Ladoris thank you very much for talking to me about her honor. The first is that i had left the bench and had time to reflect on everything that had happened on my 20 years on the bench. The second is that during the last eight years i was on the bench, im not sure what started it, i began writing letters every friday to my parents. These are real letters. Not emails. I was writing letters for everything that happened that week. I would write on friday afternoon. If youre a trial judge, friday afternoons are light because youre planning the following week. After i retired, i went back east and i am outside of philadelphia. I visited my parents and my mother says to me. She pulls this walks out she is a very organized woman. She said what do you want me to do with these . She had kept everyone of my letters that i had written for nearly eight years once a week. I was stunned. I will take them and box them up and mailed them back here. It took me a few years to sit down and read them. I was stunned by how much work i had done. How many cases i had heard and i did not remember them until i started reading these letters. That was something that said maybe, there is something here when i started looking at all the cases i had handled. The final thing was basically, it happened during the recall of aaron persky. I ended up by default being a spokesperson for him and against the recall. I was stunned by how and elect educated electorate. I am in silicon valley. Generally, there are very well educated. I would talk about in context of the recall, Judicial Independence and how judges should not be swayed by popular opinion. The responses i got were either what is Judicial Independence or that is just a cover. It is judges circling the wagon. Or i dont care about Judicial Independence. All these things that came together and you know what, people dont generally understand what it is. Trial judges do. I saw this book as a vehicle to do it. So i look at this book as a printer and a memoir. I have a mixed genre called a primoire. I wanted to educate and entertain. I have interesting war stories in it. And also energize. Energize judges, voters and everyone because everyone at some point in their lives will be impacted by state Trial Court Judges. Those were my reasons for writing this. Susan in the 1980s, there were no africanamerican judges. 40 years later, how is diversity in the court system . Ladoris i was the first africanamerican female in Northern California when i was appointed by jerry brown in 1982. It was lonely out there. There were other black female judges in california but not all in all of Northern California until i came along. Today, everything has dramatically changed. In part due to jerry brown. Even back in the 80s, he began the process of revolutionizing the judicial intel in california and by then i mean appointing women, people of color, folks who were gay. He really changed things. Then governors that came after him were more conservative and reversed it all. Today, however we have a situation across the country where it is not unusual at all to see women and judges of color on the bench. Can we do better . I think we can do a lot better. It is just not unusual. Back in the day when i started, it was highly unusual. If you turn on your tv and you see these judge shows, it is not unusual to see women and judges of color everywhere. It is really becoming more commonplace for people of color, women to be on the bench. I believe we can do better. Susan what has increased diversity done to the system . Ladoris the whole premise is you believe you have a stake in the system if you see people who look like you. Who maybe have your background. I think that is sure of i think that is true of anything. Any system at all. It is particularly true of the judiciary. If you are a litigant, if you see people in black robes who look like you, you are more willing to trust the system, believe in it. You believe you have a steak and it. As well as when you have judges who reflect the people coming into the court. That is judges who come from workingclass backgrounds, judges of color, women, judges who are gay. There is more empathy great there is a sense of ok, i will not stereotype you because you come into my court you are not just as well as others who come into my court. I will not stereotype you. By that, there are judges who stereotype that is consciously but is unconsciously biased and we do it because were not thinking about it. It is kind of baked into our whole life experience. The more diverse, the better, i think the system functions for everyone from judges into the people in front of judges. Susan after you left the bench in 2001, you spent five years in san jose as an independent police auditor. How is your combined experience on the bench and with the policing system impacted your thinking about the country current debate the country is having about Police Reform . Ladoris i spent five years as the independent auditor for san jose. They are the 10th largest city in the u. S. That was an eyeopener. For five years, i interacted with the Police Department on a daily basis. It really came to understand how Police Departments function and also the kinds of things that need to be done to start to build trust between police and members of the community. San jose has a very ethnically diverse population. When i finished that experience, i had a different understanding of policing. Where i am today, given also by the way when i was on the bench for 20 years, there were plenty of Police Officers who testified in my court and a majority of the cases i presided over. Although, not exclusively were criminal cases. So where i am today, if my view on Police Reform is one that is not shared by lots of people. Some people think and believe that you know, if we just tweak things. If we give police more training. Things will be better. I dont believe that at all. There has to be drastic changes made in policing to get us to a place where all of us can feel safe. By that, i also mean Police Officers. Let me give you a quick example. Policing is really all about making traffic stops. That is what most Police Officers do. They ride around and if they see there is a problem, and i say problem if they see a taillight is out. If they see a license plate that is out or they see a traffic signal somebody put on, that gives them a reason to stop people. Particularly, in urban settings but not exclusively, they are not interested in the fact that you did not have your traffic signal on. They are not interested. They want to have a reason to stop you. And then engage into conversation and then search your car. The u. S. Supreme court has said that is just fine. You can make these kinds of stops. It doesnt matter that that is not really what you are interested in. I think what has to change is the very nature of policing has to change. We need to take that role out of policing. They should investigate crimes. But i think traffic stops are major problems. They disproportionately focus on people of color. And on poor people. There are other things to deal that deal with policing. I think for example, the u. S. Supreme court has given what i call superpowers to police to do these kinds of things. That is, for example, police are allowed to live. Lie. They can lie to people they stop and say they had someone who saw you do x or we have your fingerprints or we have your dna. They are allowed to do that because the Supreme Court says that is ok. Just giving you a kind of surface sense of where i am in policing. The combination of being on the bench, listening to Police Officers and then working with them, not with them but overseeing them, has led me to conclude that we need to make drastic changes in policing in this country. One other issue i want to bring up is the use of the word which i think is inaccurate of police unions. They are not unions. In fact, Police Organizations do not call themselves unions. They call themselves associations and brotherhoods or benevolent societies. They dont call themselves unions because they are not. Unions are groups of workers who care about all workers. That is not what Police Organizations are. They are called fraternities. They oppose any reforms. Any. I dont care how small, how eggs insignificant they may seem. They oppose them all. What they do, metaphorically, they circle the wagon and they dont want any kind of oversight or anybody telling them what they should do. I am a strong supporter of unions. Ive never crossed a picket line and never will. They are not unions and it is a misnomer to call them that. Susan staying with that issue, the Supreme Court ruled on two cases regarding qualified immunity for police. They supported it in both instances. That is doing with Police Officers accused of using Excessive Force. Interestingly, there were unsigned decisions and know the sense. What is your take away . Ladoris we are on the same page. Qualified immunity is basically talking about civil protections. Civil liability protections. That is, if an officer is accused or found to have engaged in Excessive Force and you want to sue them for imposing that Excessive Force on you, qualified immunity them ability limits the ability to do that. You can see but you cannot hold that officer individually liable. Qualified immunity was invented by the Supreme Court. They made it up. Since then, it is the law of the land. I have issues with it. I believe that if the Supreme Court stands by it then it is up to the states individually to take steps to do away with qualified immunity. It is interesting. There is no other profession that has that doctrine applied to it. You can look at other professions where people can be harmed. Whether it is the medical professions, dentistry, there is no qualified immunity but for police, the Supreme Court has decided that we ought to do that. I think that it is wrong. I hope that people will continue to push to change it. Susan fbi crime support stats says that murder rate rose by 30 . Largest increase on record. There are 21,500 murders in 2020 or 6. 5 per 100,000 people in the u. S. Aggravated assault rose 12 . We have seen reactions and in cities across the country. What is your estimation of the best way communities should respond to stats like this and the reality of increased crimes in their community . Ladoris one thing happening now is that there has been a reversal. Since the murder of george floyd, there have been protests about Police Reforms and to reduce the presence of police in communities. Once these statistics came out, in many cities, many communities, there has been a 180 where people say nope, we want to increase funding for police. We need more police because these crime rates are going up. I understand that. I get it. It is not for me to say to a particular community that you are wrong. I wont ever say that. We got to pull back and think why these crime rates are rising. Crime rates dont rise in areas where people are comfortable. Where people are able to basically have their Living Standards are such that they can pay their rents or mortgages. That they feel good about themselves. What is happening in communities is that for a lot of reasons, we have people who are unhappy with their station in life. Many people feel they dont have a stake in communities anymore. It is not a new thing. It is based a lot on economics and on class. And a lot on how police have been acting with respect to people of color, communities of color. There are a lot of things. I dont think there is one solution. We do however, in your question is the answer that we have to turn to communities to make sure we are listening and understanding what it is they want. There are just a lot of factors. There isnt any one answer. I wish they had the magic tilt pill to say this is exactly what we should do. There are a lot of things going on here. The first step is to find out why people are so unhappy and why these things are going on and try to address it and any number of ways. Susan you referenced your parents outside of philadelphia. What was your path from ardmore, pennsylvania to Stanford Law School . Ladoris my story does indeed start with my parents and even before them. On my mothers side, my greatgrandparents were enslaved. I am not clear in what state they were enslaved. After emancipation, they ended up in North Carolina. That is where my mother and her two siblings were born. Not in a hospital because they did not permit black people. She was born in her house. And there was a midwife. They came up in the great migration. In 1939 or 1940 and came up from North Carolina to pennsylvania. Eventually, lived outside of philadelphia. That is where my sisters and i. I am in the middle. We were born and raised there. My parents made it very clear , they are working class folks. They ran a drycleaning does business and a black community. We lived just outside what is called the mainline. It is a suburb of philadelphia and it is where there is a lot of old money wealth, the dupont, the heinz family. The black community in which i was raised provided service for the wealthy community. Both of my grandmothers were the help. There were other members in my family. One was a chauffeur. They provided services for folks of wealth from the mainline. We lived in a community that was a black community but because of the district and county lines were drawn, i went to Public Schools that were predominantly white and very good schools. There were a handful of black students in the Public Schools i attended and they were very good schools. My parents expected all of us to do well. So we did well. They also made it clear that we were all going to go to college and we did. I ended up going to college in ohio at Antioch College which was a terrific experience for me. It has a coop problem that allowed me to leave the campus. The students had to. Every three months, you had to leave and be in the world. My experience, the first coop i had the experience being in college, three years, 17 years old, i went to the mississippi delta. And i set up a tutoring center in meyers ville, mississippi. We are talking 1967. Schools were just beginning to be integrated. We are talking from 1954, brown versus the board of education. Here i am 1967, black students started going to school with white students. It basically was that my parents, the expectations from them for us was that we would go to college. My sisters went on to graduate school. I ended up coming to california to go to law school here. At stanford. There had not been any lawyers in my family before but i kind of rolled things out. I majored in spanish. I lived in mexico and studied at a university. I came back from that experience, seeing Racial Discrimination in mexico where indigenous darker skinned folks were in the bottom and where the help and were not treated well. I just came back frustrated and decided to change my major and ended up in a theater major in drama and speech which was just great preparation for the law. I say that because i ended up being a litigator. I loved being in the courtroom and the object of the litigator is to persuade. Persuade jurors or to persuade a judge. If you are having just a court trial. Theater is all about persuading your audience. When i ended up becoming a judge, we are talking about theater because i am the producer, director, right . Everybody does what i do. If they are told to sit down and they speak when i tell them to and they stop talking when i tell them to stop talking and it is on me to make decisions in many instances. That was really the road i traveled. My sisters traveled in terms of their also going on to college and graduate school. Law school for me was a rule out. Math and sciences were not my strong suit. I ended up going into law. Law became my passion. It still is my passion. Susan you tell the story about the phone call that changed your life. The suggestion that you can you might serve as a judge for one day. Could you tell that to our audience . Ladoris i would love to. There are some things that some states have that is called a judge pro tem program. It means in latin, for the time. It means judge for a day. It is a way at least in my court, where lawyers would get phone calls. I got a phone call from a judge who said we have a judge pro tem program and im trying to make it more diverse and have people of color participate. Would you like to be a judge for a day . Can i put you on a list . My answer was sure. I had never thought about being a judge. I never thought i could wear the black robe. These cases were small claims cases. People were suing each other and at the time, the maximum limit was 5,000. In california, you can suits sue somebody in Small Claims Court for up to 10,000. One day, a few months later, i get the phone call. Your name has come up on the list. Can you be a judge for a date . Sure. I go to this court which i was working at the time as an assistant at Stanford Law School. I get my car. I drive south to a courthouse and they hand me a robe. I get a file and i go into a courtroom. I preside over my first case. I am reluctant to tell people what the case is about. I would love for people to read it. All i can say is after that case, i knew that this is what i wanted to do. I loved wearing a robe and making decisions. This is a bit of a teaser. The case that got me into judging was all about hair. Like hair, hair. Susan [laughter] well see if that encourages sales if they want to read about the hair story. You also mixed chapters of your own experience and prescriptions from the 20 years of experience for how you might effectively change the system for the better. I want to dig into a few of those. The group of sixes that have to do with selection and training of judges. You suggest there needs to be more Clinical Training about judging in law school. Would you explain . Ladoris sure. Thank you for bringing this up. The next to last chapter is called the fix. I propose 10 ways we can make our legal system better. I believe it is broken in many ways. If you think about judging, judges come from lawyers. You had to have been a lawyer before you can be a judge. In california, you must be a lawyer for 10 years to then become a judge. If the pool from which lawyers come from, they are trained in law school. Not one law school in the country has any kind of a program or training for judging. Which, i think is highly unusual. For example, if you look in germany, they have training specifically if you want to be a judge. That is your role. If you decide you want to go that route, that is the training. In this country, there is none. Literally, you can be a lawyer and practice law for tens 10 years. It means you are not in court, hardly at all. You get to decide if you want to be a judge. You can apply or you can run for a seat depending on what is available and you can be a judge and be handed a robe and here you are, going to court and you will preside over family court and decides who gets custody of a kid. All your legal career, all you have done is handle contracts. I think that is appalling. I think the first set of ability to train should start in law school. We should expose people, students who are thinking that i might want to be a judge someday to do that. I proposed in the fix that there should be Clinical Training in and by clinical, i mean handson. It is not a lecture. You are actually doing judging. I dont just make this up. I actually did it. In my last year on the bench, i had this idea that i went to a nearby law school and i interested students and said would you like to preside over small claims cases. I set second share with them. I got permission from litigants and the students actually, individually presided over a case. It was an eyeopening experience for them. They learned a lot. I can see the changes happening with the students who want to listen and make decisions about peoples lives. That is what i suggest in the book. I hope law schools will pick up on this and we can start a movement. And bring judging to law schools. Susan do you happen to know susan do you happen to know if they became judges . Ladoris it is too soon to tell. When i created the program, it was at 2001 or the end of 2000. 10 years out, some of them might. I havent followed up on them. If i say around 20122013. You have given me a great idea to follow up and find out if they are. At this point, i dont know if they have. Susan he referenced the election of judges. Explained to our audience that electing them was the norm before hand but you said it does not work for the citizenry today. Why not . Ladoris judicial elections are controlled by special Interest Groups who have a lot of money. Judicial elections are all about campaigning, all about raising money, all about getting tv ads. Radio ads and it all takes money. What has happened with the Supreme Courts around our states. There is a federal system where we have a court with nine judges and then we have our state court judges and the focused on trial judges but there are about 30,000 Trial Court Judges and then there are appellate judges who review decisions that judges make and states have their own Supreme Courts which are the ultimate deciders except in new your, it is called the court of appeal and the spin courts are your trial courts. There are races now, very partisan races for state Supreme Court seats. That means people who want to be on the Supreme Courts aligned themselves and you see they and usually they become very political. They are either conservatives supporting them, liberals supporting other candidates and the money starts to pour in. You have these people running for the seats, making promises about what they will or will not do. They are acting like politicians. Judges are not politicians. That line has become blurred. It is very dangerous. If you look at our democracy we have three pillars. We have legislative executives and the Judicial Branch. The Judicial Branch is independent. It cannot be and must not be political. That is what is happening now. My concern is with these judicial elections, they become politicized. People with the most money when. Win. That is not what i believe people who thought about crating a judiciary in this country. Back in the day, i didnt think it would happen. I think we need to pull back. I dont believe in or support these judicial elections and believe me, i know of what i speak. I write in the speak that i was elected. At first, i was elected and i wanted to move up and i ran and i won. That doesnt mean it was the best system. I think there should be merit commissions that should evaluate judges. Or evaluate candidates that want to be judges and people who want to be judges, they should have tryouts. They should have auditions. They should be required to preside over small claims cases. V. A. Judge pro tem. Ba be a judge pro tem. They ought to be scrutinized in that fashion. That is not what is done today at all. Susan what about judicial accountability . You have two proposals. More transparent Disciplinary Proceedings and a limit to judicial recalls. Let me start with the recalls. You reference earlier being involved in the campaign to recall the california judge aaron persky. We have a clip of him in 2018. At a rally during that recall campaign. I would like to have you explain what your concern is over judicial recall. [video clip] someday, you may be on the right side of the law and the wrong side of Public Opinion. When you step into a courtroom before a judge, you will expect, you will reflect and demand a judge who will follow the rule of law. Who will tune out Public Opinion because they must. They must to preserve our system of justice. Susan i dont know if we should dwell on the particulars of the case so much as a concern about the recall process. Ladoris the recall, specifically around him was all about Judicial Independence. That is what it is all about. The other people, people who wanted him out were framing it like oh, this is a bad judge and we dont like decisions he made. That was all a smokescreen. What was really happening was a attack on an attack on Judicial Independence. They made a lawful decision that was controversial in sentencing brock turner. Some people did not like it. It was lawful. As a result of that, the judge was recalled. During that campaign, i spoke out because they could not speak out because the rules at the time were that if there was a pending case, a judge could not talk about it ever. There had to be surrogates. I ended up being one of the surrogates and the main one in promoting his cause which was to say he did nothing wrong. You might disagree with it but that is not how our judiciaries should function in that they dont like what a judge said or how a judge ruled, albeit lawfully. The judge should go. That is not an independent judiciary. We can hold judges accountable. I am not opposed to recalls at all. I am opposed to recalls that say i dont like what the judge did and want them thrown out but it was lawful. I think recalls are fine. If a judge has engaged in malfeasance. If a judge has committed a crime, engaged in misconduct, the public should have a right to hold the judge accountable and not wait and do a recall. There are at least two states that have that rule that state judicial recalls can only happen for those reasons and not when a judge does something lawful or where a judge has exercised their discretion and then something bend something that is lawful. That should be the role in every state and federal judges can never be recalled. They are appointed for life and they can never be recalled. This is only applied within and among the states. Judges can be held accountable without recalls. Our decisions can be appealed. They are appealed and that is what Appellate Courts can tell us. They cant reverse our decisions and say we were wrong and that is not good. And when their terms are up, at that time, their tenure at the bench can be reviewed it should be reviewed by commissions and who have appeared in front of those judges to evaluate and say whether or not they should continue on for another term. Judges serve for a term of six years. Im talking about Trial Court Judges. In that time, judges can decide i have had enough i am done. Or they can stay on for another term in which case, in california, any lawyer who has been a lawyer for 10 years can run against that judge. Your term is up and i want your seat and can run. There are sometimes, where the timing is such that they cannot run because the law said so. In which case, it is left for the governor to appoint. There are many ways. Those are the kind of voice to kinds of ways to hold them accountable. I think recalls that allow judges to be removed because of, i dont like what they did. Albeit, a lawful decision. That has no place if we want an independent judiciary. Susan one of the earliest chapters in your book has to do with juvenile justice system. You write that over time, it has become increasingly punitive. What are the trends you are seeing . Ladoris thank you for raising this issue. Juvenile courts were established specifically for juveniles to say they can be redeemed. They can be rehabilitated if they have engaged in some sort of criminal behavior. It was not about punishment. It was about how can we get them on the right track . Over the years, that has changed where the system has become more punitive. The trend now really the result of black lives matter and after George Floyds death, people have looked at the criminal legal system and i hesitate to call it a criminal justice system. Theres are so many things about it that are not just. The ideas we are working to get there. There are many things in our criminal legal system that we are now looking at. One of them is in the Juvenile Court system. For example, prosecutors have been very not hesitant at all to try juveniles as adults or to charge gang enhancements, all kinds of things that takes them out of the juvenile system and puts them in the adult system. I write in the book that i want the focus to get back to more away from being punitive and dealing with juveniles. I think with rare exception, there is hope for every kid that comes into the juvenile system. Admittedly, there may be some very very rare exception where they are so messed up that there is no hope. It is so destructive. But that is just so rare. In my time in the Juvenile Court for a few years is i believe in redemption. That doesnt mean oh, let us look the other way and let us be soft on everybody. That is not what i am saying. Our primary goal is to look at rehabilitation and redemption. I believe that should be in adult court but we got different kinds of behavior that we have to look at. If we are just talking about Juvenile Court then yes, we must move away from the direction we have been going in which is to be more punitive and look at redemption and rehabilitation. Susan the set you share is that there are 2700 inmates who were 17 or younger at the time of the crimes who are serving lifetime without parole. Brian stevenson speaking after sullivan v florida which had to do with juvenile punishment and whether a nonhomicidal offense can be sentenced to life without parole. It us listen. [video clip] to say any child of 13 that you are only fit to die in prison is cruel. We believe that the constitution prohibits that kind of punishment and if the court should enforce that in this case and in the grand case. We are very hopeful that we can create a just prudence that the sense of children ration its rationally and appropriately, some have to be punished and sent to prison but we dont believe any child of 13 should be condemned to die in prison. Susan what did sullivan v florida due to the system . Ladoris as a result of that case and remember, he was talking about, these are juveniles who who are sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for nonhomicidal conduct. They did not engage in murder. The court has said you cannot basically agreed with brian stevenson. You cannot sentence them to life without possibility of parole for nonhomicidal conduct. That is what brian advocated for and that should be the case. What do we have though . We have a system here where judges have the discretion to sentence juveniles tried as adults to life without the possibility of parole. Where they have committed murders. I believe that is a problem. There should not be that discretion. In my view no juvenile should ever be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Today, judges still have that discretion. Susan one of the stories that you tell is about a 16yearold whose trial was in your court. This has to do with the felony murder rule. You call for a reform of it. What does reform of this role as report, 45 states follow the felony murder role. What does it entail . Ladoris felony murder says any person who is engaged in conduct that results in the death of someone is basically as culpable as the person who actually caused the death. To be more specific, the case i described in the book is a 15yearold girl who was in a gang but they had no history of violence. What they decided to do was they wanted to leave and go to southern california. They decided to rip off someone they knew, a friend. Steel their event and go to steal their van and go to california. She was a part of this group. She was not present when they told this person out of the van and ended up stabbing him and killing him and leaving him for dead. She was not there. She was out getting her clothes from her parents house to joint them to run away. She knew they would take the van but she had no notion that anybody would be killed. When she gets back, this guy is dead, they jump in the van and off they go. They are caught shortly thereafter. Everyone, those who were engaged in the stabbing were charred charged with murder and tried in adult court she was tried in Juvenile Court for the murder. She was deemed to be just as culpable as the people who actually did the stabbing. She was not there. She had no idea that anybody would be killed. She didnt even know that anybody had a knife and yet, under the federal murder role, she could be and was charged with the murder of this young man at her trial was for me in before me in Juvenile Court. Juvenile courts, there is no jury. It is just me presiding over the case. In the book, i write about my decision in the case. As a result, it is my view that it should be abolished. That young girl was not a murderer. And yet, because of the felony murderer rule labeled her as such. She is not a murderer. Some states, california is one of them, recently said that we need to stop that. We will only look at those actually engaged in the murder, charge them with that and not use the felony murder role. World. Rule. That should be the case throughout the country. Susan speaking of trials by juries, there is another big trial in the news right now. Jury selection is underway for the trial. Would you explain more . Ladoris i would give you one example. First of all, juries are just so important. If we are going to have a system that works for everyone. I believe in our jury system. I have a chapter in the book about juries. And about things like jury selection and jury compensation. I actually make some recommendations where jurors are dramatically and drastically underpaid. For example, and california, jurors are paid 15 a day to do an amazing civic duty. I think that is reprehensible and we need to change that. As we get to the actual trials, one of the main things happening in the Ahmaud Arbery case right now is jury selection. One of the key things in jury selection are things called peremptory challenges. Each side, prosecution and defense, im just talking about criminal cases because they are used in civil cases where people are suing each other. Let me get back to criminal cases. In the Ahmaud Arbery case, each side is entitled to a certain number of peremptory challenges. You can say i dont want them on the jury and you can say i can request them to be dismissed and you dont have to give a reason. Her injuries are peremptory you get a certain number of them. If it turns out for example that it has happened quite a bit around trials in the country. If theyre using these challenges to dismiss only people of color, lets just say black people. Finally, the defense can say to the judge, judge think there is a problem here. The prosecutor has dismissed three black jurors and theres only a handful of them in the pool. That is racism. That prosecutor should be held to explain why. At that point, the judge is required to ask what is your reason for using that challenge . That is when a reason should be given. Generally the rule is, if the prosecutor gives a race neutral answer, it is up to the judge to decide if that is legitimate or not that is generally what happens. They will get a race neutral answer. It would Say Something like they didnt give me good eye contact or they looked angry. Maybe he doesnt like me. That is why. Race neutral. Angry. Or that juror wore some jeans today and had a tshirt it looked like maybe he wasnt really respectful of the process. Race neutral. It is up to the judge to decide that. Is that legitimate or not . In most instances, judges rubberstamp whatever is eight a race neutral response is. There are problems with that. If you can give any kind of an answer and still get rid of only one group of jurors that say all black jurors or or all latinx jurors, there is a problem. Theyre looking at these challenges and saying that should work or they are saying you can have them but judges need to be more proactive and dig deeper into finding out really, what is going on and making decisions about whether in fact that his race neutral. I want to note that Thurgood Marshall was on the Supreme Court said that he was quite clear. He said her injury challenges peremptory challenges are awful. They really just promote racism in trials and they should be done away with entirely. People are now looking at this issue. In california, recently, the governor signed a Racial Justice act which puts the burden on judges to really look at these issues and hold hearings. Stop the trial and hold hearings to determine what is going on when lets say, the defense says there is a pattern of using these challenges to get rid of a Certain Group or class of people. Susan one other big topic to put before you. That is on the prison system. You describe it as mass incarceration mass. The u. S. Sentencing project reports there are 2 Million People in the prisons and jail which is a 500 percent increase over the last 40 years. 20 of those years, you served as a judge. What is happening in the u. S. . Ladoris i think mass incarceration, which is disproportionately impacted people of color, is the result of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Also known as three strikes laws. These are laws that do not give any discretion to judges and a basically give all the power to prosecutors. Prosecutors decide whether or not to charge people with crimes. They can decide what type of charges to bring. They can decide we can charge you with a crime where it is a strike, meaning if you are convicted of this, the judges will have no discretion. You will go to prison for 25 years to life. These mandatory minimum sentencing are basically take all the authority away from judges and how to sentence people. Basically, sentencing is subjective. Judges, we are told to look at certain rules. Look at the victim. Look what happened to the victim here. If there is a victim in a case. There are victimless crimes, also look at the defendant. Do they have a prior criminal history . Does the defendant what kind of upbringing do they have . How remorseful are that . They . There are all these individual factors we are to look at as judges when we sentence. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws take away that discretion. They just pay all defendants paint them with the same brush. It doesnt matter what the background is. When it was in its heyday in california, that would be in the late 90s. There are three strikes laws in many other states. There were all the power was taken away from judges. Once jurors juries or defendants pled guilty, they went to jail. It is up to prosecutors to use these were disproportionately used against people of color and poor people. As a result, you have people serving long time and sometimes life sentences in prison for crimes that involve thrift theft or drugs. In its heyday in california, the vast majority of defendants serving under the three strikes law, serving life sentences were there for nonserious, nonviolent crimes. We end up now with this mess mass incarceration due to mandatory minimum sentences. The reform of these criminal laws, what we are seeing is a trend moving away from these mandatory minimums. I hope that that continues. My concern is that as crime rates go up, you may see a return to this. I know that that does not solve the problem. In fact, studies have been done where states that did not have mandatory minimums and those that did, there was no difference really in crime rates. These mandatory minimums really dont do anything to bring down crime rates in these various states. Susan you write in your book about the fact that you use to cartoon a bit on the bench. If one goes to your website, you can find numerous examples. We want to show a little bit of it. How did that hobby come about . What were you trying to illustrate about life on the bench . Ladoris i started drawing, i have always drawn as a kid. I did a lot of sidewalk chalk drawings at our house. I always liked to draw. Ive also done serious artwork that is on my website as well. When i get on the bench, here i am and i will tell you that judging is not always exciting. Sometimes, you preside over a drunk driving trial. You know what will happen. Its up to the jurors, really. I am paying attention but i am doodling. I did a lot of doodling at the bench. I started also drawing these cartoons. I got an idea about what if i may be draw some legal cartoons and make fun of the legal system. Im not the first to do it. A french artist, cartoonist, satirist made fun of the judiciary in france at you have and you have charles bragg, fabulous cartoonist who made fun of the medical profession and the legal profession. Nothing new. I like cartooning. I started making what i call my legal cartoons. It is just making fun of things legal, but also using legal terms. I have one cartoon where i drew a judge and he is smiling. It is a cartoon of a judge smiling and he is holding up a bottle of liquor. The legal term is take the fifth right . Take the fifth . Those are the kind of things. Very concrete terms that i try to make fun of or lampoon in cartoons. I ended up deciding to actually make these color cartoons and donated them to nonprofits that represented kids. They use these cartoons in calendars and sold them and made a decent amount of money for these nonprofits. I donated them to help make money. Susan you spent your professional life in the law. You also spent some time as an assistant dean at Stanford Law School and administration there. If you look at the cost of law school versus inflation, it has risen, outpaced the inflation in the u. S. And the profession of law is changing. If a young person came to you today and said im trying to decide about law school, how would you advise them . Ladoris i would say find a law school that offers a loan repayment program. There are law school such as stanford and there are others that say come to law school. Yes, it is expensive but if you go into Public Service, if you are a lawyer for nonprofit it if or if you become a public defender. If you become a prosecutor and you want to work on Environmental Justice issues, we will pay all of your loans. All you have to do is do that work for five years. Your loans are gone. Yes, law school is too expensive. There are very good state schools that are law schools. They still are expensive. You will come out with debt unless you are fortunate to have a full fellowship or full scholarship. What i want to say to law schools is that every law school should have a loan repayment program. You go to your alums, raising money, you have a pool of money so you can bring in, especially young people who know they dont have the resolve to pay for law dont have the wherewithal to pay for Law School Education and know that they dont want to be settled with hundreds of thousands of loans because you do come out with sixfigure loans is that give them a way to unload that debt and also, it is a way to encourage lawyers to go into Public Service. There are jobs for those who want to go into the corporate field, make a lot of money and pay off the loans. I think we need many more lawyers to go into Public Service and law schools can make that happen and ought to. Susan a blurb on the back of your book jacket says that you believe in the system. We are in an age where some people question whether or not the system works for them. Why do you believe in it . Ladoris i believe in it. Ive devoted my entire professional life to the legal profession. I do that because the principles on which our principles legal system was founded are the best in the world. Due process, right against selfincrimination, right to a jury trial. Those principles are absolutely fantastic, wonderful. We need them. They preserve our democracy. The problem has been in the implementation. What we must focus on is getting that implementation right. We can do that. I absolutely believe it is happening and i want those people, particularly people who read her honor to get honored energized. I believe in it. And i will believe in that system and keep fighting for it for as long as i can breathe. Susan what works, was broken and how to change it. Thank you for spending an hour with cspan. Ladoris thank you so much, susan. Paul q and a programs are available on our website or as a podcast all q a programs are available on our cspan now at. Pp. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more, including cox. Homework can be hard. That is why having to dial in for internet is harder. We are providing lower income students access to affordable internet so homework can just be homework. Cox along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. The house recently passed the democrats tax health care and Climate Change bill. 220207 on a partyline vote. Minority leader mccarthy, majority leader hoyer and Speaker Pelosi spoke on the house floor before the vote. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Mccarthy thank you, madam speaker. Today feels like a little deja vu. Feels like were sitting back, was it february of last year . America is on a brink, the world is warning the Majority Party if they follow through with more of their spending, they could create inflation in america. Wasnt just on our side of the aisle that warned you. No