native Americans, and folks who enjoy a bit of inner transportation by means of forbidden substances. The book were featuring this evening is word Walking the Circle Prison Chronicles with my special guest, attorney and author Ja Tony Sarah. Good evening, Tony Sarah.

been a tax resistor. Tax resistor is one who either doesn't pay or doesn't file for my maybe first twenty years, I didn't file. For the next twenty years, you know, I haven't paid. I've been prosecuted three times. Two of those times I ended up in Lumpark prison camp. The bar does not California Bar is very commassionate, very you know, empathetic when it comes to an idealistic position. So my position is, you know, philosophic, political, it's ideological. There has

nothing to do with cheating the government. There has nothing to do with understating my income or overstayed my deductions. I just fail, you know, to pay. Previously, I merely failed to file. It's a huge difference, and I don't like to be you know, a lot of people confuse it. They think it's the same thing. I don't know. I'm not a tax you no evasion. I'm not evading anything. I'm just not god dam paying it. So what is my view? My view on taxation is you know, you

don't know. I could write it, you know, chapters and chapters on it. But in a nutshell, the way tax historically, for the most part, was imposed is when like the Romans or other you know, imperialistically oriented countries invaded and conquered, they exacted an annual tax from the defeated, from the victim, from the vanguished. The conquerors, you know, demanded their tribute.

And if you couldn't pay, I brought your you know, your silver, you brought your gold, union, you know, brought your son who was inducted into their army in lieu of payment. So it's always been a relationship between victor and vanquished oppressor and those who are oppressed translated into public time and present, you know, public dimension now and present time. The millionaires, the one percenters, the people that the occupied movement is directing their energy toward the corporations,

the international corporations, the domestic corporations. They don't pay tax. If they, you know, can't carve some our mitch that protects them, then they pass it on to the consumers. We pay ultimately their tax. It is only the working class that pays tax. It is only the poor people who pay tax. It is only you know, the ninety nine percent of us who oppose the one percent who really you know, control everything in this so called democracy, that pay the tax. Well, I'm a freeman. I'm not

you know, I haven't been conquered. I'm not going to pay their tax I'm not going to support their wars. I'm not going to support the corporations that stand behind their wars. I'm not going to wage endless war, not with my money in order you know, to become like oil rich. So you know, it's a pervasive view. And if US taxation as something that is, you know, placed on a class of people who have not you know, the political cloud or the wherewithal to resist it, and

I just symbolically have made this. I call it my peanut principle. I've been doing it, I don't know, nearly fifty years. Every ten years, I get prosecuted because it's a misdemeanor, because there's no moral turpitude. I get suspended while I'm doing my time three four, five, six months, whatever it's been. But then when i'm out, I'm free to practice. And when i'm in, when the suspensions lifted, I'm free to practice. And therefore I practice while I'm in,

I practice after I get out the bar. You know, even solicited the last time I was in Lumpock prison camp, which you know was a couple of years ago, and that the book came out of the experience, is that I had there, but the bar, the California Bar, solicited a article based on my experience there that listed areas of reform where reform in you know, the federal prison system,

from my perspective, was required. So not only is the bar understanding, compassionate, you know, and understands it's not mora alterpitude than and it's a principle, they're interested in it, and they're interested in you know, prison reform, and they never allow articles to be written. They in the prison officials, at least that the camp I was in. They don't allow you know, needy to come in. They don't allow photographs to be taken, they don't allow you know, interviews

to occur. It said, no, no, they don't want prisoners writing about sometimes the horrific you know, conditions and the from my perspective, the slave belaver that occurs there. But the bar was so powerful that all of the rules got swept away. Oh they were out there. They're taking pictures of me, pictures of the facility, interviewing me. So

you know, it just shows California's beautiful. The bar, you know, is from my prospective, fair balanced, you know, not the constricting any of my first Amendment rights, and so what I did while I was there last time, because now I'm older, I was like a camp gardener, you know, watered flowers and I wore the lawns, and I cleaned up the debris, and I planted, you know, various cactuses, et cetera, et cetera. But it was only about six hours.

You see, when you're older, I'm over seventy, so they the first time I was in the garbage, oh shit, man, you know I was assigned the garbage. I remember going to the counselor and saying, listen, I can't help the inmates. I couldn't do civil if you don't want me to do criminal law. I need as a typewriter. You know, I can help them with probath, and I can help them with bankruptcy. And I can handle domestic relations. You know, even though I'm a criminal law I know all of that.

And then the next day, job assignment Sarah garbage gardens. But this time and I worked my ass off. But this time, I you know, watered and contemplated and went to the so called library. I read eighty novels. I wrote two full books. I wrote poetry, I wrote you know, what I called vignettes, and you know, the the editor and publishers call it prison chronicles. And I, you know, served the inmate populous, like you know, a dentist, you know, serves too many clients. They were lined up, you know,

and I'm sitting out there on a bench. I'm kind of interviewing them. I'm hearing their issues. I'm looking at their appellate you know, briefs. I'm looking at the whether or not they have habeas corpus relief. I'm going over with them. You know, they're memorandums of law. I'm helping the jail house the lawyers perfect their rits and their appeals.

It was just like lot if you lock up a doctor in a hospital, a doctor who likes to practice, a doctor, you know, who is sympathetic and identifies with his patients. That's what I was. I was a lawyer in a criminal defense lawyer in a federal prison camp, and at a point I could practice. And you know, it was just fabulous all the people I met and all of the secrets that they shared, and every race and every religion really contacted me, being open with me.

So you know, I regard it as one of the like the rare moments of the My mind's sort of like a vacation. I don't mind work. I work hard. I worked twelve fourteen hours a day. I'm a workaholic, you know. I'm it's all law. It's in a narrow tunnel. The vision obviously is obscured when you're in a narrow tunnel. So when I get out of that, and then I can't go to court every day, and I can't argue, you know, to a judge or a jury every day, for me, it's a vacation. But I never gave up

the practice of law. And I helped everyone, you know, to the best of my ability. And right beside that, I wrote my ass off just your note for self medication, and I'm just colighted that I have, you know, a book that came out of that experience. And in that book, I outline what I consider like symbolic episodes that I

either perceived or I participated in. They speak, you know, beyond the what what I call it, the myth the fact or that are illustrated in you know, each each vignette or in each chronicle, because they're symbolic, because they're metaphoric, but the underlying theme, the underlining theme is we need reform, you know, we need change. Prison camps are unfair. Prison camps are slave labor. As soon as I got out,

I brought against the Federal Bureau of Prisons. What's analogous to a class action on behalf of them and inmates who are incarcerated and forced into the slave labor. And my request in the action, which was filed in San Francisco Federal court, was that they be paid you know, minimum wage seven fifty an hour instead of the twenty three cents or the thirty three cents on if you really paid big money, you're getting eighty cents an hour. And many people, you know, and me in my first stint there.

You know, there there was a mechanical you know, uh.

no escape risk, and you're dare to work. This is a work in camp. They tell you you're not going to be rehabilitated. We're not here to deter you. We're here, you know, to punish you. And you work in this camp. Everyone works.

lot of money. And incarceration costs a lot of money for correctional officers and the security at a facility. So some people might say, you know what, twenty three cents an hour. There's no way I would I would advocate for seven to fifty an hour because I'd be competing with somebody that had never gotten in trouble, had never been on side of the law, never cost the government any money. So there is something to that, exactly.

say good riddance. These people, you know, have committed crime. They are you know, menace to society. They have to pay their retribution, and these work camps is the one manner of doing it. If they don't want to do a work camp, then let them let them rot, you know, in the cell. And that is a dominant view. But that is archaic, that is punitive, that is uncivilized, that is unsophisticated, that is immoral. You don't make, you know, prisoner slaves. We're way beyond that, hopefully in terms of

our most enlightened segment of society. And you know, the prison mentality, the guard mentality, the warden mentality is still way in the past.

they got their apprenticeship. They are employable, but with a criminal record and a big void on your on your work record for two or three years you have a that person has a much harder time making it. And then and it's not like you talk about a prison. The prison system.

they encourage the phenomenon of recidiitism. Don't you know? They get paid Ultimately, the institution gets paid like many schools, where their resources are allotted, like many schools on the outside, by how many you know, inmates they have. They want inmates. Inmates is in essence, you know, their resource. There's no way they want to educate them. There's no way they want to rehabilitate them. They want them to come back.

And therefore it perpetuates, you know, their system, their exploitation, their you know, capitalizing off this slave waiver. Everyone in these camps should be followed.

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produces the camp works and has its quotas. The camp is run like a corporation is run. They have to make their profit, even if it's only a paper profit. So you know, what I advocate is eliminate them all. And those persons who are eligible for a prison camp are definitely eligible for parole, you know, let them out them or they put the short terms or the stitches in the camps in order to perpetuate the prison industries. That's the only reason they're there and.

then making money off their backs. Maybe it starts right with the judicial system taking nonviolent crime and dealing with it and giving people criminal records and prohibition is a really bad example or a really good example of nonviolent crime, especially marijuana use. But again, maybe it starts at the

judicial system. Now let's talk a little bit you were Let's just describe for the for those before we get into prison reform and what you what your real recommendations are and what you think were the injustices in the prison system that need this necessary reform. Let's talk about the correctional It was it a prison camp?

it's starkly different in Lumpac camp. See it it was used to be Indian sacred grounds, so that in the area there's rolling hills and there's there's trees, and there's rivers, and there's deer and there's rampant BirdLife. It's beautiful. The you lift as trees, you know, when the breezes go through them give off. There you can lift this oil fent.

You know. The flowers abound. The prisoners are mellow. They use there after hours sometimes to cultivate flowers or make enhance the environment, at least some of them do so. First it's very beautiful. There are no walls, no bars. There's two huge dormitories, pretty darn crowded. I think there's three hundred and fifty of us one hundred and seventy five in each dormitory. You sleep very close, you know, like it's bunks one on top of each other, and

everyone's very close. You know. It's like a funny thing if you wake up at midnight, here like one hundred and seventy five people snoring and I don't know, groaning and grunting in terms of their dream life. Lights go off at ten, everyone gets up at six. You go outside and have a breakfast, and then you go to your job assignment. You get back in the late afternoon. Normally there's account and maybe you go to the mail. You have a dinner, you can read. You have free time.

I had more luxious free time because I was assigned to the garden detail, which only worked potentially about six hours a day, where I told you last time, I worked maybe eight nine hours a day with the garbage assignment. So you know, the conditions are benign. There's not guards with guns. There's guards to carry a walking talking type of device, and they're walking around, but in they're in playing clothes. And the first time I went there to get you out in front and they say, look, you're

here because you've been selected. You're non violent, and you're you're not an escape risk. However, you know five percent of you will leave. You don't have to sneak. Don't sneak away. See that phone over there, court tab. You know, out of the five percent, we'll get ninety five percent of you back and you'll be over there. And then they point to, you know, to the draconian looking oh prison. So then you know, for some in the old days,

they would allow them to go on buses. That's when they believed in rehabilitation to local colleges and people were getting degrees, they were doing their homework. It was like fantastic. No more. However, there's still is lots of athletic activity. It's one of the last places that has the irons. That means, you know, the weightlifting, every form of weightlifting.

There's basketball, there's you know, a whole soccer field, there's softball fields, there's tennis, and the first time there used to be a musical auditorium where people would go in and play musical instruments. That's gone now. So it's very benign. It's very easy. You can elevate your consciousness, you can meditate. You know, no one's gonna come around and beat you. You don't have to worry about being naked. You know,

in the shower, everyone's on their best behavior. Why they're ready to get out, and they know that this is soft, this is not the heart doing hard time. My protest that if everyone was incarcerated like that and not forced into you know, went to classes and took maybe lessons in job training, and you know, was allowed to expand their mind and rehabilitate themselves, I wouldn't be writing this book. I wouldn't be yelling, you know, like a fool that

I am right now. But it's not like that. They what there's this image, an aesthetic image, an image, lack of sociability, and you know, an image like big Brother is smiling, but right behind that it's slave wages. Right behind that, they're capitalizing. And that's not fair, that's not appropriate. That is something that we outlawed, you know, in terms of literature and in terms of philosophy decades and decades

and decades ago. So I will continue in every fashion I can, you know, to seek address and to protest the conditions at the camp. Let me can I I want the audience to know. Let me read one short vignette just to get the flavor of you know, what I wrote is that, Okay, sure, absolutely, Let's say this is a this is a short one and it's called no and we no melancholy you, no, no regrets. I'm

just getting the book out. I am in prison now, stripped of duty and responsibility, ejected from my lawyer's life, from my family life, separated from my loved ones, no wife to touch, to talk. My routine asunder indulgence is gone, evaporated, too many, my reputation tarnish to others, a waste of time, an abandonment of purpose. I am in exile, isolated and rejected, but none of the above touches me deeply. My vanity, my ego, my arrogance is impenetrable. I have no ni,

I have no shame. Quite the contrary. Prison is my plumage, my pinace, A symbol of my dedication to a principle, to a belief. It is my distinction I wear proudly the garb of a conflict. Lawyers serve so few ideals. We wear others' badges of courage and belief. We mouth others' ideas and value systems. We validate clients' acts of courage or defiance. We enforce others' revelation or cries for change or reform. We stand in other people's shoes. We

walk behind them, not in front. We change horses to game the share. My penut principle I will not pay taxes has been my career banner held. High tax is the plunder of the victorious. Is the price paid by the defeated. Is a tribute to the conqueror. The ruling class pays no tax, only the vanquished. In modern times, the working class pays. I am a freeman. I will not pay their tax. That is why prison is not

for me. A symbol of disgrace, the mark of lost salvation, a place for depression, a time of repentance or contrition. I exalt in prison. I'm not here because of moral deficiency. I am here because of moral consistency. So I find the prison life reinforcing. I find the prisoners fascinating. I read, I write, and meditate. I have new freedoms now, freedom to think outside of legalies, freedom to find new vocabulary for goodness, beauty, love and honor. I can be innocent again,

idealistic and simple. I can thrive on romantic fallacy. I retrench in sentiment, camaraderie. I am a man among men who have faced danger and punishment. No common minds in prison, creative minds only. No bourgeois here, no safe way lifestyles, no cowards. I enlarge in prison. I do not diminish. We here are all proud to be anti establishment, anti authority, anti sheep and anti conformists. We are individualistic. We rage at society's norms. We are the angry semantic fists. Don't

pity us, pity yourselves. You kind of get, you know, my attitude from that. That's why I chose it, And you can see the types of persons that I respect ultimately in life itself. I don't, you know, ultimately respect those who just line up behind these societies dictated social moral motifs. The sheep. These people have lived, you know, with courage. They were all on the cutting edge. They were high risk takers. They have imagination. The many, you know,

come from impoverished conditions. The only way that they can work up socially is through outlaw activity, my identic faith. You know, I've been doing this fifty years. What I do is I go into jail every day, I go into court every day. So these are my people. These are the people I represent. I see the virtues in the society sees devices, but I see the strengths. I see, you know, the human values that they manifest. I see their camaraderie, I see the way they bond together. I

see the same grievances in society that they see. And therefore, you know, for me, it only strengthens me. As I told you, at first, I came out, I went right into a murder trial. You know. The first week I was out, I was selecting the jury in the murder trial, and I was filing my civil action against the Bureau

of Prisons, you know, for minimum wage. So it only instills in me more, you know, motivation coming from anger and frustration at the inequities that exist both in the you called it the judicial you know, system which favored the wealthy, you know, with who favored the white collar, et cetera, et cetera. You know, to the prison where one level the other year harassed, you're exploited, You're subjected

to a lot of statistic, unnecessary treatment. You know, it's it's like you defended in the Down Many Many Circles and Dante's Inferno, and you know you're screaming after shadows.

neighborhood plot dealer is not this disreputable. So but there's a big difference between some of the people that defense lawyers defend, and this program is called true murder. So we're talking about a lot of violent crime.

So you know, I know what you're saying. Now you said it. You know a number of times, what do you do with the violent offender? It's all right to work, you know him to the bone. Well that's not what they're doing. They're not going after and punishing the violent offender by making them a slave, you know, wage participant. Those people are still locked up there in the more you know, medium to heavy security prisons. Their life is

far more curtailed. They don't have deliberties that camp people have. So you know, you're applying a concept that is more applicable to real prisons than camps. Camps are you know, Suy generous. They are, you know, a development of our country patterned after as I indicated the Siberia in a way, you know, except obviously it's all easier now. But you know, I understand the perspective of paying your debt to society. When there really is some kind of you know, violent behavior,

that person has to be separate. You don't have to put them in a steel cage. You know, no one has no one belongs in the steel cage. The dog doesn't belong in a steel cage. So even the violent people do not belong in the selling, in the pathological, the sociopathic. They have to be separated. If they're gonna keep you know, harming people, of course, they have to

be separated. But you don't treat, you know, a human being like an animal, because the causative factors is what determines for the most part, behavior, and most of the cause of factors that determined behavior are outside of control in the volition of the person manifesting the behavior, you know. And in the sixties, everyone was interested in causation, sociological, you know, in psychological causation. They were in sentencing, they

were interested in the background. The family was it dysfunctional, was it imparvished? You know, did he get enough education? They were looking for the reasons. They wanted to cure the conditions out of which you know, outlaw behavior occurred. Now they don't give up, damn. You know. The main ingredient in punishment is how much dope? You know, how many felonies, how many counts did the defending perform in the act of violence? Did he hurt someone, did he

assault someone, etc. Et cetera. But it is pure punishment. We've retrograded, We've gone backwards in terms of the evolution you know, of controlling human behavior. Don't my friend, our culture I'm talking you know about, call it North America, call it European. We are bred into a culture of violence. Don't you understand? Every everything in the media focuses violence and fires. The movie industry, you know violence, the sports, you know, the boxing and I don't know of this

cage kind of boxing, wrestling, the everywhere you look. They are forcing in terms of creation, forcing in terms of you know, media, the concept of violence. You know, we are a militaristic country. We're killing people all over the world every day. Oh, we've perfected the art of killing. All you have to do is, you know, be somewhere in the United States, push a button, and you know there's a drone that's going to kill a village in the Afghanistan. We are brutal, we are satistic, We are you.

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And you know, the good and strong young people who think that when they join the armed services that they're fighting for freedom and democracy and you know, to supread to spread around the world. Let's call it, you know,

the American idealism. You know, bullshit. What they're doing is ultimately working for the aisle, the companies, the jomini you know, of oil, oil controls in most of the and and I'll call it major economic motifs in UnderGlobe and and uh, they're stronger ultimately the corporations, you know, the oil, the corporations. They're stronger than any any individual country. No one opposes them. And they work in conjunction with nationalities, with you know,

countries that perpetrate violence, you know, at their behest. And in our democracy, we're allowed, you know, to have what you call the loombiuss. We're allowed to have you know, the pressure groups. Uh. People you know who donate money will expect some reciprocity. So are our form of military or form of capitalism, our form of materialism. It is not consistent with the basic principles that the United States likes to believe that it possesses and manifests and you know,

desires to spread to other countries. So I'm trying to make a generic apology for violent behavior, and I'm saying there's causal precedence that you know, create it, and that is beyond the control of the person who participates in it. Don't blame him so much. Blame the conditions that spawned it. The racism, the poverty, you know, the psychological dysfunction in terms of family life, you know, the lack of employment,

the lack of education. Blame that. You'll go after that, reform that, and you'll find there's less violence, there be less crime, they're less outlaws, and less need for any form of penal institutions. That's my view. I'm a very biased man. I've been fighting, you know, the establishment all my life on behalf of defendants who are overcharged, wrongly charged, you know, selected because of reasons not related to the crime. I'm in court today here there's an arc. He's on

the goddamn stand, he says. And this is a white community in northern California. He says, Oh, I was surveilling you know, this parking lot. What did you see? I saw an Hispanic and he was looking into cars. Oh, he's saw in Hispanic and was that you know part of the probable cause was that? Probably? Oh no, no, not that. Oh I did I call him a Hispanic? Then? You know, My point is racism, you know, is still

alive and well. A profile, you know, the person's who then become targets for law enforcement is live and well. If you count how many times law enforcement has assaulted and shot and even killed a LED suspects, you would see that that statistic is rising every decade. You know, we are under the domination of almost quasi military in terms of police, you know force. We used to call them the thin blue line. Since you know, nine to eleven they are a thick blue wall, they're no longer

a thin blue line. And the thick wall is a wall between citizen try and ultimately their constitutional rights. We're being squeezed out of our constitutional rights because everyone's afraid. Oh there's no domestic terrists, there's international terrists. Oh you know, there's a cartel, there's a street gangs, there's drive by shootings. Aren't we all afraid? Do you want to give up the jury trial?

of fear. They're in fear because the media, you know, propagates ultimately the through you know, news reports, etc. Etc. They propagate a message of fear and trembling. So you know, I don't know, I'm old. I've done this man for fifty years. I'm still gonna vigorously do it. But it's harder and harder to win constitutional you know, rights are shrinking and shrinking. The courts become rubber stamps for law enforcement.

The discretion of judges is minimal. The legislature determines punishment and the charging authority the executive you know, the district attorneys and prosecutors and law enforcement, when they determine the charge, they determine what the punishment is. Because most of the time it's statutory. You've heard about mandatory sentencing. The discretion of the courts is tied down, it is limited. There used to be in our country what we call triport

right system of checks and balances. There was the executive, there was the legislative, and there was the judicial. Nay, not any longer. The judicial has been swallowed by the executive and the legislative. And truly each year the execs executive manifests more and more power. Each year, we're going, you know, ultimately toward like tyranny by democracy and ultimately toward what I want to say is very similar to

you know, past the talitarian governments in other countries. We're going in that direction because our constitution rights are are shrinking. While the executive, the law enforcement, the DEA and the FBI and the CIA, and you know those Homeland security and the local marks, they have more power than they have ever had, and you know they're arrogant and boastful about it. So you know, there's a lot that has to be changed. I'm just one, like one peanut voice.

My little thing, you know is tax resistance. The little book that I wrote, you know, is a plea for reform in the penal you know system, specifically targeting the work camps. And you know, tomorrow I'm in court and I'll be screaming at someone again. That's my you know, life goal, so to speak, is to force what I call justice in the corininal you know justice system. Now, Tony, you have went on a tirade, asked me a question.

you know, have recognized medical marijuana. We have, I think because it's an election year, the feds are crawling all over them in Colorado and Montane, in New Jersey, especially in California, north and south. They're going after the landlords, you know, they're going after people after Obama says, we won't prosecute if you're state legal, if your state you know requirements, if you're a dispensary or a collective and you're in compliance with the state standards, we won't touch

a bullshit. They have gone after you know, state legal in Josh. From my perspective, to make a point for the election, Obama has under his reign, he has prosecuted you know, more marijuana people. He has made more marijuana martyrs than any other president before him, all the time, you know, espousing on one side of his mouth, or we won't prosecute it for the state legal while you know,

at the other side, it's it's been revved up. And you know, they've destroyed a lot of the state's rights in terms of allowing the state to hand medical marijuana by by taking down all of the dispensaries, and and and from my perspective, you know, that's a huge tragedy. So I don't know, you know, there's so many ways

to be outraged. A crinal defense lawyer, you know, is pricked every day by some form of inequity and some form of the discrimination, some form of what would I call it over as ellis prosecution over a punictive judges. I don't know. Maybe it's because they started in the sixties. In the sixties, you know, it was the golden age

of law. Judges wanted to throw out cases. The Constitution in the United States, the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the sixth men more strong, and you know, jurors looked at the law enforcement way the testimony evaluated their credibility. That's all been washed away now and I'm of the last, one of the fewer I don't know, you know, one of the five percent from the old school where courtroom performance or ration, you know,

emotion passion was always sought as an attribute of good lawyering. Now, man, they want to shut you down. Don't raise your rs business or you put your hand up I was gestay, or put your hand back at the podium. You know, your questions are argumentative, your tone is argument that they cramp down on you. They don't want you to win. You think that the judge is a referee. No, the judge is the goalie. You know, you after you buy their evidence, after you get by the prosecution. You the

analogy like a soccer game. You see the goal. The goal is that the jewy's gonna find not guilty. Then you find that the judge it becomes the goalie. He's blocking you, you know, from moralistic perspectives, not from legal perspectives. He might think the guy is guilty. He ain't gonna allow a jury to find him not guilty. So he, you know, becomes the arbiter of justice by how he handles objections, how he handles. You know the attorney, how he curtailed, you know your license so to speak to

to UH for what I call forensic latitude. If this is sad man, you would think by this time, Hey, you know I'm over seventy and the ship for fifty years, that I would feel at peace, at peace, with my profession, at peace, you know, with the system at peace, you know, with the notion of punishment, where what has occurred since the sixties has only increased my anger, frustration and outrage. You know you're heard in that little vignette. I use

the word semantic fist. You know, That's what I'm proud of. I'm a semantic fist, and I'll do it until I die or go se Nile, neither of which are imminent, you know from my arrogant near no self appraisal. So there's a lot, you know, for criminal lawyers. We're in

office of twenty. We all do criminal defense. We have you know, young lawyers who haven't they've graduated, but they're waiver bar results to me up to me where you know, I have plus forty five years plus experience, and we all share the not the same but very similar ideology. We're not in it, you know, for the money. We're in it for the justice that we perceive as lacking. We're in it from an ideological platform, not from some kind of a you know, merchandizing perspective. A lot of

lawyers merchandise their cases. I remember when I started, Oh, mister Sarah, you know you're training to miss any cases. You're not going to make any money like that while you're doing the trial for six weeks. You know, I'm getting sixteen clients, you know, And the underlying theme is don't go to jury trial. Deal your client out, you know, compromise, take a deal, don't file motions. That's a lot of work.

You can't make any money if you're going to spend all your time file emotions and going the jury trial. And I've had you know, I'm paraphrasing it, but those themes have been given to me by peer group and by older lawyers, like aren't you in it for a buck? I ain't a way to make a buck. So when the defense, you know, bar is so diluted, their advocacy is so compromised, their selfishness and greed dominates their you know, representation, then we've lost everything. We don't. We don't have a

dog in the fight any longer. And you know, one of my biggest grievance is what I call the snitch lawyer. Oh, the snitch lawyer specializes, you know, and who I have a client, Well, if you debrief, if you tell someone, if you go to the grand jury, if you set them up on the telephone, you know, well I can get you, you know, very reduced sentence. And there's a whole new specialty out there, you know, I call it snitch laurent. They don't they don't file motions, they don't

go to trial. They just roll their client role means become a cooperating witness, become an informant, you know, and they get leniency. They get huge, you know, blocks of whatever leniency in terms of sentencing. And you know what's what's more precious than money is liberty and freedom. And you know, if I went out pretend and I paid ten thousand dollars for a witness, you know and a

material winners, I'll give twenty thousand. I'd be prosecuted, I'd be I'd be vilified, I'd go to prison for supporting perjury.

history of our globe. And it is a disgrace and ultimately impairs the credibility of the entire system. And you know, I deal with them in most every drug case, the informants, but it's spread into areas I don't participate to win in the white collar crime. They're they're all, you know, as fast as they can. They're given statements against people in order to gain leniency. And obviously, when all you really want to do is reduce your sentence, you'll say

any thing. To save your own skin, You'll say anything. And so they lie, inform and fly. They are prejurious. They will tell the prosecutor what is necessary so that they can get their deal. So you know, I'm angry about that. The system went to hell. And when I first started that you didn't have to face free or force niches in a jury trial, you know, in a drug case or any other kind of case. Nowadays, everyone's

you know, lining up to become an informant. They're they're getting quick a stitch lawyer, they're running into the US Attorney's office, they're making their statements that incriminate everyone, and they're getting their leniency. And that is a sick system. And so you know, there's another reform issue that you know doesn't pertain to prison, but you know they give this camp, which is luxury for some. They give that to the informants who have to do a little bit

of time. And you're not supposed to know their informants. As I said, there mostly from other states. So you know, there's an underpinning. The underpinning. When you look in the penal system, you see slave labor. In the judicial system, you see a system that predicates truth on informant testimony and informant information. Both of those things are intolerable in a civilized society.

Otherwise you really wouldn't have too many cases without some type of informant.

seal and no one knows. I've had cases where they have wired, you know, put a wire under the bed of a suspect in his wife so that they could hear, you know, their bedroom conversation. The law has allowed, it's opened up so many forms of investigation that you do not have to rely on what is unreliable per se to what an informant who is being given ten years off of sentence, twenty years off of sentence, sometimes paid, you know, money, sometimes relocated, sometimes never revealed, an informant

behind the scene. You know, sometimes an informant has penetrated some kind of an organization and is ultimately the one who provokes the conduct. A provocateur. You know, someone says, I know a lot of these occupied cases. You know, our office does, and there's pipes in the system, and admittedly so that will go and penetrate these groups and urged them on the commit crimes. It's a form of entrapment. In a lot of times, the people who are there

I'm talking about occupying. You look at the person like he's crazy, and then you know, ultimately you find out that he's an informant and he's a provocateur, and he's encouraging criminal activity. That's the way law enforcement is investigating is by them creating the you know, the crime, so you know, I might see the worst. You know, they come to me when cases are bad or where government, you know, is out of control. Or snitches are lying. So I may have, you know, a bias view, a

jaded view. I see all of the ugly things. I don't see the good things. I don't see the police officer walking the streets and you know, shining apples and talking with children and guiding them across an intersection. What I see is the law officers, you know, who have transgressed, who are in essence, you know, either bullies or cowards, and you know their behavior is disrespectful. So you know I haven't. Admittedly I have a jaundice, knew, but I

will continue to represent the minority. You see, if you eliminate all of the minorities I'm talking ideological minorities, then the marketplace of idea diminishes and you're in a totalitarian state. So you know, it's important to rush to where law enforcement is the most you know, pervasive, To rush to the medical marijuana cases, you know, to rush to the cases where there is an informant who's going to perjure himself. To rush to the cases where there is police brutality.

So I court those kind of cases. I'm not, you know, doing cases that are easy any longer. Because I've been around a long time, and I've done an awful lot of jury work. I get the most difficult ones, and I guess it affects, you know, my attitude. My attitude, as I've indicated over and over again, you know in our conversation, is very anti law enforcement, very anti authority. I've been one of those, you know, with that kind of a philosophy who has survived within the system. I'm

you know, alive and well. I do the good fight every day. So when they eliminate that class of lawyers, they ultimately eliminate descent. And descent is the most important variable in a free society. So you know, it's a torch that has to be passed on. It'll be darker days and then there will be you know, sunny days, and you wait and hope that you facilitate the evolution for more freedom, you know, more economic uh stability for

more people. You know that it's just a very uh elusive goal that you ultimately fight for.

I haven't bought anything. So you know, I'm known for my suits out of the Salvation Army, and my freight callers, and my old ties, and for holes in my soles of shoe and for maybe my buttocks, you know, protruding through a hole in my back pants. I'm an avrok. Therefore I do not seek profit. Obviously. I have an office, I have secretaries, I have all the computers. You know, we have all kinds of expenses. I have an to bank. Sometimes I'll just grab a case so I can pay

the goddamn rent. But other than that, I live very frugally. I live in San Francisco, California. I pay four hundred and twenty dollars a month rent. It's because of rent control. It's just a little apartment. I have nothing new. I don't have money in the bank. I don't have credit cards, I don't have insurance, I don't have squat I don't want anything from them, them being the establishment. I am a freeman. I am independent. I can think and act, you know, within the scope of my ideology. I won't

pay their taxes. But you know, I am considered the best pro bono lawyer available for most and on the beginning, let's just say eighty percent pro bono. In the middle layers, let's say fifty percent pro bono. Now I would say probably about only twenty twenty five percent pro bono. But some of the cases are really large political cases that take many, many months. I sometimes will, you know, take from Peter to pay Paul I e. I will take a paying case so that I can put money into

a case. I believe in a political case, and so it's nothing for me to let's just say charge someone who has money, who's you know, it's a crime. Let's say of greed and nothing for me to take twenty grand from him and put it into a pro bono case, because a pro bono case means nothing. You know that the lawyer's pro bono. You've got to have investigation. You've got to have expert witnesses. You have to you know, pay many times for various investigatory techniques. You have to

have researchers for motions. You know, sadly, sadly, it takes money to practice, to defend, to engage, you know, in adversarial proceedings. The government has unlimited funding the poor public defenders around the country or you know, they're starving compared to the resources that are available to the federal and state prosecutors. And you know, there's the lawyers, very good

lawyers work only for money. And there's not enough pro bono lawyers, not enough idealistic lawyers, not enough you know, young cause oriented lawyers. Not enough lawyers lining up for the occupy movement. Not enough lawyers you know, representing the ninety nine percenters, not the lawyers you know, representing the criminal cases where there is you know, obvious constitutional imperfections or you know, for of racism, et cetera, et cetera.

So you know, we're going to struggle in the judicial process. We're dominated by prosecution. This country, as I indicate, is going, you know, each decade closer and closer to a form of tutalitarianism. And the rights that we are you know, surrendering daily. I'm talking constitutional rights, search and seizure rights, you know, rights that pertain to course confessions or unmorandized confessions. Those things are not you know, litigated to the degree

that they should. Lack of resources, lack of persons of the lawyers, of principle, you know, lawyers are only in it for a buck, all of those kind of things. And I see, I guess you know, that's what I see, and that's what I rage against. That's my you know, little attribution to the subculture of the legal world.

vast empty, equally green lawn. White tangled hair falls from under iron equally white baseball cap, shielding him from the sun. An orange hose in his right hand extends the rays of water to the grass. This is a prison camp. He is a prisoner. He waters lawns all day in the burning heat. He is in a trance. His thoughts are melting, his eyes brim with tears. Look through hold on, I just lost my bitch. He is in a trance. His thoughts are melting, his eyes brim with tears. Look

through the spraying flooding from his He sees visions. He sees shiny black crows through his waterfall. These are lawyers. They are taking flight from his mind. He sees rainbows in the water spray. These are his children of shining colors. He sees droplets from a face. It is the face of his beloved. She smiles love from the liquid prison he now he talks to her. He talks to the water flowing. He says, Vicky, I love you. So you

know what is it? It's little episodes. Some of them are they document conditions first paragraph and you know abstinences. There is no physical love in prison is the most singularly meaningful vacancy in an inmate's existence. It is true privation. Celibacy is the death of a vital of human life. The ramicrifications are profound. No contact with you're made, no physical affection, no touching of flesh, no softness, no caress, a soft voice, a warm body, holding, feeling, petting are

all eliminated from the inmate's experience. Can anyone imagine how that destroys the balance between physical and the emotional attributes of a man's personality. When love is missing, when no femininity enters into the male existence, there are a number of reactions visible at prison camp. Subflammation is one overeating over exercising, oversleeping, masturbation, pin ups of sexual stimulating nature. Pornal magazines take the place of natural feelings. Homosexuality occurs

in prison, but I think not a camp. Hardening of the male psyche is another consequence of celibacy. The inmate becomes embittered, defensive, obscene language and behavior, sexist in his pronouncements. The ability to be carrying or to extend softness is lost. Depression, lonesomeness, isolation can also occur. Why not furloughs home, Why not conjugal visits? Why does society destroy the vital light of instincts to love and reproduction by inmates? Why are they

eliminated from the gene pool of evolution? Shame on us. So yeah, you can see. I don't know. The tone is in sometimes evangelistic, but you know, I try to put my finger on the sensitive areas that develop as a consequence of prison life. And no one else has done this kind of thing. Many many books are written on prisons, you know, those are coughed up weekly. No other book examines the episode in a pattern in a prison camp. Prison camp is different. So this book from

my perspective, as sociological significance. Anyone who's interested, for instance, in you know, the penal system. Anyone who's like probation officers or judges or you know, prosecutors, they should read it to understand what occurs to a human being in prison. Do you understand that every single day of prosecutor's life, he's got one thing as an objective to put someone in a stale case for as long as he can. You know, he's never been there. He doesn't understand. He

doesn't know the human condition. He doesn't know like the valuable merits of someone you know whose behavior has ultimately been criminal. It's something, really, you know, that exposes the fallacies of prison life. So you know, I'm not saying it's great literature. I'm a goddamn lawyer. I'm not a writer. But it does document episodes that are meaningful and must be understood by anyone who works in or about, you know, the criminal justice system and the prison system.

on Amazon, et cetera. I think it's so fashioned and it still distributes to bookstores, and I think it's Grizzly Peak's been in existence for a long time and they've published a great number of books, but it's burked me and it's academic and it's political, and many of the books have been controversial. So you know, I'm actually proud to have been selected by them. They select only those people that have an ideology. I think that they respect.

life to be able to produce this work. And I wanted to tell people too that if they missed the program earlier you were on months ago with Paulette, Frankel, fr A and k L and if they could look up that program in the archives. It was an excellent interview with Paulette and yourself to talking more about the unique perspective that you have and that you've brought to this book and that you bring to your life and

you bring to your career as a defense attorney. So I wanted to thank you very much for this interview and sharing Walking the Circle to Prison chronicles with us.