You were to no one from being an assistant processor to a story career. Along the way, you were the dean of harvard law school. You are just my favorite law professor. Im not alone in that in 2008. Junior senator from illinois was a man named barack obama. He said when i was at harvard law school, i had a teacher who changed my life. Martha. It is such a delight to be here. I have learned so much from you through the years. I love the book because it has your voice. Its compassionate. Its brilliant. It is wise. It is grounded weird it is gently provocative. Thank you. How did you come to doing this legendary career. The highest legal power to writing a book about forgiveness i wrote a book about 20 years ago about responses to mass violence. At that time, the commission in south africa had just started. I was so intrigued by the development of a new Legal Institution to deal with horrific violence and oppression. I wrote a book finding an alternative to these two different responses to horrific acts. People have said to me, why between . Why cant law itself forgive . It nags at me. That is what led me to write this book. The law does forgive. You talk about how examples about how the law can be forgiving. Give us some examples. It may be surprising. A commitment to western law is whatever forgiveness is, that is is not what it is. Actually, whether it is bankruptcy rules that allow the forgiveness toward of debt or the pardon power given to the president of the United States, we have explicit devices. Some better less well known. In the criminal field, you are an expert. Even the discretion that a prosecutor has not to go forward as a kind of forgiveness. I was fascinated by your discussion. I want to talk about each one of them. The kind of forgiveness. I know we have that word forgiveness, but a transformative quality which i found so rich and provocative. I want to start by thanking about limits to forgiveness. You said some things seem unforgivable. Are they . May be it helps by starting to define forgiveness. Letting go of justify grievance. I dont think we are even in the land of forgiveness if were talking about charges or disputes where there isnt a justified flame. Its like dealing with justified forgiveness. I guess i do think that we need to acknowledge that laws imperfect. People are imperfect. At times letting go of even justified blame is better for everybody. It is better for the society. It is often much better, even for the ones that have been harmed not to carry the grudge around. We are dealing with, you know, mass incarceration. So far, this direction, it really makes me think about a time for a reset. I agree with you about mass incarceration, but there are situations where vengeance seems appropriate. In 2015, mother emmanuel, church in south carolina, dylann roof was welcome into a prayer service. Now, as a whole world knows, he was a white supremacist terrorist as he murdered nine people. Some of those family members talked about forgiveness. How should we feel about them . I do kind of have an astonishment. I did at the time when family members said they for gave dylann roof. Nothing i could imagine doing. Now think that the law or any other person should expect of anyone. I think there are particularly worrisome aspects where there is a racial or gender expectation about who is supposed to forgive in the society. I do think that those individuals were acting out of a religious belief. For them, it was the right thing to do. Personal forgiveness has nothing to do with what the law should do. In this instance where dylann roof committed and absolutely inexcusable act, hateful act act and has never shown he has been boastful and proud about what he did. There is no place for forgiveness in the legal system because he has violated the trust of everyone. Sometimes we expect africanamerican people or women or lgbt people to be forgiving when we are confronted with justifiable grievances. Might be different from white folks who are heterosexual people or men. I think that is completely true for the same reason the same statement coming out of the mouth of somebody will be viewed as angry or disproportionate when it is somebody who has a position of relatively less power in the society than someone who is not. I think we need to be vigilant about that and concerned about it. At the same time, i admire when 18yearold brother of the murder victim killed by amber geiger, the White Female Police officer in dallas, when the 18yearold brother said after the sentencing, i forgive you. That is something to admire. It comes out of his religious belief. There should be no lesser sentence, in my view, for the conduct. The judge step down from the bench and hugged amber geiger who had just been convicted of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison. The judge said she hugged amber because amber asked her to. I was more troubled by that and the judge has a position as an officer of the law. She did not do anything wrong in the sense that the trial was over, but she was wearing her robe and whatever her personal feelings were, i guess i think they belong outside the courtroom. That is not, in your mind, a paradigm example of the kind of forgiveness the law should exercise. Why not . The interpersonal relationship. I am interested in when law itself, the exercise of charges or exacting a sanction, even though it is warranted, it seems seems like, okay, there are good reasons now to let it go. Bankruptcy is a really good example, in my mind. You start by thanking about the children. Children who have been forced to fight in wars, often overseas and exploited in other ways. You also think about children, mainly in the United States to get charged and are guilty of serious offenses. How should forgiveness work in that context . A message that we lawyers uses comparison. It has always been striking to me to see how child soldiers are discussed and treated in international law. There are people who are abducted or coerced. There are also people that are asked to join. Many commit terrible acts. Murder, rape. They recruit other children. What to do. What to do about those people. In the international context, the approach taken by the law is those responsible should be punished. The adults that recruited them should be punished. The International Criminal court has no authority to go after people who joined when they were children. Instead, internationally while it is left to each nation, there has been a trend towards talking about reconciliation and rehabilitation. I contrast that with the treatment across this country of young people drawn into conflict , whether it is drugrelated or gangrelated. We have the opposites here. We have a punitive and a way of talking about super predators. If they are in no context, no acknowledgment of the adults who created the world in which they are drawn into, the best option is to begin that trait. The schools are not offering a real opportunity. We dont talk about the adults that are responsible. Despite the origins of the Juvenile Court in the place that was supposed to be more forgiving and more rebel at native, we have made it a place that treats young people just like adults, either automatically transferring them to adult court or levying kinds of sanctions for conduct that no other country in the world does. I think that we could learn from that example. I think in both contexts, coming up, up with an alternative where the young people have a chance to account for what they did, to admit admit it, to talk about it, to grieve themselves, maybe find a path to to forgive themselves, but also to reinvest in them. Join the society and be reconstructive participants. Children should be, forgiveness does not mean that they should not be held accountable. Absolutely right. We are talking with former soldiers, former gang members. The first ones who are blaming themselves. Who know they did something wrong. Indeed, there are some instances where young people are not held responsible, and they they file drift. To have a chance to say, guess, there, there are norms, i violated them. Now what do i do . You mentioned that some children are coerced into going into terrorism. Other children do it voluntarily should the law treat that differently . It is certainly something they have intended to treat very differently. I think the continuum of coercion maybe even with children, but also present with all of us. When we say someone volunteered, understanding that context matters a lot. In my view, more relevant relevant is whether the people acknowledged they did something wrong and want to make amends. The great civils right lawyer, criminal justice lawyer. No one should be judged by the worst moments in their life. We think about young people who have decades ahead of them. We should tap into that. And criminal law we talk about the idea that when someone causes harm, there should be consequences. One of the purposes is for everyone else to learn, if you make a mistake, if you commit a crime, you will be punished. Stopping other people from committing those crimes. More vulnerable and more exploitable. Are you concerned about deterrent . I am. There are pretty good studies that show that keeping larger and larger sentences do not actually deter young people from participating in criminal activity. Thinking longterm is not actually the strong suit of a lot of adolescents. The response that the law should take should be no people are and what it takes to educate them. We talk about specific deterrence to that individual. What can they learn . Again, showing that there is a path forward is not going to undermine the recommendation that is shameful to have violated the norms. Children making mistakes. Including research that you talk about. Childrens brains take a long time to develop. In fact, they are not fully developed until they are around 25. Men brain takes longer than female. Twentyfive. You are getting up there. At the same time, in response to this evidence, some courts thinking about dealing with folks that commit crimes, including updates from older. How do you feel about this . I think it is a bad time that law took greater note of the developments in neuroscience. It was that kind of evidence that affected the Supreme Courts decision about life without parole for juveniles. I think that it is also relevant to what schools do. An increasing number of high schools in the United States have shifted their practice to one that is participatory with the other peers who actually can arrange for what is called Restorative Justice processing. Making it an educational process for everybody. Those who have injured another actually have to be held accountable, but also come up with a plan about what they will do and hear about what the impacts are on them and others. That takes account of the science, of the social science of the developmental stages that the young people are at. My mom is a former secondgrade teacher. She retired teaching almost 25 years in the Chicago Public schools. She can be hard on kids. That is true on a lot of teachers. Especially elementary and high school. In some ways, i think they develop Higher Expectations of them. In the criminal law world, one idea is that the purpose of criminal law is to impose just a minimum set of standards that everybody has to follow. Minimum. Dont kill. Dont sexually assault. Dont steal. That is basic. That is part of your responsibility as a citizen. If you do not obey those minimum standards, then you should be punished. There are consequences. And there should be consequences i think every society has come up with rules of that nature. There should be consequences that are known by everyone and applied fairly and evenly. They are not always applied fairly and evenly. I think that the disregard and mistrust of the legal system is another factor to take into serious account. Teachers who taught like your mother, usually, very wellregarded i the students because they have high expectations. They are expressing a belief in the capacity of the young people to actually live up to that. A legal system that is inconsistent does not earn that kind of trust. When we dont have people trusting a legal system, it cannot operate. The Police Police dont get the information they need. They dont get the help from the community about who actually is to blame. This call for forgiveness, that is one way we as human beings are at trust with one another. You mentioned inconsistency in the law. In some ways, when you talk about forgiveness of children who have committed crimes, that is a harder case to make. That seems unfamiliar. We talk about forgiveness of debt, people think about that. The law states that kind of forgiveness differently. You said so when we talk about debt. We go back in history and there was a similar moral view about failing to pay a creditor then we have about violating a criminal norm. Absolutely. Ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court although we have new forms when people cannot pay fees and fines imposed by the legal system itself. I think that over time we have seen in the United States a fascinating evolution when it comes to bankruptcy. It is actually present in the United States constitution. The congress has given power to enact a National Bankruptcy law. This is in no small way traceable to Thomas Jefferson who was pretty much in debt his entire life. He developed kind of a political theory about it. One generation should not burden the next. The creation of a National Bankruptcy law has, in many peoples view,s view, been associated in the United States with our tradition of entrepreneurship and Second Chances for people who start a business and it does not work. We have business bankruptcy. Personal bankruptcy. The same possibility to start over. There are consequences. Consequences for any assets that people have have to be made available to help pay off the debt. There also is a loss of credit rating. The company may take a long time to rebuild their credit rating. Also charging higher interest for the next time they are borrowing. We allow people to turn the page and start over. Rather than be so buried by debt that they can never get out of it. I do think that there is a reason that the United States has a tradition of innovation and risk taking that is the envy of many parts of the world. The idea that bankruptcy, forgiveness of debt is part of why the United States really interesting idea. You talk about recent legislation, bankruptcy legislation that exempts student loans. Here is the inconsistency problem. Treating some kinds of loans differently than others, here to put, underline the problem, we have a situation right now where we have forprofit schools that have failed because they have not delivered quality education. They could declare bankruptcy. The young people that took out the loan, they cannot. That seems really unfair in my mind. The nature of the exemption is a political process. Those who were able to get the student loan exempted, that is relatively recent and american bankruptcy law. We can change it. I think we should change it. Their programs to allow for Debt Forgiveness for young people. The Current Administration is cutting back on those programs. That seems counterproductive. We should be investing in young people. These children knew what they were signing up for. You have to pay. Life is tough. I do believe that there are rules for a reason. Often times, here is what bankruptcy does so well, the participation in a problem is more than one person. The people that made these loans actually contributed to the problem. The people who said the myth that these forprofit schools would actually lead to a job, regulators who failed to make sure that the school delivered on the promise, if we talk about people who actually went to good schools, but they cannot get a job because because the economy is in trouble, not entirely their fault. Recognizing this responsibility is another reason why law should forgive and find moments when we need to accommodate the competing interests. Which is what bankruptcy does. Many creditors. Not everybody will get made 100 . We can spread what is available so everybody gets some of the money that is available. Are you worried about people exploiting the system . It is is a concern. The economists have even come up with the phrase for it which is moral hazard. When you know you are insured, you are willing to take a risk. Internalizing and thinking hard about the risk that they are taking. I think this is a concern. I also think it is wrong to put it all on them to accommodate and take into account all of the considerations. Creditors ought to be thinking hard who they loan too. I talk in the chapter about the very Serious Problems in developing countries that have sovereign debt because they, maybe they took on too much debt , but maybe they had a government system that took on debt that was knocked going to serve the people. More importantly, maybe the creditors were taking advantage of these people that were in such need. There is a perfect situation. We need Something Like bankruptcy to a develop an accommodation. We also need the creditors to be more careful. One thing that the creditors say, a Big International money fund or a mortgage bank, we take risk. One reason that we take risk by giving some people mortgages, may not qualify by the regular criteria or some developing countries loaned because we know that there is a guarantee we will get our money back. If there is not that guarantee, we will not be willing to take those risks. That will end up hurting the folks. It is fascinating to me that when Nelson Mandela became the head of south africa, many people said you should refuse to pay the debt, the International Debt that was taken on by the government. He and his advisors knowing they would go ahead and repay because they would not want to lose the credit standing. I can also see that when a country is taking on debt, individuals taking on debt, they cannot find a way out of it. It was coming out and they did have some resources. They were able to ultimately find a way to pay off the debt. Other countries took decades and decades and decades without any kind of hope. In your ideal world, think about this debt that a lot of developing countries have now. What should the legal response be . We dont have an interNational Bankruptcy system. Ad hoc bankruptcy is developed with institutions like the International Monetary fund. Coming up with an International Agreement for a structure that is in place for when it is needed rather than trying to scramble each time. It should set a kind of parameter that discourage creditors as well as the country from taking on debt that everyone knows will never be repaid. At the same time, come up with a process for repayment negotiations if there are unexpected challenges. Like a world financial crisis. I mentioned that you taught me family law. I know you also teach constitutional law. International trade law. Thank you. How did you learn all of this . I was still the dean of the school. How did i get into the subject of debt. Then i remembered, my students have debt. The school has debt. It was after the financial crisis in this country. Everyone was dealing with that. If we are lucky, what law offers us as a kind of skeleton key that we can use to learn the challenges as they arise. I want to talk about another form of forgiveness that you write about. Before we get to that, lets talk about this moment in american history. There is this idea of canceled culture, especially on the internet when someone does something that the twitter verse judges is wrong, that gets canceled. How do you feel about that . I am worried about it. Human beings have the capacity to forgive. That is how we live with each other. Canceled culture is the opposite of that. It is quick to condemn and to condemn forever. It is very fascinating, to me, that, that every religion, every philosophy has developed a respect for forgiveness as a Human Capacity to acknowledge the imperfections that we all have. I think that one of the challenges that we living in the internet age have is we dont have the threedimensional experience of looking someone in the eye, seeing the effect of our conduct on the other person, imagining if i were that other person. A feature of the internet society. Some people would say this about righteous anger. What is the relationship between anger and forgiveness. Can you forgive someone and be angry with them at the same time or does forgiveness require releasing that anger . I think that anger is actually often the wellspring of justice. I think anger is a very important emotion. And a clue when we are angry to say what does angry mean . There often is an injustice. Each of us should have the dignity and selfrespect to demand the right kind of treatment. If the anger swells out of control and it prevents us from having relationships with other human beings, that deserves the person who, ourselves trying to actually live a life. It is very striking to me, how can you forgive people after your husband was assassinated. She said, because if i dont, the anger will kill me. I think letting go of anger is a resource. A resource often people who have less power are better at. At the same time, being forced to forgive is horrible. Being told that your anger is not justified, its wrong. What worries me is this all nothing. I think sometimes, you know, it will take people time to forgive people should have the time. To cancel implies never. It implies condemnation. Banishment forever and ever. A lot of people are asking me what about me to and meet two problems. When do we forgive people who have been charged with sexually harassing or assaulting others. It is way too early to talk about forgiveness. Weve only recently began to recognize the harm. So many who have been accused denied that they have done anything wrong. We are not in the forgiveness plan. We need anger. We also need forgiveness. For some of the men who have been implicated in the me to movement, in some instances, suffered consequences and other instances have gone into prestigious appointment. How should we feel about, lets say, a Supreme Court justice who has been the subject of me to allegations. What he or should he be welcomed to be a judge at at a law School Competition . I bet your school has struggled with that one. A lot of schools around the country are. I guess that i do believe that, not to talk about any particular case, when people acknowledge that they have either done wrong or if they claimed they did not do wrong, they condemned the wrong that is being described, maybe there is a chance to bring them back into a place of honor. That can often take a long, long time. A pardon is a power that the president has that comes from the divine kings, but a much better history of it in that chapter of the book. This idea that the leader, the head of state, should be able to forgive in a legal way. How did that start . Thanks for the kind words. There are others who study it and know much more than i do. I was fascinated to learn that the founders of the United States saw the pardon power of the united kings entrance. It in many ways to be a power given to the president. One of the few unchecked powers. The other branches on the president s power to forgive. The only exceptions, one is explicit, only forgiving federal crimes. Cannot forgive state crimes. The president cannot forgive in cases of impeachment. I assume include his own impeachment as well as impeachment of others. Does that also mean the president camp pardon himself . It is not mentioned. The arguments go go both ways. Maybe he can pardon himself for crimes. I think that violates an unwritten norm that no person can be the judge in his own case and would be viewed widely as a legitimate the framers actually endorse that feel that no one should be the judge in his own case or her own case. They also have the view that the pardon power for the president could be a kind of check on the judiciary. The criminal Justice System has worked his whole way through. All things considered, factors that would warrant letting go of schmidt or condemnation. Maybe after someone has served their sentence or when they have done other service to the society or in one instance, risky rebellion where would be better for everybody to let bygones be bygones. When president gerald ford offered an amnesty to people who resisted the draft during the vietnam era, a way to try to say lets put that chapter behind us. What about when president gerald ford offered a pardon to Richard Nixon. Im old enough to remember i was really mad. I thought it was wrong. Many others at the time thought that it was wrong. Ford himself thought that nixon was giving up the presidency and that he would be punished for the rest of his life that way. It would be better to turn the page for the country. At the time, there was concern that there was a trade. Had nixon set i will step down, you can be president , if you pardon me. If so, that would be really troubling. I dont believe that that is what happened. Lost in the shrouds of history. I do think now looking back with decades intervening, it was better for the country. Why is that . One concern is that pardoning Richard Nixon makes him look above the law. The surreal tv shows where they do the alternative history. What if nixon had not been pardoned. What if he had been charged with a crime, just like some of his cabinet officers were. And he was made to suffer the consequences. Always true with alternative history. We can speculate. It may have been just fine then good. It may have helped them understand the principles. You do not spy on the opposing party. Other kinds of conduct that they were charged with. Especially when youre talking about about a whole society or large groups. The risk of creating cycles of vengeance and revenge. We have put a period on that. He lost the presidency. Now we are moving. Ford had some things he wanted to do. He didnt want to still fight over what nixon had done. I can see a value of that. The same way after the transition to democracy, truth and Reconciliation Commission came up with a kind of amnesty. Lets put that behind us and start a new chapter in our country. One of the things i found really fascinating was finding forgiveness. You talked about indebted in the bankruptcy laws. Now the partisan power of the president. How is that worked out . Lets talk about President Trump who was the first parted of his career. His first pardon was to sheriff of arizona. It was a pardon not for an ordinary crime. It was a pardon for persistent violation of civil rights and then being held in contempt of court for continuing those same acts that were found to violate the law. To pardon him, it seems to me, was unpardonable. Really. Unjustifiable. For many reasons. It looked like payback to a Campaign Supporter because he was an earlier supporter of then candidate trump. Another reason was it was basically a slap in the face to the legal system. Not only is it okay to violate the civil rights laws, it was a slap in the face of the judiciary. The judiciary Holding Someone in contempt. Not the only time that President Trump has actually sneered at judges and said he does not respect the socalled judges, was one of his phrases. The world of law is what makes us great. The use of this to undermine the rule of law is inexcusable. One of the problems we have in this country right now is we do not even come up with the way to talk about pardon the loud and when not. Who should be excused and when not. I would love to hear from you on just that issue. Often your name comes up in the context of Supreme Court appointments. You have a couple colleagues running for president of the United States. Who would you pardon . [laughter] oh gosh. I have honestly never thought about that. I am very interested to see some new governors. Governor newsom in california. Governor in illinois. Something i would want to do as well. Both of them have exercised the governors pardon power to pardon individuals that are not undocumented immigrants. Now at risk of being deported under the current policy that treat the year fact of being undocumented as a crime. In the case of he forgave a man who had served in the u. S. Military and then he was charged with a drug offense and he was convicted as he served his sentence. At that point, he was pardoned. That seemed like a good use of the pardon power, to me. He paid his dues in multiple ways. Should not now face deportation. What about your former student . Barack obama. How did he do, in terms terms of pardon . I am very proud of my more recent students who approached me and said, could we ask president obama to write something for the harvard law review. I said i think he is a little busy. He could have a statement about what he tried to do in criminal justice. He wrote an article and published it about how he used the pardon power among other tools to try to deal with the discrepancies. When the congress changed and reduced the sentence or the use of crack cocaine which had been a different sentence compared to other forms. People were already convicted and serving time. He used the pardon power to allow people who had already served, the amount of time that the new sentence would have provided for. I think that he had the problem of finding it was too slow and he did not pardon as many people as he wanted. You compare it with President Trump who does not have any process at all. Whatever reality tv star has talked to him most recently will influence. I rather have a system that is more rule like and careful. That is what president obama did. Some people think it was too careful. More significantly, he started to lay. He served for eight years. He did not start this process until well into the second term. I pardon a whole lot of people. Think about the issue of mass incarceration. 2. 3 Million People imprisoned in jails. Why not just start with, you know, 100,000. Lets thousand. Lets make that our object. The way in which we incarcerate people, for a long time, when they have no violent offenses, no other country does that. That would be a place to start as well. The president only has the ability to pardon federal crimes most people suffering from mass incarceration are dealing with state crimes here. Early in your story career it was a tremendous honor. He was my hero. One of the major reasons i went to law school. I did not know him. I became a lawyer because i was inspired by his career. I see him as an avenger. Do you have an idea about where he would be on this forgiveness thing . I think that you are very right about that when it comes to injustice. I remember as a law clerk going to him and saying, a complaint that was dismissed because it was outside the statute of limitations. It was such a compelling issue or maybe it was filed too late. Allowing this claim to be heard. He said if we change the rule, they will not be there for us when we want the rules. That affected me so deeply i taught for years and years and years. A sense of injustice, that inspired me to go to law school. It inspired me to teach for almost 40 years. I think at the same time when it comes to the inequities of the legal system or to recognizing that people have turned their life around, he could be very forgiving. The only justice in recent memory who actually served as a defense lawyer in the criminal Justice System. He understood the life circumstances of so many people that get caught up in crime in a way that i wish more judges did. We talked about the amber geiger case. The former Police Officer who was convicted of murder for killing a man inside his own home. She got 10 years. The case involving parents who cheated, gamed the system in order to get their kids into elite schools, some of those folks have gotten what appeared to be low sentences. I think among some folks that have concerns about racial justice, uncertainty about how to respond. The problem is, a black person, a latino, probably would not get the benefit of that. And then your question is, should we hate on the fact that these white folks are getting these benefits . Or should we say thats great, but everybody should get that. The law is not going to change until white folks have to suffer the same kind of consequences that people of color do. I think that that is an argument against. The way the law changes here is when people, white folks, people in power, are concerned about what is happening to them. There is a lot of power in that approach. I guess i do think that the inequities of the legal system that really justifiably proved his trust should be front and center for any of us who care about teaching law, improving law. I also feel strongly that the discussion of forgiveness needs jurisprudence. While we, as individuals, should be free who to forgive and when we want, if the legal system use these tools, it should do so in a way that reflects the rule of law. One of my favorite cartoons shows a judge with a very big nose and a big mustache looking down. He says, obviously, i am i am not guilty. This is a danger of human beings we have bias and prejudice. We should be held to account. Are we acting on those or are we applying fairly and the sense of , letting the swimmer in stanford off as a judge did for Sexual Assault because a judge said he has such a Brilliant Future ahead of them. What about the others who the judge does not recognize as having a Brilliant Future. That is bad. That is wrong. It is emotional when we think about the law exercising mercy. It is also emotional when we think of arguments against forgiveness or why in some context it might be hard to forgive. Something happened to you that, for me, it would be tough to deal with. You are the recipient of a prize, one of the most prestigious awards in academia. Some student interrupts the ceremony. They call you out. That would be tough for me to forgive. It was not the most comfortable. Of a moment of my life. I understood that the student activists were not really focusing on me. They were using a moment of visibility the same way. People that are sympathetic to a cause and they become the subject of harsh criticism. You know, i just think that when students violate school rules, they should have consequences. This was not a violation of school rules. An interruption of ceremony. I was happy to then listen to them. It was not fun. It was not fun. Forgiveness does not necessarily have to be easy. No. Forgiveness takes hard work. I am not very forgiving. I drive in boston. Who can be forgiving. It is an important part of asserting our own selfrespect. I also think having a Bigger Picture of what is this for, who is this about, how are we moving forward. Every major has come up with ways to deal with harms and violations that are not just always applying the rules. They also include forgiveness. The ancient athens, jubilee in the bible. Coming up with methods to forgive. To let people that were incarcerated free. Let people that were enslaved to be free. Sometimes when i was reading the book i almost detected a spiritual vibe. I think thats fair. I am jewish. We just had the most significant holiday in our year where we ask atonement. We apologize to people around us for wrongs that we have done. It is certainly been a big part of my life. I was fascinated to find the role of forgiveness and really every religion. Buddhism. All kinds of christianity. There is a deep commitment to cultivating what is a Human Capacity, but it does take work. Ink about children that dont know how to apologize. I think we need to teach people how do you apologize and take responsibility. It takes work and learning to learn to apologize. I think it takes work and learning to forgive. An apology, a prerequisite of forgiveness . In my book, it certainly it certainly helps enormously. Yes. You tell Amazing Stories and some hard cases. One of the ones has to do with an immigrant who wanted to become a citizen. This was in the 1940s. As part of his naturalization, he committed an unspeakable act. Tells about that case. His name was lewis. He had five children. One of which was born with such severe disabilities that he was basically like an infant. Cannot speak, feed himself or take care of any of his bodily needs. At some point he took him and put this child to death. Unspeakable. Every life in my view is a life of dignity. This is absolutely inexcusable. He was charged with a crime. He was convicted. But it is interesting that in the criminal action that preceded the activity, the jury recommended utmost clemency to the judge. The judge in turn suspended the sentence. Those were elements of forgiveness built into the legal system. The jury recommending and the judge responding. Then we have the second part of the immigration process. The law then and now says the demonstration of good moral character for the five years is required. They filed for citizenship. Such that this act fell within the fiveyear period. While. That itself is like another kind of forgiveness that the legal system creates. After this certain time period, we do not look back. What should happen . A fascinating effort by the court of appeals for the second quart is to say we dont know what to do and what he did was wrong, should we put it to moral experts, we dont know. We will dismiss the case without prejudice, allowing him to refile in the future. Another kind of forgiveness. We are ending here, i said at the beginning that barack obama said that you changed his life. This is your 25th book. I dont know. [laughter] wow. What is the impact you hope this book has . I really do want to encourage discussions about how this country and people around the world can draw on the very best of Human Capacity rather than the worst. And the legal system i have devoted my life to it and the idea of justice. The legal system itself makes mistakes and should be able to draw on the best of Human Experience in the best includes the capacity to forgive. I hope the criminal Justice Reform community in this country is tapping into that sentiment. Coalitions that otherwise do not agree on anything else. I hope that we can learn to see that the start of new page practice can teach us something in criminal law where we are so punitive that even people that served their sentences have these collateral consequences of their crimes. Not allowed to vote in many places. Not allowed to have a professional license. Not allowed to keep their children. Not allowed to get housing in certain places. I think enough is enough and we should find ways to acknowledge forgiveness. I think it will have the impact for go great talking to you. Wonderful questions wonderful to be here for go great talking to you. Wonderful questions wonderful to be here