Words, martha winow questions whether forgiveness and amnesties can strengthen the american Justice System. She is interviewed by georgetown law professor and former federal prosecutor paul butler. After words, weekly Interview Program with relevant guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. All after words programs are also available as podcasts. To disclosure, you and i you are my law professor at harvard and you taught me family law and you were to go on for being a lowly assistant professor to a storied career not culminating but along the way you were the dean of Harvard Law School but you are my favorite law professor. Im not alone in that. In 2008 the junior senator from illinois was a man named barack obama and he said when i was at harvard will school i had a teacher who changed my life. Guest it is such a delight to be here and i have learned so much from you so thank you for doing this. Host i love the book because it has your voice, compassionate, brilliant, wise, grounded and provocative. How did you come during this legendary career from access to the highest legal power to writing a book about forgiveness . Guest i wrote a book about 20 years ago about responses to mass violence. At that time the Affiliation Commission in south africa had started and i was so intrigued by the development of a new Legal Institution to deal with really horrific violence and oppression. I wrote a book, finding an alternative to these two different responses of horrific acts and since that time people have said to me between why cant a lot itself forgive . It nags at me and that led me to write this book. Host law does forgive at times, you give examples of how right now the law can be forgiving. Guest one of the most fundamental commitments to western law is treating rules and whatever forgiveness is, that is not what it is but actually, whether it is bankruptcy rules that allow the forgiveness of debt where the pardon power given to the president of the United States and governors, we have explicit devices, some that are less wellknown in the kernel field, you are an expert, expungement of records and even the expression the prosecutor has not to go forward is a kind of forgiveness. Host i was discussion of all of those, lets talk about each of them, the idea that bankruptcy is the kind of forgiveness. We have that word forgiveness but you almost invests it with a redemptive quality, which i found rich and provocative. I want to start by thinking about limits to forgiveness. You Say Something seem unforgivable. I they . Guest it helps to start by defining forgiveness and i define it as letting go of justified we are not in the land of forgiveness if we are talking about charges or disputes where there isnt justified blame. If we are dealing with justified forgiveness i guess i do think that we need to acknowledge the law is imperfect, people are imperfect and at times letting go of even justified blame is better for everybody, better for society, it is often much better even for the one who has been harmed not to carry the grudge around. For the legal system we are not dealing with emotion so much but we have mass incarceration, we have swung the Justice System so far in the punitive direction it makes me think about a time for a reset. Host i agree with you about mass incarceration but there are situations where vengeance seems appropriate. In 2015, in south carolina, a man named dylan proof was welcomed into a prayer circle. Now is the whole world knows he was a white supremacist terrorist and he murdered nine people. Some of the family members talked about forgiveness. How should we feel about this . Guest i do have a kind of astonishment. I did at the time when family members at arraignment in the sentencing hearing said that they for gave dylan roof, not something i could imagine doing and nothing i think 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 this society but i do think those individuals were acting out of a religious belief and for them it was the right thing to do. In my own analysis, personal forgiveness has nothing to do with what the law should do and in this instance where dylan roof committed absolutely inexcusable act, hateful act and has never shown contrition, to the contrary, he has been boastful about what he did, there is no place for forgiveness in the legal system because he has violated the trust of everyone. Host there is a sense sometimes that africanamerican people or women or lgbt people to be forgiving when we are confronted with justifiable grievances and it might be different from white folks are heterosexual people or men. Guest 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 in the highest position of power in society, then it is the one who is not and we need to be vigilant about that and concerned about it and at the same time i admire the 18yearold brother of the murder victim killed by amber guyger, the 18yearold brother said after the sentencing i forgive you, that is something to admire. It comes out of his religious belief but should be no lesser sentence in my own view for the conduct. Guest when the judge stepped down from the bench and hugged amber guyger, sentenced to ten years in prison, the judge said that she hugged amber guyger because she after 2. Guest i was more troubled by that. The judge has a position as an officer of the law. She didnt do anything wrong in the sense of the trial was over, the sentencing was over but she was wearing her robe and whatever her personal feelings were i think they belong outside the courtroom. Host that is not a paradigm for the kind of forgiveness the law should emphasize. Why not . Host guest it seems like interpersonal relationships. Im interested in when law it self, the exercise of charges or exacting a sanction, when that seems, even though it is warranted, there are good reasons to let it go. This is a good example. Host you start by thinking about two different sets of kids, children who have been forced to fight in wars often overseas, exploited in other ways, children mainly in the United States who get charged and are guilty of serious offenses. How should forgiveness work in that context . Guest we lawyers always use comparison. It has always been striking since i worked in International Human rights to see how soldiers are discussed and treated in International Law and there are people who are abducted or coerced or volunteered to join Armed Conflict and many commit terrible acts, murder, rape, they include other children there is the question if the conflict ends what to do about those people. In the International Context the approach taken by the law is those most responsible should be punished, the adults who recruited them should be punished and the International Criminal court has no authority to go after people who joined the conflict when they were children and instead internationally while it is left to each nation there has been a trend toward talking about reconciliation and rehabilitation and services. I contrast that with the treatment across this country of young people drawn into conflicts whether it is drugrelated or gang related and we have a punitive and a way of talking about predators is in no context, no knowledge of the adult who created the world in which they are drawn into the best option is to be in the drug trade, where the schools are not offering a real opportunity and we dont talk about the adults who are responsible and instead despite the origins of the court is a place that was supposed to be more forgiving and more rehabilitative. We have made it a place that treats young people just like adults either automatically transferring them to adult course or levying sanctions for conduct no other country in the world does so i think we can learn from that example and i think in both contexts coming up with an alternative like a Truth Commission where young people have a chance to account for what they did, to admit it, to talk about it, to grieve themselves, find a path to forgive themselves but also to reinvest in them so they have a chance to join society and be constructive participants. Guest when you think of the legal response to children should be forgiveness doesnt mean they shouldnt be held accountable. Guest absolutely right. Talking with former child soldiers, former gang members, the first ones who are blaming themselves, who know they did something wrong, there are some where young people are not held responsible and they feel adrift so to have the chance to say yes, there were norms, i violated them and looking forward what do i do . Host when you talk about that some children are coerced into going into that kind of terrorism, other children do it voluntarily. Should the law treat that differently those two sets of children . Guest it is something the law has tended to treat very differently. The continuum of coercion to voluntariness is more salient even with children than it is adults, present for all of us. When we say someone volunteered under what circumstances, what choices so understanding the context matters a lot. In my view, actually, more relevant is whether people acknowledge they did something wrong and wants to make amends. Im very affected by brian stevensons comments, the great civil rights lawyer who says no one should be judged by the worst moment in their life and i think there is more of a will spring of sympathy when we think about young people who have decades ahead of them and we should tap into that. Host in criminal law we talk about the idea that when somebody causes harm there should be consequences and one of the purposes of those consequences is for everyone else, if you make mistakes, if you commit a crime you will be punished, the idea is to stop other people from committing those crimes so in the context of children since they are more vulnerable and more exploitable if there are not consequences are you concerned about deterrence . Guest i am and im concerned about education generally but there are studies that show keeping larger and larger sentences dont actually deter young people from participating in criminal activities and it may be thinking longterm is not the strong suit of a lot of adolescents and so the response that the law should take to deterrence should be that no two people are and what it took to educate them and we talk about specific deterrence to that individual in general deterrence but other people, what can they learn and again i think showing that there is a path forward is not going to undermine the recognition that it is shameful to have violated the norms of society. Host a lot of our understanding of children making mistakes is informed by science including research you talk about the childrens brains take a long time to develop and now they are not fully developed until they are around 25. For guys, for men, male brains take longer than female brains. But 25. It seems you are getting up there. At the same time, in response to this evidence, some force thinking about dealing with folks who commit crimes including updates when you thought were different from alder thoughts. How do you feel about this . Host it is time for the law to take greater note of developments in neuroscience and certainly it was that evidence that affected the Supreme Courts decision about life without parole. I think that it is relevant to what schools do and can do. Increasing numbers of high schools in the United States have shifted their disciplinary process to one that is participatory with other peers who actually can arrange Restorative Justice processes and make it an educational experience for everybody where those who have injured another actually have to be accountable come up with a plan what to do and to hear what the impact of their actions are on others and fold it into the educational experience. That takes account of the science of the developmental phases that young people are at. Host my mom is a former secondgrade teacher who retired from teaching almost 25 years in Chicago Public schools, she can be hard on kids and that is true of a lot of teachers of especially elementary and high school teachers. In some ways they developed Higher Expectations of them but another part is just about rules so in the criminal law, one idea is the purpose of criminal law is to impose a minimum set of standards that everybody gets to follow no matter who you are, dont kill, dont sexually assault, dont steal and the idea, that is part of your responsibility as a citizen and if you dont obey those minimum standards you should be punished. Guest there should be consequences and the law, every society has come up with rules of that nature and there should be consequences that are known by everyone and applied fairly and evenly. They are not always applied fairly and evenly. I think the disregard and distrust of the legal system is another factor to take into serious account. A teacher who is tough like your mother is usually very well regarded by the students because they have high expectations. They are expressing a belief in the capacity of young people to actually live up to those rules. A legal system that is inconsistent doesnt turn that kind of trust and when we dont have people trusting the legal system it cant operate, police dont get the information they need, dont get the help from the community about who actually was to blame and so in part the call for forgiveness is a way to say that is one way we earn trust with one another. Host you mentioned inconsistency and your book suggests in some ways when you talk about forgiveness of children who have committed crimes, that is a harder case to make that seems unfamiliar but we talk about forgiveness of debt, people think about that and the law should treat us differently. Guest we talk about the word forgiveness when we talk about debt. Back in history there was a similar moral view about failing to pay a creditor that we have about violating a criminal norm, debtors prison for example, ultimately rules unconstitutional by the Supreme Court although we have new forms of debtors prison now when people cannot pay fines imposed by the legal system itself, over time we have seen in the United States a fascinating evolution when it comes to bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is present in the United States constitution. Congress is given power under the constitution to enact a National Bankruptcy law and this is in no small way just traceable to Thomas Jefferson was himself in that much of his life and he also developed a kind of political theory about it, one generation should not burn the next with debt. The creation of a National Bankruptcy law has in many peoples via been associated with our traditional entrepreneurship and Second Chances for those who start a business and it doesnt work. We have business bankruptcy, personal bankruptcy and there is the same possibility for individuals to start over. Consequences for any assets people have have to be made available to help pay off the debt and also the loss of a Credit Rating, people take ten years, Companies May take a long time to build their Credit Rating will be charged higher interest but what we do is allow people to turn the page and start over rather than be so buried by debt that they can never get out of it and i do think there is a reason that the United States has a tradition of innovation and risktaking that is the envy of many parts of the world and the Bankruptcy Law is part of that. Host it is part of why the United States is a leader in technology, really interesting idea. You talk about legislation that exempts norm. Host treating some loans differently than others seems to undermine basic fairness, here to put the problem when we have a situation right now where we have forprofit schools that have failed because they have not delivered quality education, schools themselves can declare bankruptcy. The young people who took out the loans cannot and that seems really unfair in my mind. The nature of the exemption is a political process and those who were able to get Student Loans exempted, that is relatively recent american Bankruptcy Law. We can change it. I think we should change it, there have been programs, administrative programs to allow Debt Forgiveness for young people. The Current Administration is cutting back on those programs. It seems counterproductive. We should be investing in young people. Host people say the students knew what they were signing up for, you got to pay, life is tough, i know ive got to pay it. Guest oftentimes, the participation in a problem is more than one person. Those who made these loans contributed to the problem. The people who say the myth of these forprofit schools would lead to a job, regulators who failed to make sure the schools deliver on a promise set the problem and if we talk about people with Student Loans who want to good schools, the economy is in trouble, again it is not entirely their fault so recognizing concentric circles of responsibility, another reason why law should forgive and find moments we need to accommodate competing interests, bankruptcies says we have many creditors, not everybody will get paid 100 but we can spread what is available so everybody gets some of the money that is available. Host are you worried about people exploiting the system . Guest is a concern, it is called moral hazard. It developed the context of insurance. You know your insurance, your willing to take more of a risk. How do we make sure people actually internalize and think hard about the risk they are taking . This is a concern but i also think it is wrong to put all the responsible it on one actor, often the one with the least ability to take into account all the considerations. They are to be thinking hard about who they loan to, i talk in the chapter about problems that have sovereign debt and maybe they took on too much debt and a government system the took on death that was not for the people but also creditors were taking advantage of people who were in such need to. There is a perfect situation where we play Something Like this to be able to develop as accommodation. Host Big International money funds or mortgage, we take risks and one reason we take risks guy giving people mortgages by the regular criteria, some developing countries loans is because we know there is a guarantee that we are going to get our money back and there is not that guarantee and we will not be willing to take those risks and we will end up hurting the folks we are concerned about. Guest it is fascinating that when Nelson Mandela became head of south africa many people said you should refuse to pay the International Debt taken on by the apartheid government and he and his advisers decided they would go ahead and pay because they didnt want to lose the credit standing. Those are choices for the country to explore and i can admire that. I can also see when a country has taken on debt, individuals have taken on debt they cant find a way out of it. South africa as troubled as it was coming out of apartheid had resources and was able to find a way to pay the debt and other countries are decades and decades without any sign of hope. Host what should happen in your ideal world, the staggering debt a lot of developing countries have now, what should the legal responsibility . Guest we dont have an interNational Bankruptcy system. Instead basically ad hoc bankruptcy has developed with institutions like the International Monetary fund. We could more helpfully come up with an International Agreement for a structure that is in place for when it is needed rather than trying to scramble and it should set the kind of parameters that discourage creditors as well as countries from taking on debt everyone knows will never be repaid and come up with the process for principal repayment negotiations if there are unexpected challenges like a rogue financial crisis. Host you teach constitutional law. Im impressed by your knowledge of Bankruptcy Law and International Trade law. How did you learn all this . Guest i was still the dean of the school when i thought about how you get what of the subject of debt and i remembered my students have debt, the school has debt. It was after the financial crisis in this country everybody was dealing with debt and if we are lucky what law offers us is a skeleton key that we can use to learn the tools to deal with the challenges as they arrive. Host you are working the key. I want to talk about another form of forgiveness that you write about pardons but before we get to that lets talk about this moment in american history. There is this idea of cancel culture which is, especially on the internet when someone does something twitter just judges is wrong that person gets canceled. How should we feel about that . How do you feel about that . Guest i am worried about it. Human beings have the capacity to forgive and that is how we live with each other. Cancel culture is the opposite of that. It is quick to condemn and to condemn forever. It is very fascinating to me that every, every religion, every philosophy has developed a sect of forgiveness and Human Capacity to acknowledge the imperfections we all have and one of the challenges we, living in the internet age have is we dont have a 3dimensional experience of looking someone in the eye, seeing the affect of our conduct on the other person. Imagining what if i were that person. Cancel culture is a feature of the internet society. Some people say it is about righteous anger and im wondering what is the relationship between anger and forgiveness . That you forgive someone and be angry at them at the same time as does forgiveness require that . It is the wellspring of the sense of injustice. Anger is a very important emotion and it is a clue when we are angry that we should say what does angry mean . There often is an injustice in each of us should have the dignity and selfrespect to demand the right kind of treatment but if the anger swelled out of control and prevents us from having relationships with other human beings, that trying to actually live a life. It is striking to me that caretta scott king was asked how can you forgive people, the anger will kill me. It is a resource often have less power are better at the same time, being forced to forgive is horrible, being told your anger is not justified is wrong when it is justified. Was worries me is this all or nothing. Sometimes it will take people time to forgive and people should have the time. Cancel culture implies never. It implies condemnation, banishment forever and ever. A lot of people ask me what about me too . And me too problems and when to we forgive people who charge us with assaulting others. In my own view, way too early as a society to talk about forgiveness, we have only recently started to recognize the harm, so many accused dean i they have done that, and so we are in the world of acknowledging wrong we are not in forgiveness so we need anchor but also forgiveness. Some of the men who have been implicated. In some instances of consequences have gone on to procedures prestigious appointment. How should we feel about a Supreme Court justice who has been the subject of me too allegations, would hear should he be welcome to a core competition . Guest your school has struggled with that when it law schools around the country, i guess i do believe not to talk about any particular case, when people acknowledge they have done wrong, they are charged with the wrong that is being described, to give them back into a place of honor that can take a long long time. Host pardon, there is a power the president has that comes from the divine right of kings but you do a much better history of his, how does this idea that the head of state should be able to forgive in a legal way. How did that start . Guest thanks for the kind words. Others who study it, i was fascinated to learn thousands in the United States on the pardon power of kings and transmuted it in many ways, power given to the president , unchecked powers, other branches on the president s power to forgive, the only exceptions, the president can only forgive federal crimes, cannot forgive state crimes and one is explicit, the president cannot forgive, quote, in cases of impeachment which i assume includes his own impeachment as well as impeachment of others. Host that means he cant pardon himself . Guest it is not mentioned and arguments go both ways. There is one exception and no other exception, maybe he can pardon himself or 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 illegitimate. Framers endorsed the view that no one should be the judge in his own case or her own case. They also had the view that the pardon power for the president could be a kind of check on the judiciary. When the, Justice System has worked its whole way through there may be, all things considered, factors that would warrant letting go of punishment or condemnation after someone served their sentence or shown contrition or when they have done over service to society or the whiskey rebellion, it would be better for everybody to say let by gones be by gones. When gerald ford entered im the steep to people who resisted the drafter in the vietnam era. There was a way to try to say lets put the chapter behind us. Host what about when gerald ford pardoned Richard Nixon . Guest im old enough to remember i was really mad. They thought it was wrong but ford himself thought nixon was giving up the presidency, he would be punished for the rest of his life that way and would be better to turn the page for the country. Next and said to forward i will step down, you can be president if you pardon me, that would be really troubling. I dont believe that is what happens. Who knows, shrouds of history but looking back with decades intervening it was better for the country. Guest host one concern is pardoning Richard Nixon innocence made him look above the law. If we can do one of the surreal tv shows where they have done the alternative of history, what if nixon had not been pardoned, what if he had been charged with a crime like some of his cabinet officers were and he was made to suffer the consequences . Guest with alternative history we can speculate. Might have been fine and good and helps the country underscore the principles, the opposing party, or other kinds of conduct that he and his compatriots were charged with but at the same time especially when you are talking about a whole society or large group there is the risk of creating cycles of vengeance and revenge. And say this is done. We have to period on that. We lost the presidency and now we are moving forward. He didnt want to spend the whole time still fighting over what nixon had done when he had known or hadnt known, i can see the value of that. The same way after the transition to democracy, the apartheid, truth and Reconciliation Commission came up with the commission on amnesty, lets put that behind us and start a new chapter in our country. Host one of the things i found fascinating about your book is the way you excavate the constitution to find forgiveness, how it is embedded in the bankruptcy clause and now in the pardon power of the president. How has that worked out . Lets talk about donald trump who was the first pardon of his career . I think it is unpardonable, to sheriff arpaio , not for an ordinary crime but 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 and to pardon him seems to me was unpardonable, really unjustifiable for many reasons. One was it looked like payback to a campaign supported because he was an earlier supporter of than candidate trump. Another reason was it basically is a slap in the face to the legal system, not only is it okay to violate civil rights laws but it is okay to persistently violate them and it was a slap in the face to the judiciary where the judiciary is Holding Someone in contempt. 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 that is that we dont come up with a way to talk about, when pardons are loud and when not, who should be excused and when not. Host i would love to hear from you on just that issue. Often your name comes up in the context of Supreme Court appointments picky that a couple of colleagues. I havent heard you talk about thathe but who would president martha minow pardon . Guest oh, gosh. Ive honestly never thought about that although im very interested to see some new governors, governor newson in california, Governor Pritzker in illinois do something that a think i would want to do as well, in both of them have exercised the governors pardon power to pardon individuals who are not undocumented immigrants, not at risk of being deported under the current policies that treat the sheer fact of being undocumented as the crime. And in the case of Governor Pritzker, he gave a man who had served in the u. S. Military and then he was charged with the drug offense and he was convicted and he served his sentence. And at that point he was pardoned. That seemed like a good use of the pardon power to me. Someone who actually shown he paid his dues, in multiple ways, and shouldnt now face deportation. Host what about your former student, barack obama . How did he do in terms of pardons . Guest im very proud of my own more recent students who approached me and said could we ask president obama to write something for the harvard law w review . And iime said, hes a little bu. They said no, he could have a statement but what hes try to do with criminal justice. So we did. He wrote an article and published it about how he used the pardon power among other tools to try to do with the discrepancies, for example, when the congress changed and reduced the sentence for the use of crack cocaine which had been a disparate sentence compared other forms of cocaine. People had been convicted and were serving time and to use the pardon power to allow people out who would already served the amount of time that the new sentence would have provided for. I think that he had the problem of finding that the pardon process as he developed it was too slow, and he didnt pardon as many people as he wanted. You compare it with President Trump who doesnt have any process at all. U it seems to be whatever reality tv star has talked to my most recent is going to influence. Id rather have a system that is more like an careful, and thats what president m obama did. Host some people think its too careful. Guest it probably was. More significantly, he started too late. He served for eight years. He didnt start this process until well into f the second te. Host if i were president i would pardon a whole lot of people here if we think about the issue of mass incarceration, 2. 3 Million People in prisons and jails. As president why not just start with 100,000, lets make that our objective. Guest i do think that the way in which we incarcerate people for a long time, when they would have no violent offenses, no other country does that. That would be a place to start as well. But again the president only has the ability to pardon federal crimes, and most people who are suffering from mass incarceration are dealing with state crimes. Thats why governors matter. Host so early in your storied career Justice Thurgood marshall. You clerk for him. Guest he was one of the to laweasons i went school, i dont think of him as a particularly forgiving person. I didnt know s when. I became a lower in part because i was inspired by his career. But i see them as an avenger, as someone of righteous anger. Do you have an idea about where he would be on this forgiveness thing . Guest i think you are very right about that in when it comes to injustice, and i remember as a law clerk going to him and saying, theres a complaint that was dismissed because it was outside the statute of limitations, but it was such a compelling issue, or maybe it was filed too late. Shouldnt we create an exception to allow this claim to be heard . And he said, if we change the rules, they wont be there for us when we want the rules. That affected me so deeply. I thought civil procedure for years and years andhe years. Again, a sense of righteous indignation, the sense of injustice, that inspired me to go to law school, inspired me to teach law for almost 30 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. I think hes the only justice in recent memory will actuallyn served as a defense lawyer in the criminal Justice System, and he understood the life circumstances so many people who get caught up in crime, in a way that i wish more judges did. Host you talked about the amber geiger case. Shes the former Police Officer who was convicted of murder for killing a man inside his own home. She got ten years. And the case involving parents who cheated, gained the system in order to get the kids into elite schools, some of those folks have gotten what appeared to be low sentences, four weeks. And i think among some folks who have concerns about racial justice, theres a uncertainty about how torn respond. Some people think those are appropriate sentences, but the problem is that a black person, a latino, probably wouldnt get the benefit of that kind of mercy. And then the question is, should we hate, 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. Someone if there is the law is not going too change until white folks have to suffer the same kind of consequences that people of color do. In a sense i think thats an argument against forgiveness. Its an argument that the way the law changes here is when people, white folks, people in power, are concerned about stuff happening to them. Guest theres a lot of power in that, in that approach. I guess i do think that the inequities of the legal system that really justifiably produce this trust should be front and center for any of us who care about teaching law, improving law. And they also i also feel stone that the discussion of forgiveness needs a jurisprudence. Si because while we as individuals should be free to decide who to forgive and when and how, however we want, its the legal system that we use these terms under tools, whether bankruptcy or pardon, it should do away treating the like, being evenhanded. What of my favorite cartoons from the new yorker shows a judge with a very big nose and a big mustache looking at at at the fitted was the same nose and say mustache and is obviously not guilty. This is the danger of human beings that we have biases and prejudices. And we should be held to account. Account. Ill be acting on those, or are we applying fairly, and the sense of, you know, leading the swimmer in stanford off lightly as a judge did for Sexual Assault because the judge says he is such a Brilliant Future ahead of him. What aboutid the others who the judge doesnt recognize as having a Brilliant Future ahead of them . Thats bad. Thats wrong. Host so its emotional when we think about the law exercising mercy. They could do it in a moving way. Its also emotional when we think of arguments against forgiveness are what in some context it might be hard to forgive. Something happened to you that for me it would be tough to deal with. B you are the recipient of the joseph glitter prize, one of the most prestigious awards in academic to get. Its at Brandeis University where you are accepting the award, and some Student Activist interrupts the ceremony. They call you out. That would be tough for me to forgive. Guest it was not the most comfortable period, moment of my life. But i understood that the Student Activists were not really focusing on meager they were using a moment of some visibility the same way that is often the case when there are people who are sympathetic to a cause and they become the subject of harsh criticism. You know, i do think that when students violate school rules they should have consequences. This was not a violation of schoolen rules. It was an interruption of the ceremony. I was happy to then listen to them and give them their chance. Host you make it seem easy. Guest it was not fun. Host and forgiveness, forgiveness doesnt message of have to be easy or its not easy. Guest no. I think forgiveness takes hard work. Im not very forgiving. I drive in boston. Who could be forgiving . And i do think that anger and a sense of being wrong is an important part of asserting our own selfrespect. What i also think having a Bigger Picture of what its for, who this is about, how do we move forward,s every major civilization has come up with ways to deal with harms and violations that are not w just always applying the rules. They also includede forgiveness. Thee ancient athens, jubilee and the bible, robberies code, coming up with methods to forgive to let people who incarcerated free, to let people who were enslaved be free. Host sometimes what is reading the book i almost detected a spiritual by the. Is that fair . Guest i think its fair. I think its fair. Im jewish we have just had most significant holiday in our year which is yom kippur we ask atonement. We apologize to people around us for once we have done. Its really been a big part of my life but in the research for this book i was fascinated to find the role of forgiveness in really every religion, buddhism, all kinds of christianity. Theres a deep commitment to cultivating what is a Human Capacity but it does take work. Think about children who dont know how to apologize. I think we need to teach people how do you apologize and take responsibility. Its that apology if you say well, if anyones heard. Thats not an apology. Just as it takes work and learning to learn to apologize i think it takes work and learning to forgive. And an apology a prerequisite of forgiveness . Guest in my book it certainly helps enormously, yes. Host so you tell Amazing Stories and some hard cases in the book. One of the ones that moved me the most has to do with an immigrant who wanted to become a citizen. This was in the 1940s. And as part of his naturalization hearing, its revealed that he committed an unspeakable act. Guest i heinous crime. Host tell us about that case. Guest his name was luis, and he had ive children, one of whom was born with such severe disabilities that theory basically was like an infant. He couldnt speak, can feed himself or take care of any of his bodily needs. And at some point louis took chloroform and put this child to death. D its unspeakable. Someone who spent a lot of my life working on the rights of people with disabilities, every life in. My view is a life of dignity. This is absolutely inexcusable. He was charged with a crime and he was convicted. But its interesting that in that criminal action that preceded the immigration activity, the jury recommended utmost clemency to the judge. And the judge in turn suspended the sentence. So those were elements of forgiveness into the legal system. The jury recommending, the judge responding. And then we had this second process, the immigration process here the law then as now says that demonstration of good moral character for the prior five years is n required. Louis or his lawyer made a mistake, when a file for this actip such that fell within the fiveyear period, two more weeks it would not have. Host wow. Guest that its up as another kind of forgiveness, but the legal system creates that assessed that is after certain time period we dont look back. Host . So what should happen in that immigration case . Fascinating effort by the court of appeals for the Second Circuit was to say, well, we dont know what to do and what he did was wrong, and should we put two more experts . We dont know so were going to dismiss the case without prejudice, allowing him to refile in the future. Another kind of forgiveness. Host wow. So we are ending here. I said at the beginning that barack obama said that you changed his life. This is your 25th book . Guest i dont know. Host wow. Whats the impact that you hope this book has . Guest i really do want to encourage discussions about how this country and the people around the world can draw on the very best of human capacities rather than the worst. And the legal system i have devoted my life to it, and the idea of justice, but 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 that the criminal Justice Reform movement in this country is tapping into that sentiment, building coalitions that otherwise dont agree on i anything else. And i hope we can learn to see that the start a new page, practice in the bankruptcy area could teach us something in criminal law that we are so punitive that even people who have served their sentences have these collateral consequences of their crimes, not about to vote him in places, not allowed to have a professional license, not allowed to keep their i childre, not allowed to get housing in certain a places. I think that enough is enough and we should find ways to acknowledge forgiveness. S. We are in perfect as human beings. The law is in perfect. Great apes actually engaged in rituals of forgiveness after their conflict. This is a capacity that we have and we should draw on it. Host youve written a book where you talk about child soldiers, student debt, issues of pardon power by some president s. A book that manages to be optimistic and inspiring. Guest thank you. Host i think it will have the impact that you hope it will. Great talking to you. Guest great talking to you. Wonderful questions. Wonderful to see you. Host thank you. This program is available as a podcast. All after words programs can be viewed on our website at booktv. Org. You you are watching a specil edition of booktv now airing during the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight, america at war