>> the prosecutor has a higher duty than other attorneys. her duty is to seek justice, not simply to obtain convictions. as the american bar association notes, the prosecutor should seek to protect the innocent and convict the guilty, consider the interests of victims and witnesses and respect for constitutional and legal rights of all persons including suspects and defendants. needless to say, prosecutors play a vital and indispensable role in the fair interest administration of criminal law. as members of the executive branch at the local, state or federal level, they, like all other members of the executive branch, take an oath to support and defend the constitution and faithfully execute the law as written. they do not make laws. that duty falls on the legislative branch. for our purposes, road prosecutors are elected district attorneys who have been funded or inspired by george soros who buy into the idea that the entire criminal justice system is to its -- is systemically racist and needs to be dismantled. there are four common features to these road prosecutors. they usurp the constitutional role of the legislative branch by refusing -- [indiscernible] they abuse and misunderstand the role of the local prosecutor. -- violent -- [indiscernible] >> keep in mind the following facts. violent crime and incarcerations peaked in the early 1990's. both had declined dramatically as crime rates are the lowest they have been in decades until recently. incarceration rates are the lowest they have been in decades. this did not happen by accident. nor did it happen because of road prosecutor's policies. it happened because real prosecutors, democrats or republicans that follow the law and protect victims rights created -- and more. they are the real progressives. the road prosecutor movement started in 2014 with money from george soros to unseat three pro-death penalty elected da's. after removing those da's from office, they decided to expand their goals and geographical so -- scope young just unseating pro-death penalty da's but all da's who did not subscribe to their radical pro-criminal ideology. they realize that the da is the gatekeeper to the criminal justice system. she decides who gets prosecuted, who does not end what crimes to enforce. the movement first national candidate was kim fox in chicago who unseated the first democrat latina elected to office at the cook county da or states attorney. since then, the movement, funded by soros and others has provided the funding or inspiration for most of the road prosecutors across the country including well-known folks like larry krasner and philadelphia, mosby in baltimore, gardner in st. louis -- in san francisco and former boston da now massachusetts u.s. attorney rachael rollins. the movement is animated by two ideas. first, that the entire criminal justice system is systemically racist. second, the only way to remedy the situation is to come as one prominent left leaning professor wrote, reverse engineer and dismantle the criminal justice infrastructure. both claims lack merit. dismantling the criminal justice system infrastructure is dangerous, as recent violent crime statistics show. the sad irony of the road prosecutor movement is it causes most harm to the very people they claim to care the most about. minorities. in today's symposium, we will explore two unique aspects of this movement. first, how united states attorneys in cities with rogue prosecutors have carried out their duty to enforce the law. second, how the claims of the road prosecutor movement, mass incarceration over policing are false. how their policies affect real victims. hosting the first panel is my friend and heritage colleague and co-author zach smith. he is a legal fellow here at heritage. he previously served for several years as an assistant attorney in the northern district of florida. he spent two years at a major law firm here in washington. where he joined after clerking for the honorable emmett cox on the united states court of appeals for the 11th circuit. [applause] >> if our panelists can go ahead and join me on stage. thank you for the kind introduction. i am pleased to be joined onstage today by three distinguished guests. each of whom previously served as united states attorney. by way of background, there are 93 u.s. attorneys in the united states and each attorney is the chief federal law enforcement officer in his or her district. local district attorneys are charged with prosecuting state and local crimes. u.s. attorneys are charged with overseeing federal prosecution. traditionally, the local da's and u.s. attorneys offices have worked together to keep their communities safe. the recent wrinkle is the introduction of rogue prosecutors and many of our nations cities. our panelists will help us discover this phenomenon and how u.s. attorneys can do their jobs effectively even when the local da is a road prosecutor. to my left is andrew leveling, partner in the boston office of jones day. he served as the united states attorney in massachusetts from december, 2017 to february, 2021. andy was a federal prosecutor for 20 years and focused primarily on international drug trafficking and white-collar crime including securities fraud and international money laundering. to andy's left is aaron cox, partner in kirkland and ellis sand practices in the government regulatory and internal investigations group. she is the former u.s. attorney for the northern district of texas and was only the third female u.s. attorney in the district's 142 year history. in that role, she chaired the attorney general advisory group, a group of 15 u.s. attorneys selected by the attorney general to advise on national priority. she was only the eighth female to serve in that capacity. to aaron's leftist richard donoghue who currently practices at a major law firm in new york city and practices in the area of corporate -- and white-collar defense. rich served as the u.s. attorney in the eastern district of new york and served as the principal associate deputy general in the department of justice answered for a number of years as an army jack officer whose duties included -- prosecutor and defense counsel. thank you for joining us. since our time is short, i thought we would get right into it. one of the questions i have and i think many people have is, what can u.s. attorneys do to pick up the slack in many of these cities where rogue prosecutors have been elected and what can u.s. attorneys do to help combat the lack of prosecution and many of the cities and verizon violent crime? andy? >> i see this as moving on to -- two tracks. one is the rhetorical side something rogue prosecutors underestimate is the need to present a tough message about crime. it matters what officials say publicly about crime and the need for order and the need to reduce violence and drug use. on the technical side, u.s. attorney's can use the various federal statutes we've got to pick up the slack, literally. if you're watching cases proceed on the state level and you think cases are being dismissed that should not be, or charges are being brought that are too lenient, you can step in with a federal prosecution even before the state has resolved. this does not happen often. when it does happen, it really makes a statement both to the public and the local da that you are there watching and you are there to enforce what you think is the public interest, even if the local da is not willing to do that. >> you mentioned all of us served on the attorney general advisory committee. one of the things we did in the interest of the entire department was talked about the need to look at the local community and for u.s. attorneys across the country to understand the needs of their local community and where we felt like local district attorney was not stepping in. we were encouraging and supportive of the u.s. attorney to form stronger connections and ties with local and state authorities and step in where they could with federal charges. when we saw crime rates rising, where we sought a need for federal charges, the entire department was very supportive about that because we understood our single most important obligation as u.s. attorneys was to lead the effort to make community safer in this was one way we could make a significant impact. >> i agree fully with everything. to give a little bit of context, you need to understand how small we are versus our state colleagues. i had about 100 25 criminal prosecutors in the eastern district of new york which covered five counties. by comparison, there were probably 1400 or so state prosecutors in our jurisdiction. when you realize the difference in the workload and the difference in headcount, you have to be selective in what you pick. we do have a tremendously potent arsenal, particularly when it comes to crime drivers such as drugs and gangs. that apartment has long pursued projects such as project safe neighborhood, project trigger lock and other task force approaches where we look -- work very close with state and local law enforcement agencies, sometimes with the da, sometimes without. we are uniquely situated to be able to come in on the right cases and target the defendants who are the real drivers of crime numbers and remove them from the community. if we do that well, we can have an outsized impact on the crime rates in our communities even though we are small compared to the state. >> you mention federal prosecutors have potent tools in their arsenals. one of the things that would be helpful to discuss is what are the advantages to indicting someone federally versus the state? are they less likely to get released on bail? do they serve longer sentences? what are some of those tools and a prosecutor prasad arsenal they can use to effectively combat crime? >> just to touch on some highlights come up a new york perspective we have a debtor's bail system. it is really about pretrial confinement. there has been a lot of discussion in new york over what they call bail reform. in some sense it is a disassembling of the bail structure in new york. thankfully there has been public response we see in election results and otherwise. there are attempts now in albany to undo some of the damage that has been done but we do have a system where when you have a defendant in custody, you can bring them in front of the judge and the judge can consider everything that is relevant. the strength of the evidence, whether they are a flight risk, whether they are a danger to society. these are things that new york state judges have been specifically report -- precluded from considering. we have that advantage feared we also have an advantage of being able to charge racketeering offenses and larger conspiracy cases, which is typically the case in court. you can capture more criminal conduct and more participants in criminal conduct and we have more mandatory minimums and we have higher sentences. absolutely key in violent crime is when you get convicted in federal court then you are serving a federal sentence, you are going to be removed from the community. it is very likely you are going to be far from new york city. therefore it is not a situation where fellow gang members can take a short ride to visit you. there are a lot of advantages in the federal system prosecuting people but we have to be selective in who we target. >> i think two things i would add to that. number one on the issue of bail, and the federal system it is so important because federal prosecutors are the ones that moved to detain. we have the ability to assess that and we put on evidence. the judges make the decision. therefore when we encounter violent criminals, we feel like if they are a danger to the community or flight risk we have the obligation to move to detain. in texas that is not how it works. the only way the prosecutors can move to detain as after the initial determination. and for whatever reason, that's not happening. oftentimes defendants are being let out after having committed very violent crimes. this is another way the federal prosecutors are having to pick up slack, where -- is being let out after being charged with very violent crimes. you hear this a lot, this refrain from police, that they are completely demoralized by the fact that they are out arresting violent criminals and within 24 to 48 hours, the criminals are back on the street. how are they going to make any real impact in creating a safer community when they have done their jobs and get these criminals are not being detained. when there are federal charges, the feds do try to step in and moved to detain. most often we do get those criminals detained because we put on the evidence that they are a danger to the community. with respect to -- we tend to go quicker in the federal system for dark cases tend to get resolved either by guilty pleas or trials. we have less volume, we have the speedy trial act, so we cannot get our cases moving through the system faster than the state. >> the only thing i would add is a corollary. >> street-level gang members are pretty sophisticated in the difference between federal and state systems. if you keep in mind a view from the street, you see the potency you have of the federal side. the average gang member who gets arrested on a state charge knows he's probably going home that day. but if he is arrested federally he is much more likely to be detained. he is more likely to be convicted and more likely to go to prison on a mandatory minimum or some substantial period. once that person gets arrested, he never comes back. other people in the community see that and they know that, that on a federal charge, you're going to see him in five years. whereas on a state charge, you are going to see him for dinner. that has genuine value which the current crop of prosecutors don't really understand. they don't build that into their own calculations. >> to add to andy's point, victims know this as well. when you are in a community and you are trying to get people to cooperate with law enforcement, if they know that guy is good to be home for dinner, they are understandably not cooperating. there is a real fear that is well-founded where if he is detained prior to trial and they see people are removed from the community for significant periods of time, they feel safer in terms of cooperating with law enforcement. >> when prosecutors make announcements about the limitations they are putting on crimes, when they say we are not going to prosecute marijuana offenses if you have less than a trope or two ounces, that gets out on the streets very quickly. suddenly the police departments are not finding people with more than four ounces or two ounces, whatever the limitation has been publicly disclosed. it is absolutely something the street gangs are wise to. >> to piggyback on that, one of the things that many rogue prosecutors say is that they are not prosecuting what they have termed quality-of-life crimes. low-level drug offenses, theft below a certain level, so they say they can focus on more serious crime. i would be curious to get your perspective of that particularly because you said one of the benefits of being a federal prosecutor is to focus on the worst offenders. rich? >> quality-of-life crimes are important and it is a red herring to say we don't have the resources to enforce the more they are not worth enforcing or they have a disparate impact on minorities. i do not think any of those arguments withstand scrutiny. first of all, a lot of these quality-of-life crimes lead to larger things. we were talking earlier about how a lot of cases in new york city have been made starting with the turnstile jump. the guy who jumps the turnstile has a gun, the gun is linked to a murder. or he's got distribution quantities of drugs. those crimes matter. enforcement of those crimes matters and the police departments know it. they have seen it. we have historically driven crime down for 25 years. quality-of-life policing was a big part of that. now unfortunately in the last for years we are seeing the consequences of it. quality-of-life is -- and when these prosecutors wave the wand and say this entire class of crimes will not be enforced, again, it reduces their ability to effectively protect the community and also strips away legislative power and things of that sort. it really does damage the life of our citizens and the city day today because law-abiding citizens find themselves ceding the public wary of criminals because they have no choice. >> to play out a line, you take criminal sentencing that is fairly innocuous, say criminal trespass. we are not going to prosecute criminal trespass and you think it's not a big deal. what you have to play out is you from a business owner in a shopping center, now the police department is not going to persecute you for criminal trespass. you start having two or people showing up in the parking lot, nobody can shoot them away. now, 68 people show up. now they are playing dice. a few of them have guns, they're selling drugs, now you have a gang problem. and it all started because you couldn't call the police to get the people from hanging out in your parking lot. that is a criminal trespass, a very minor offense. without being able to prosecute that or even the deterrent effect of being able to call the police and have them threatened to arrest on that. you have shopping centers that have masses, open-air drug selling and it all started with the ability to gather and no ability to deter that. there's very little the feds can do about that. so you have this type of nonprosecution going on that just leads to bigger and bigger problems. >> to follow-up on that, one of the things we were talking about earlier was this idea of prosecutorial discretion. a lot of rogue da's are not prosecuting those crimes and saying they are using prosecutorial discretion. can you talk a little about why that is not a traditional understanding of prosecutorial discretion? >> prosecutorial discretion does not mean you get to, as a prosecutor, decide wholesale you're not going to prosecute certain crimes. it does not imbue a prosecutor with legislative authority. if a prosecutor has discretion on any case, given the fact to take the case were not. what i could not do as a u.s. attorney's say there's a whole class of federal crimes i just will not prosecute. importantly, here's a press conference to announce the crimes i will not prosecute. that is simply not prosecutorial discretion. when you do that it creates real problems for your community. >> i think that's all exactly right. you can see this trend developing over the course of several years with an overall reduction of respect for certain laws. marijuana is a great example. a number of states have passed laws allowing possession and distribution of marijuana while knowing it is illegal under federal law, knowing that federal laws supreme. they do it despite that. that is an intake -- indicator along the line of this trend. i think what you are seeing with rogue prosecutors is an absolute intrusion into legislative function. categorically carving out immunity for certain crimes, they are short-circuiting the legislative process. the legislator may have decided -- i think the da in dallas can decide to not charge larceny for under $750. if the legislature wanted that, it would have done that. >> just a follow-up on one of aaron's points, it is not as if we are seeing these prosecutors say, well as a matter -- and within my prosecutorial discretion i am not going to pursue these. because i need to apply those resources throughout the criminal chain. what we are seeing is them select, basically disassemble the system from top to bottom. in new york, murder one is a limited class murders. you see da's in new york city saying now, we will not pursue life without parole in murder cases period. if a police officer gets killed in new york city in that particular county, if they follow through on this publicly stated commitment, they will not pursue murder in such a way that the defendant can get a life without the possibility of parole. that does not tell me you are taking the resources that would otherwise focus on quality of life and applying them elsewhere to get more deterrence. you are across the board dismantling the system and watering it down. which only encourages violence against police officers. >> i don't want prosecutorial discretion to be misinterpreted too because we all use prosecutorial discretion and every prosecutor wants to have it. some of the most of -- most important decisions we make as u.s. attorneys are the ones where we decide not to prosecute individuals. the decisions we made that no one will know about. to say that we would just wholesale announce we were not gonna prosecute certain crimes would not be what we are doing. >> each of you served as u.s. attorney and cities were a local da, a rogue prosecutor had been elected as the local da. one of the things i am curious about is, what is the best approach for a u.s. attorney to take when the local prosecutor has made those announcements that they are not going to prosecute entire categories of crimes and they're not going to seek certain sentences even though the legislature has authorized the what is that relationship like with that da and how can u.s. attorneys still effectively use their power? >> i have a great personal relationship with my local da. rachael rollins. i thought that while i was the u.s. attorney and she was the da of suffolk county, it was not in the public interest to air their dirty laundry that way. to have those spats publicly. we tried to work with her where we could on gang cases. on a separate track, what i would do, because i think this is an important aspect of the prosecutor role which is not discussed enough, i would have clear communications with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. say look, we have your back. continue to do what you are doing. if you have a case you need done and the boss and to the da won't do it, call us. we will do it. when it came to public messaging, i went out of my way to be extremely supportive of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. law enforcement agencies are sensitive to morale issues. they think to themselves, we are putting ourselves at risk for your benefit so you had better be supporting our activities. in my jurisdiction, i found that worked best. it was in no one's interest to have an overly hostile and publicly hostile relationship with my counterpart. that did not make the communities any safer. that was the approach. >> i had and do have a good relationship with the da. he is a person that i respect. he had a lot of good experiences. we worked together on many important initiatives where we could benefit the community and still work together on certain things. we had lots of discussions. we, importantly, respectfully disagreed on certain fundamental things. it was never going to be a situation where we disagreed publicly or did anything publicly to make the other person feel like we were disrespectful of one another's positions. i certainly felt like it was incumbent upon the u.s. attorney to force those relationships with -- for the safety of the community as best we could. we needed to work together in areas and we did very successfully on domestic violence and human trafficking and public safe neighborhoods. there was just no way i was going to jeopardize doing that because we disagreed. i certainly was open and upfront about our disagreements but we were able to work together on many things which benefited our community. >> that's absolutely right. you have to have a constructive relationship, as constructive as possible. there's too much at stake. there's a lot that you can still work on together very collaboratively. sometimes as a good guy, you have some not great teammates. you do the best you can. in areas where we can have a lot of overlap such as drugs and violent crime, and we can take up slack and there are other areas you don't have that federal reach, he did not find it constructive to speak out publicly about certain da's or policies elected by the people. i did speak out publicly about bail reform in new york because i felt it was dangerous and misguided. but that was legislation that had been passed in albany and things of that nature that i thought they should be considering because as a public safety advocate for the people of my community i felt the need to speak out. but generally you do the best you can and make good decisions along the way to do the best in the interest of the community. >> all of you were u.s. attorneys under the trump administration. we have a new administration and power. is there anything the biden administration or biden appointed u.s. attorneys should be doing that they are not to help to keep their communities safe? especially in communities where rogue da eggs -- da's are not prosecuting crimes. >> and i -- what i think about most is messaging. there are substantive things you can do. homicides are up 20%, the opioid open to make -- epidemic is worse than it has ever been despite our efforts. covid made short work of our efforts. so, no more memos about school boards. make a nationwide push on violent crime and drug enforcement. one of the things we were told when we started is we have a very rhetorically powerful decision. a.g. sessions used to describe us as the convening authority. lead from the front. what you need from the attorney general on down is distinct messaging by the u.s. attorneys about the need to combat violent crime. not gun violence, violent crime enjoy trafficking. tone matters. that does trickle down to the street. if people think there will be unhesitating and strong enforcement, you will begin to see a deterrent effect. but that is not the messaging you see and i think that is a big factor. that has been very lacking in the current moment we are in when we see crime creeping up. >> i do think that you have to realize that one of the most important tools that the department of justice has is the 93 generals they have in u.s. attorney offices. this is the way that justice can have a huge impact across the entire country. one thing i think general sessions did was really empower the u.s. attorneys to look within their districts, determine within their districts what were the most pressing crimes we had to deal with, work with state, local and federal oil it agencies to deal with them. violent crime was a huge issue for all of us. drug crime, human trafficking. we were lurking within our -- to where we could make the biggest impact. they empowered us then to communicate that message of what we were doing within our districts. we were to communicate what we were doing to press conferences, through media releases. they wanted our communities to hear from us. they didn't want all that message to be coming from maine justice fear they wanted us in our communities talking with our people. for someone like me, my district was a vast swaths of texas. over 8 million people. the largest district in texas. if my district were a stated would be the 10th largest state in the union. there was a large geographic community to cover and i was expected to get out in the community and work with people. we were empowered to do that. >> i have had the privilege of serving -- in every president from bill clinton through joe biden. what i told people consistently throughout that time is when we have a change in administration, recognize that lawn -- law enforcement is the least affected. no one wants gangs to succeed, no one wants drug dealers to succeed. there's no republican versus democrat way of taking down a street gang. the overlap is significant and a continuation of that effort in the that said, i would say to my colleagues right now, you need to recognize that you as a u.s. attorney are directly responsible for the crime in your district. i used to track comps -- in new york. they use it in very detailed data. it is fantastic. it lets you see what is going on in the city on an hourly basis. you can see crime's spike and trends developing, bad actors in certain parts of the city. i would tell them, don't fall victim to the theory that the da's are responsible. and we asked federal prosecutors somehow fly above it and occasionally make racketeering cases per that is not what we do. we are as responsible for the day-to-day violent crime rates in our districts as the da's and we need to look at it does -- that way and we need to work collaboratively in a task force model with those state and local law enforcement authorities to address it on a day-to-day basis. >> i see we have a few minutes left in our panel. i know we want to leave time for questions either from folks in the audience where we may have questions coming in from our viewers online. if anyone has any questions they would like to ask our panelists, start thinking about those and we will go to the question portion of our program after this next question. i want to follow up on something you mentioned, a program called project safe neighborhood. could you briefly tell us what that is and why it is important? and how u.s. attorneys may be can use that to effectively combat violent crime? rich? >> psm was first started in 2001. i might be off by a year. i was relatively young and it was tremendously exciting to be told by leadership, we want you to go out there and address violent crime directly. do not wait for it to work its way up from the das office. what we did was we prioritized gun crime. robberies relating to commercial establishments and things like that. we also worked collaboratively with our da's in the eastern district of new york and across the department. we reached out to each office and said, we want you to work with us. give us your prosecutors. we will pay their salaries. they will exist in both worlds. they will do your state and county court cases and they will help us identify -- if it is a particularly bad actor worthy of federal consideration and then they bring the cases over to us and they do the cases in our courthouse. it was tremendously effective. there is a great deal of data how successful that was in 2001 through 2005. in the obama ministration, it continued on paper but was deemphasized and a lot of the funding went away. in the trump administration it was brought back into the same results. tremendous results, tremendous partnership. -- is very important to the success of driving down crime rates in our local communities. >> in the trump administration, psn was improved because there was a lot of studies done from the early years. in the trump administration reused a lot of data-driven exercises. so when we started our programs back up again in the northern district of texas, we used an outside criminologist to look at the crime rate in big urban areas. that is where we focused enforcement efforts. we focused in just on the data, looking at the data where the most violent crime was happening , and then we targeted our enforcement areas there. the other thing we did was, using grant money, we engaged our communities in very direct ways in those same areas. we went in the communities and we had -- we engaged with schoolchildren. we engaged with communities. we used our resources at the u.s. attorney's office and the das office to go into those communities and introduce them to law enforcement, let them know who we were and what we were doing. we had our families there. we had a lot of specific events so that it was not just an enforcement effort. we were trying to let them know we were making their communities safer and reused money to take out blighted areas and add lighting and community areas. it was a comprehensive program and it was one that is being dis-emphasize. it is my hope that it is still going on. >> two things. one of the fundamental principles of the program was the findings from the 1990's and early 2000's that if you focused only on the most violent actors and found a way to prosecute them federally, yet had an outsized impact on violent crime stats because individual actors were committing multiple violent crimes over the course of a year. they tried this in boston in the 1990's and if they cut the homicide rate by 60% one year. they called it the boston miracle. it is a great idea. with psn, that grew into a more structured way of interacting with state and local authorities in a symbiotic approach to tackling crime. it was a structured way of funneling grants and money into local communities. there's basically no downside. every administration should be doing it. seeing it deemphasized under obama, that was too bad. you had prosecutors devoted to that work treading water. waiting for new funding and resources. >> quick comments, and he talked about the miracle. there were miracles across the city and across the country for 25 years. we had about 2200 murders in new york city in 1992, the year i graduated law school. we drove that down to less than 300 over 25 or 27 years. that is incredible. if you had said to the law enforcement community in 1992, we need you to drive down the murders by 80%, they would have said it was impossible. it is not impossible. we know how to do it. it is not something new we have to learn. >> if anyone in our audience has any questions they would like to ask a mobile sunday microphone. i see a hand in the back. we will come down front afterwards. >> hi. i have been following this issue for about five years now. my question is, when it comes to road prosecutors, what recourse is a crime victim have within the federal court system to bring the issue of a crime before the feds under circumstances when the victim is based with a police department that will withhold a police report and demand the victim get a court order to get the police report. when the attorneys won't take a case because there is no police report and the victim -- in the victim's possession and they assume there is something wrong with it if the prosecutors refused to prosecute it. the third element is refusing to communicate with crime victims claiming it is all -- product. when a victim's faced with that situation and the clock is ticking, how does a victim approach the federal prosecutors with that situation with no attorney, no police report, no cooperation from the da echo what is a practical step they need to take? >> the next panel will talk specifically about victims rights. but, i open it up to our panelists who have thoughts. >> not a great situation, right? there is so much out there the u.s. attorney hasn't considered. in every district, they have a website for you can contact them. there are forms you can file. that said, it's not a great situation. police report as an ausa, there's not a lot to assess. you do start with the presumption that if the cases worthy of federal prosecution, they would have referred it. i would say the role of victims organizations, not just the individual victim which is important, but one thing we are missing in the current conversation is what was so important in the 1980's, victims rights organizations stepping forward. in the federal system we've got the victims rights act. it is a strong statute that tips -- that gives victims a voice. but issues not in the federal system because a crime has not been charged there, it is just not available. make your concerns known. report to the u.s. attorney's office. try to work with victims groups to show the u.s. attorney's office that not just an individual case, but these types of cases are not being adequately addressed. >> we had these exact discussions about how the rights organizations were so much more vocal. i will tell you that i had these very examples that came to me when i was u.s. attorney. these were victims and they wanted us to help them get their cases prosecuted. it is a heartbreaking situation where you have to tell them, hey, i cannot force the state to take your case. what i can do is have you meet with a federal agency, whether it is dea, fbi, secret service, and they can explore whether there is a federal charge. if there is not, there is honestly nothing i can do. every single time i would arrange for those meetings because u.s. attorneys do not invest a great crimes, we work with investigative agencies. on many occasions that was the result and it was heartbreaking. i hear the it is one we deal with a lot. >> the victim was one out of the state where the crime was committed, because i go to federal jurisdiction? for that be enough for federal prosecutors, because the crime happened in one jurisdiction and the victim was a resident of another is that enough? >> not typically. but it depends on the type of crime and that is what we explore in this conversation. >> i think i saw another handed down front, in the front row. that's ok. >> a lot of liberals who are soft on crime, also support strict and control. i am trying to find out, do you know if these same prosecutors, who are soft on these victimizing crimes are willing to punish those who use guns in defense of self and others against victimizing crime? >> one of the things i am curious about, federal prosecutors often prosecute felon in possession cases of guns. why are those types of felon in possession cases so important for a federal prosecutor? >> i think something common to all of us is, felon in possession charges are often an effective way of getting serious criminals off the street because by definition, this is an individual with a prior felony. usually they involve someone with a prior violent -- felony and they are now found with a firearm they are easier cases to prove. and you can get those people off the street and so not committing further violent acts and into federal custody. it is easy to do a lot of those cases. this gentleman's question, on the federal side this issue does not come up often. i can tell you that, when we were in office, if someone had used a firearm, in the course of self-defense, you think very hard about whether or not you would prosecute them for that thing because we recognize that you are allowed to do that. that's an error comes up much more on the state and local level than it does. on a federal level. [indiscernible] many issues, i've heard a case in oakland were a historic owner was prosecuted because he went out and shot at some muggers, robbing one of his customers who went out the store. that is what i'm trying to say, are the state and local prosecutors, when they go after or are they strict on punishing those who are not otherwise criminals who use firearms in defense of others, who cannot get permits. >> i've seen very few stories on that. one, i have not heard any prosecutors address this directly. i do not know that would be a priority. two self-defense is a defense. if you are someone who uses a firearm in self-defense, even the road -- will prosecutors are not going to be quick to prosecute that person because legally that would be a losing. they would not be eager to bring the case even though there are prosecutors who would be perfectly happy to prosecute gun crimes because they want guns off the street and are supportive of gun control. >> i think your comment has broader implications because why do you have these confrontations? you have them in part because people in the community do not feel that law enforcement can or is protecting them. so, that is part of the unfortunate part that goes back to quality-of-life prosecutions and whether or not moralities good in the police department because we have all seen it. most of us here are around long enough to remember the 80's and 90's and how it was. we start in new york city, i spent most of my professional career there. when you have this low level lawlessness good -- it encourages a situation where you unfortunately have more confrontations between citizens and criminals instead of just the police and criminals. those can go bad in a lot of ways. >> that is almost accounted, at least in where i was u.s. attorney, i worked disgustedly with eda -- successfully --i worked with eda. -- i worked with the da. especially with domestic violence cases were we prosecuted domestic violence perpetrators who were carrying guns. we did that very successfully. >> i think we have time for one more quick question. i know we have some more hands in the audience but we are getting some questions online, as well. so i wanted to see if we had any online questions. >> we have one online, several online, one of them has asked, we have hurt you say in the past that prosecutors or u.s. attorneys may not be a big of a problem, because there are more bar rails for federal prosecutors they have to answer to the ag there are federal policies etc.. but don't u.s. attorneys exercise discretion? is there any action congress can or should take to but more guardrails in place? >> personally i do not think i would encourage congress to put guardrails in place for you he want a field general to have a lot of expression to fight crime in their particular district since the district is -- knows what their needs are. by no road prosecutors who become u.s. attorneys are facing greater control than they were purely elected officials. if healthy. if you are a road prosecutor who is now u.s. attorney. and you do something that is really out of bounds, you're going to get a phone call from d.c. about that. that is a good thing. i think that is an improvement on having these men and women as elected da's. they have a lot more power than local ones but i will not go so as far as to suggest congress should rapidly and further restrict the role of the u.s. attorney in a given district. >> you are not an elected official anymore you report to the attorney general and you serve the pleasure of the president. >> thank you all so much for participating in our panel. this has been a fascinating discussion. if everyone would please joining me and giving our panelists a round of applause. [applause] >> if you don't mind, you can go ahead and return to your seats in our next panelists can make their way to the stage. our next >> it is my pleasure to introduce my colleague bonola who picked up the program today. the deputy director for legal and judicial studies at their. foundation serves as senior legal fellow here. cully is an experienced trial attorney who served as prosecutor at the state and local level and also served in a variety of roles as a jag officer in the navy serving as assistant united states attorney in the district of columbia and as a prosecutor focused on homicide, sex crime, thomistic violence another felonies and also served as deputy assistant secretary of defense at the george w. bush administration and write about crime control and, justice policy. cully is my co-author on the prosecutor series and co-author of the upcoming book. i will turn it over to you. >> a great first panel. we will switch our focus from us attorneys to the broader mill you of the prosecutor arguments and also from the victims of perspective. delighted to be joined on stage by two friends and colleagues, hov lanes is a victims rights attorney in los angeles who provides pro bono representation to crime victims and assist them with asserting their rights and criminal and juvenile justice cases, she was deputy da for 30 years 1989-2019 where she held leadership positions in the bureau of victim services and prosecutor hundreds of cases between high visibly homicide, sexual assault, child abuse and other complex cases, she is a board member on the national law institute, the children's advocacy centers in california, served on the california children's justice act task force and received numerous awards throughout her career. to date she represented 100 families of murder victims in response to george gascon's policies. nicole edenedo is the head of the policing and public safety initiative at the manhattan institute in new york and contributing editor of city journal. his first book criminal injustice will be available in july of this year. he has co-authored and co-authored a number of issues rating from urban crime and violence to broader matters of criminal and civil justice reform. his work is featured everywhere. in 2,020 he was appointed to serve a 4-year term as member of the advisory committee of civil rights, holds a ba from city university. we are delighted to have two experts here during the discussion. i thought it would be helpful if we used some of the policies of george gascon who we describe as the king of prosecutors as a proxy to talk about the movement written large. if you bear with me i will take off the number of main policies he has dictated to his huge staff, and invite my colleagues to talk about the two topics you are talking about. his first day in office george gascon issued so-called special directives, you have to follow them. in no particular order pretrial release, he talked how cash bail is a 2-tiered system of justice that leads to unnecessary incarceration and prosecutors are prohibited regardless of a long record of respect in cash bail for misdemeanor for nonserious felonies. misdemeanor case management directive says these are crimes you can commit in la and the list is nonexhaustive. the order says misdemeanor crimes, quote, shall be declined or dismissed before arraignment and without conditions. sentencing enhancement and allocation, you have written a lot about it. orders his das to will donate all enhancements, life without parole and the death penalty, california voters upheld this in the past. you noted in your writings there are 100 sentencing enhancement in special circumstances some of which are mandatory but he directed his das not to follow, the directive says you can't go to adult court no matter what and habeas corpus litigation is charged for all cases where there are convictions earned by your office to look for, quote, injustice including racial injustice. the fox in the hen house office which unwinds. he takes the death penalty off the table for any case no matter how horrible, established the conviction integrity unit for claims that it didn't start under their 10 year start for traditional independent da office appears before that, reserve the right to review any case in the interest of justice including cases tainted by racial discrimination. he talks about unwinding 40,000 convictions earned by your office. prosecutors are required to reevaluate sentencing people who serve 15 years in prison. if you've got a sentence over 15 years and served 15 years you are required to join in the defendant's motion to strike enhancement to let them out. those are the most egregious directives by george gascon. let me start with you. all the people reading your book, this is not a book tour. you've done a lot of writing looking at underlying arguments the prosecutor movement has made, the system is systemically racist and prosecution's, there is mass incarceration, talk about the things you think are wrong about those assertions. >> thank you, to interrogate the fair rationality of all this. mass incarceration, it is not true. with nonviolent offenders, the vast majority of people are serving time for violent crimes, with respect to the second chance argument, 10.5 prior arrests with prior convictions. they are consistently blowing second, third, or fourth. it implies mashed the cursor rations. with mass incarceration problem. if they engaged the release. with recidivism data, with the bureau of justice. between 80, and 85%. with at least one. they are suffering the brunt of the violent crime problems for the average homicide are shooting suspect has 12 arrests, 20% more than 10 prior arrests, 40% have one prior arrest for violent crime. this is what you expect to see if we engaged in mass incarceration. the last ten years the united states incarcerated 20%, the covid release in 2,020, things are not looking up and i don't think that is a coincidence. it is an unfortunate line of argument, it is meant to imply the system, some individual actor will defend themselves and do so with success and claim the system is racist but the way they do that is ignoring the side of the ledger. it is true that certain communities bear the brunt of the cost of enforcement. the reality is they bear the brunt of the violent crime so that brings resources to the community. when the criminal justice system receives it ends, the result is crime reduction. it is mostly minority communities. just a couple data examples in new york city every year we have data on a minimum of 95% of all shooting victims, black or hispanic are nowhere near 95% of the population. from 1990 to 2,014, we saw massive decline in homicides. that homicide decline added 0.4 years to the life expectancy, added 1.0 years to the average life expectancy, public-health equivalent of that, getting rid of heart disease, it is a major accomplishment primarily to the benefit of low income minority communities and when you talk about the unequal distribution of enforcement we can't have a rational and fair conversation but also including the unequal distribution associated with criminal justice. >> anything you want to pick up on? i went to pick up on one of the articles you wrote. >> thank you for having us in highlighting this important issue. what i would add is most of the crime victims that i represented would say the same thing, when you let people out of custody. you let them back into my communities and who are surrounded by gang members, who say i don't understand why you are not prosecuting them because you let them back into my communities and one that suffers. certainly with the victims, i have the honor and privilege of representing. >> on the panel, the second panel, the first was in la and the website. you were with me, the deputy das, we had an armchair discussion, a democrat, alex dillon waiver --villenueva this is not a left or right issue, not red state, this is a law and order versus chaos issue. it has something to do with this. you have done some great writing because you can't do it as much. it is entitled preventable murders. on january 8, '40 when-year-old alejandro garcia was working at the drive-through, was shot to death by jonathan madden after madden tried to pay with a $25 bill. you used this to talk about how this death was completely preventable but for the fact people abandoned holding people pretrial because of this obsession with illuminating cash bail. talk about that. >> i would say my former colleagues in the los angeles district attorney's office if they were able to do their job would have made sure he was in custody. one person, that would be george gascon, decided when the issue goes to policies he would take away prosecutors ability to make sure the defendant was in custody. to back up a little bit, when george gascon took office, the same time, the send button on the e-mail that issued 60 pages of policies that directed prosecutors to not follow the laws, the policies were written before he became da and were written by certain people with the public defender's office. some of those policies dealt with not filing legal enhancements. they should have been there in the case for this particular defendant had been arrested. the defendant who murdered mr. garcia had a long criminal history. he had been arrested and put in prison several times for various crimes including robbery, narcotics, and fell in, so he had gotten out of his stint and picked up a case of being an ex-con with a gun. to that charge he should have had prior allegations added specifically what we call them in california, those shouldn't have been added which would have added to his bail, not allowing prosecutors to do that doesn't just affect the sentence about whether or not judges do not have a crystal ball to know if a defendant has prior criminal history so they look at charging documents give them an education whether the defendant has a criminal history, the document did not show the, history because gascon's policies didn't allow that to be added. he bailed out on a low bail, if humans later he picked up the second case and that case was sales of narcotics. on that case he should have had prior allegations added but should have had an out on bail allegation added so when you have a current pending felony the law allows you to be charged with being out on bail but because of gascon's policies, once again, they bail out on a very low bail and after that he got another gun illegally and went tooth at taco bell and tried to pass a $20 counterfeit bill and shot mr. garcia with that gun. had the law had prosecutors been able to follow the law and the allegations that are legally available, the defendant would have been in custody as a piece of gascon's policies. because of that, his family is left without a husband and father. >> one of the discussions we had back and forth, he prefers progressive. he makes the argument that voters voted for these people, they knew what they were getting. they are doing what they promised the voters they would do. these people had a hidden agenda, imagining prosecution and all the silly talk to make you think they are doing their job as da and moments after they get elected they unleash this massive document that has been in writing for months, didn't show the public on their website when they were running for office, and a nature debate back and forth, which rachel rawlins had one, the rawlins memo after she got elected boston da, 15 crimes you commit in boston, larry krasner did the same in philadelphia, we are using this example as a way to show this is a proxy of what rogue prosecutors do, gascon is at least forthright in what he is doing in terms of his directive. what is your thought as you hear an actual case. the height of the criminal background to the judge has resulted in the murder of a married man. >> i have been writing on this for more than a decade and something i see a lot. one of the stories that inspired me to write the book is a story out of chicago, a young woman named brittany hill standing outside her home when a car rolled up and opened fire. she turned to shield her daughter and tried to get away, 10 feet before collapsing. and she bled out and died and the whole shooting was caught on video by chicago police department, had been put in the city website and because it was caught on camera, in relatively short order, michael washington had tween 9 prior felony convictions including one for second-degree murder. the other had multiple prior arrests for gun charge. this is not a rare occurrence, not as rare as we would like. it shows what potential consequences are and why it's important to understand the incapacitation of incarceration with failure to rehabilitate, that's not the only concern with incarceration or the most important. you take a bad actor out of a community you are sparing the community from harm. tweet index felonies, those were just index felonies not counting other small things. >> and index felony, the -- they were thought to be proxy more generally which includes murder and manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, arson, grand larceny, grand larceny otto and sexual assault. it really is, i think, incumbent on the reform movement, what do we to when it turns out somebody you turn loose goes ahead and re-victimizes the community, how do you atone for that? in my opinion there is no answer to that question which is why it is so important to do your job and make sure these people are taken off the streets and that includes using all the tools in the tool chest ask sentencing which these prosecutors are assuming systematically because it makes them uncomfortable but the reality is they would never dare let their children walk through the neighborhoods where this is concentrated at night and every city is 50% of all crime. 2% of us counties, 50% of all murders. what we have are concentrated pockets of violence that have levels of violence that are unimaginable to most people in the united states. we do an incredible disservice to those communities when we fail to realize the benefits of incapacitation through incarceration. >> one of the myths the prosecutor movement has been peddling, people in the public don't pay attention to this like we do, prosecution equates to jail. everyone who gets prosecuted goes to jail. we did misdemeanors, rotation for misdemeanors and we have friends in the office still, most people who get prosecuted for misdemeanors don't spend any time in jail and so we need as real performers to distinguish between prosecution resulting in incarceration and handling misdemeanors that result in accountability because that can bring them to the cannot justice system to give them the incentive to do the right thing and also the services they might need to get their life on the right path. can you talk to that please? >> some of the misdemeanors mister gascon announced he will prosecute include driving with a suspended license. you can have your license suspended for driving under the influence or you have too many tickets or that kind of thing. when you are prosecuted for having a suspended license hopefully you will go ahead and fix that and get a current license and make sure you have done your classes and the things you need so you will be a safe driver. we all want safe drivers on the road but in los angeles county people know now they won't be prosecuted for driving with a suspended license. they don't have any incentive to make sure they take the classes they need to pay their clients, don't have to be worried about getting another speeding ticket. so what? certainly in misdemeanor court many people when they come in for low-level offenses they have services available to them and this is one of the things that is available for narcotics cases, they can go to drug court, areas with drug programs and try to get sober and i heard from many people what saved their life is being forced to do that and when you take away that incentive for people to get their life in order because they are facing criminal repercussions than they don't have as much incentive to take care of those things. >> one thing to that, not only is jail -- not a likely outcome of felony prosecution. the department of justice studied state level prosecution, every year the studies came out, right around 40% of all felony convictions, 60% of the time when you get a felony conviction, getting out on probation. not a case the vast majority of the most serious crimes we can prosecute is secure. that person is going to prison. >> one of the statistics with the drug control policy said in one of his books about marijuana, first off there is hardly anybody in prison for simple possession of marijuana, less than one% and the ones that are in prison for possession of marijuana had 114 pounds of marijuana position. this is not cheech and chong, this is a distributor who got charges knocked to possession and had to cooperate and provide information. it is ironic, talk about the spike in crime, 2000 plus murders in new york city and historic lows for violent crime, prosecutors talk mass incarceration. i did some number crunching. you think of the number of murders last year it was 30,000 that's more than the entire european continent. what are we supposed to do if we don't incarcerate violent criminals? what is the -- >> there is a solution. it is a net negative in all cases so d incarceration is a public policy. the way they make this argument is mistreating a body of research that shows in some cases incarceration can be criminal genic. the experience can lead someone to commit more crimes than they would have had they been diverted and there is some research showing this is the case as to certain d fenders come when you dig into the studies they latch onto for dear life, applied to the general prison population with the united states. the best of those studies are using natural experiments to assess what the incarceration will be. judges and prosecutors have discretion, they are spirit incarceration for good reason. when someone is treated they are treated to incarceration and that decision is almost never random. if you want to study incarceration we have to find a way whether someone is exposed to the treatment, the way they do that is looking at random assignments, categorizing them and others as harsher and look at marginal offenders, a person engaged in conduct with criminal history such whether to incarcerate them, they look at the outcomes for those individuals, exposure to incarceration resulted in higher rates that outweigh the incapacitation for short-term incarceration, that literature applies only to the marginal offender. i don't think anyone is against diverting first-time drug offender. i don't think anyone is against the idea of sparing someone incarceration, they made one mistake but the idea that we can read those study to the broader prison population in the united states which is constituted by people who committed serious violent crimes that is wrong. this is my beat with the progressive project, they don't have an alternative solution, to provide the same public safety message of high rate communities in the country. >> went to pick up on something? you are nodding. >> my peace in office when i represent victims, when i hear from trauma that comes when they realize prosecutors are not following the law, i can only -- many other states, they have similar statutes, provisions in their constitution but in california, victims rights start by saying in order to preserve the victim's right to justice and due process, there are 17 enumerated rights. victims that i had the honor and privilege of representing do want justice and justice to them does not mean we say to someone you can get out of jail. justice means the person who talk to their loved one's life will be serving a life sentence without their father, their husband, their son, their daughter, that person should be held accountable. unfortunately i am talking about gascon, and agree with what he is doing. with somebody getting out of custody, without having much time, they think it is okay with not having the law followed, that victims will be fine with not charging a gang enhancement, the whole reason their loved one is dead is gang initiation. victims, the ones i have spoken to, are not okay with that. they are really mad. they certainly want to make sure they are elected district attorney knows they are not okay with policy. >> i had the privilege of spending time with raegan medgie, he went on the record to talk about the effect of george gascon's policies. one of the things he said that i would like you to pick up on is when i saw beverly hills, swanky places in la that incorporate cities, no confidence against gascon and dozens of cities now across la voted no confidence against him. where do you think he is. these criminals will go to beverly hills, they will come back to my community and terrorize my community and i hope that is the reason, 15,000 people who sign their name, it is driven by people who are affected the most and when they see gascon yell at the murder victim's family calling for an educated and prohibited his own tas from attending parole hearings, sheriff syndicates and sheriffs deputies to represent the people in the victims this is resonating with folks. tell us the typical case you represent. what do you do for them? >> i am privileged to work with several former prosecutors doing pro bono. when ir one of the others, usually a murder case. my son was murdered and not filing gang allegations, not filing this allegation and doing it because of gascon's policies. when gascon first came in and prosecutors were ordered to dismiss allegations myself and other former das say we are here to represent the victim and asking you what the prosecutor is asking because to do that and you would have to make a finding in furtherance of justice and there is no furtherance of justice in this case. we are asking what the da is asking. in new cases that are coming, they don't have the same ability. all we were we were able to say as we understand how upsetting it is. in california, to reasonably confirm. people who might have the ability to change the decision i can help you set that up but it is important to manage victims expectations. they will change their minds but i understand for you as a mother of her murdered son, you need to know you've done everything you can to make sure your voice is heard, to get justice for your son. even though you may not be able to, i am happy to help you to assert your rights and to make sure make sure you have an opportunity to ask them those questions. >> one of the many despicable arguments the rogue prosecutor movement and supporters say across the country are on the rampage and killing unarmed black men every day. in the senate confirmation hearing, a district court judge nominee, taking this person to task prior to being the nominee. your dad was a retired new york police officer, detective who last two partners during that time and before today talk about a 2018 study, 1 million calls, tied those together and share that. >> it's important to understand part of what gave the prosecutor movement legs was the idea they could do something about controversial police killings, then the death of michael brown and shortly thereafter, the multi-time in incumbent da was challenged and that whole campaign was centered around the michael brown case, not just to address mass incarceration but also hold police accountable and this narrative the forms this movement is vicious and wrong. the idea police are killing unarmed black men is patently false. we are talking may be 14 or 15 cases a year of unarmed black men shot. it may be uncomfortable to confront this reality but it is reality, it does not mean they were not a candidate for the use of deadly force. you mentioned two partners my father last in the line of duty, that is an example of this. in 2004, patrick referee, tried to affect an arrest, a man who decided he didn't want to go to jail and he fought. he was able to get bobby's gun, and exchange fire with pat who he also killed. the idea that somebody is unarmed and not a danger, police officers have on their person, deadly weapons that can and often do and had every right to defend themselves. with respect to the general rate of police use of force is not a common outcome. the majority of interactions police had don't result in deadly force at all. a review a couple years ago i looked at cases in 2018, estimated police officers fired their guns that year. if you look at the percentage, it is well under. 03%. there was another study you mentioned in 2018 that looked at a million calls to service, one in north carolina, when in arizona, those calls for service resulted in 114,000 arrests. and that data sets, when shooting was captured and less then one% of those, 99% of all of those arrests no force was used whatsoever. 98% in which force was used, doctors were part of the study reviewed medical records of the suspect and found no or mild injuries. less than 2% of the cases for major injuries. the reality is police officers are professional and restrained and do their job with a high rate of success in the biggest predictor of whether or not police use force is that behavior which is what people don't want to talk about. >> let's talk about that. one thing rogue prosecutors are proud of, they published this, they won't prosecute resisting arrest and when you say you are not going to prosecutor crime you will get more of that crime. you say are not going to prosecute turnstiles or position or theft, you will get more of those. one thing we said that i want to get your reaction to is when you add defund the police, demoralize the police, and in the rogue prosecutors a combination results in low police morale, hard time recruiting and rises in crime. what about this idea of not prosecuting resisting arrest. what message does that send to folks in the community? >> it sends a message that you have an ally in the government to criminals and it emboldens them and it is important to understand these policies are promulgated in conjunction with statements prosecutors are sending, we will prosecute you if you use too much force, not just for resisting but you put your knee on the back we are going to criminally prosecute you and make your life uncomfortable. this is what you describe it, it emboldens criminals. you can see the declines. this is not what you want. they are police dis, not just response to 9/11 calls. you get what we have which is rising crime, concentrated demographically and geographically. >> what i would say is that is exactly the problem with these blanket policies george gascon has issued that we are not prosecuting misdemeanors, there may be a few cases when you look at the facts, you would use discretion not to prosecute but when you issue blanket policies that say we will never prosecute it does hurt morale in police departments and sheriff's departments, they put themselves, their lives on the line every day and to go into situations that are very dangerous, we are district attorney's office saying if someone hurts you or won't comply with commands use a legally, too bad and we won't do anything about it i would say it is a violation of their oath to uphold the law. >> one of the things on the last panel echoed what we have been writing about. imagine a difference in the rogue prosecutor movement, say it was throughout the us attorney's office. their theory was we will not prosecute insider trading, we are not going to prosecute because people who rob banks clearly need the money, their quality-of-life is down. another pernicious rogue prosecutor movement like we don't think sex between an adult and juvenile is a crime, it is an act of love, we won't prosecute those cases. we laugh but there is no difference between failure to enforce the law evenly if the current system versus a hypothetical one. data and science supports their approach. what do you say to that? >> piggyback on what i mentioned, they don't actually show, studies show the data is clear the vast majority of people involved in the criminal justice system are not first timers. vast majority of people who are first-timers are spared sanctions which are the right approach. people have been given multiple chances, extremely likely to offend again. the studies they rely on are looking at marginal, it is important to understand the decision about whether or not to prosecute or incarcerate is not a random decision. they are taking into account the criminal history, from committing another crime, their risk to the community. to build an analysis on the effect of incarceration you have to narrow circumstances that are random. you are looking at a population whether to incarcerate them and come down to whether the prosecutor has a tendency to be lenient or strict. this is not a population that is currently represented in our jails and among those getting the most attention from police officers. >> almost out of time. all of our research is available on one webpage and the prosecutors, all our research out there. ralph's book is coming out this summer but i want to give the last word to you two for any concluding thoughts and i will start first as a gentleman would with the ladies. >> i'm grateful again, the topic is being looked at. on behalf of the victims that i know, to represent and to know their stories, it is so important prosecutors out there understand when you initiate these policies it is devastating for crime victims, traumatized not just by murder but traumatized again because they are not feeling justice in the criminal justice system. >> the only other thing i had to that is when the criminal justice system is not doing its job, for people in the community that is not what you want to see. you don't see street thieves getting resolved on sidewalks and parking lots and schoolyards. we want the government to do its job because it gives people the confidence they need to go out and act in the world, engage in economic transactions without having to feel they need to take these steps to respond to what they see. the only other thing, the most vulnerable communities in america will suffer the most of the downside risks associated. it is not going to change around the united states, vast majority of people will not do that. the only way things will change is in east harlem, west side of chicago where you have the biggest contribution of gang violence and crime and communities deserve better. >> please join me in thanking our panelists. thank you for coming, we are adjourned. 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