Straight from the source. No matterwhere youre from or where you stand on the issues , cspan is americas network. Unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. If it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters , america is watching on cspan. Powered by cable. The book is called all rise the libertarian waywith judge jim gray, the author. Judge james gray, how did you get the title of judge . Guest actually i was a military defense attorney in the navy and i was a federal prosecutor in los angeles and in private practice for a while. Got involved in political activity with the Republican Party so the point is in 93 by iathe governor as the Trial Court Judge in the municipal court, the lower court and then was elevated two years thereafter to the superior court or actually served for 25 years. I made some contributions, learned a lot and even helped people on occasion. What is the contribution your most proud of . We started a court where we tried to help keep young people out of trouble, mentoring them etc. Going on quite well. We go into 14 high schools now in Orange County and take real criminal juvenile nqdelinquency cases there and impanel a jury of High School Kids and then they asked questions of the kids as well as the parents. The parents learn things like youre not your childs friend, youretheir parents, its something different. And then we eventually have the jury come up with a sentence imposed by a real judge, usually modified because they can be pretty tough sometimes and if the subject completed when four months charges are dismissed, they l. Dont have a record. Its adiversion program. It works pretty well and im not eeinvolved with it whatsoever anymore and theyre doing real well. What have you been doing since . I retired after 25 years of beginning in 2009 and ive been working privately thereafter so im doing mediations and volunteer myself to support sometimes to discovery things. I get the craziest cases but as i say peter if they werent crazy they probably wouldnt need me. What about politics, you still are republican . Know, i was a libertarian. I was a republican until the passage of the socalled patriot act and i could not be involved in any group and i condone any of that attack on our civil liberties. To me about 30 seconds to realize im a libertarian and will be forever. I was a libertarian candidate i for Vice President in 2012 along with governor gary johnson but now at my age im running faway from politics instead of towards it. In fact i tell people actually peter i ran for 98 congress as a republican back in 1998. Ran for a libertarian for u. S. Senate, brandon for u. S. Senate 2004, for Vice President 2012. It didnt win any so irotell people im not a politician and i have the votes to prove it. What exactly is the libertarian way . It basically means that we personally need government, we need a reduced government, fiscal responsibility, corporate governmental responsibility as well as of course liberty and ive written a musical thats actually called convention the birth of america about the Constitutional Convention and in my research i found there were 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention and they complained about everything except each one to a man believed the most important function of government is to protect our liberties from the encouragement of government. How far away from that as we dont come since then . The number two interest of import was keeping us safe so thats how they believedour liberties were so important and its true, it works. In your book all rise you talk about people having a vested interest in the criminal Justice System. It will are those people and what are their interests . Theres a great deal of money in this Justice System, what is probably the strongest Lobbyist Group in california today which is where im from. And its kind of obscene to have them increase their economic status by taking away more people libertiesfor a longer time. And imagain, i get into the war on drugs. As a sitting judge back in 1992 i held a press conference saying our nations policies on prohibition are not working. But you see Police Department for example, art bureaucracies and they brag about how they close different cases. These are the number of crimes in our community and there are thousands of them but we close 7200 of them successfully, some 720. If you take awaythe drug laws , its because when you are arrested for possession of a container its at the same time you close it so the increases their staff a great deal. If you are to take away the war on drugs their success rate would go down from 72 percent to 42 percent so thats one reason why they want to keep this up is just bureaucratic. Its a terrible thing to see and let people naturally respond to the bureaucracy and d to trying to increase their incomes. Are drug court successful . Yes. Im pleased to say within six months of my appointment i started the sfirst drug court in this country with regards to alcohol abuse and it was successful. You work with the people you dont just punish them you get there attention for a month but as soon as theyre released togo back, first of all now they have a record and second they cant get a job. Somebody thats drug addicted if they cant get a job they go back to using drugs or stealing or whatever so they go back in the present system and its a revolving door. Take them off drugs and get them help with job skills all of a sudden recidivism rate goes down from 90 percent to 20 percent. Drug courts really work and in fact ive seen numbers of arresting Police Officers come to the graduation of the people that they arrested and there almost in tears andthey hugged each other and thank you for the arrest officer , that sort of thing because druggies are pretty much the most important social worker in our country because i can put you where you dont want to go. I can put you in jailfor a weekend or whatever so i can get your attention and really start having you focus on whats important. You get to have medical professionals and the rest help with that. And give them that. Are we over incarcerating in your view . Flat out, yes. We have two mini people in prison that should not be there. The mandatory minimum sentences, i can tell you nobody in congress, nobody anywhere can determine the correct sentence prior to its happening in advance. You can do it. Without knowing who who the subject is and what the intent was and how badly the victims were injured if at all the circumstances, but if you have those instances where a judge must tendency to 10 years minimum there have been federal systems, conservative judges appointed by nixon or reagan in tears because they were forced to sentence somebody did something thats just not right. And then we have people incarcerated and basically their elderly, they couldnt hurt you by throwing the walker at you. And Charles Manson should have never been released from prison for other people that felt, 15 years is a long time in prison. And maybe particularly in an 18 or 19 years of age, and youre sentenced to prison for 10 years that really affects your lifetime and by the way, we use the term correctional facility,theres nothing to do with correction in most prisons, its just incarceration. So you were a judge during the three strikes youre out law enactments in california. How did that affect you as a judge . You look for ways of trying first of all, prosecutors use that as an encouragement to say the if they reduce the chart so some people have pled guilty when their factually innocent or you have a snitch or somebody testifying against you so you plead guilty and we will give you three years in prison. If you go to trial and your convicted we give you 25years. Thats a lot of atcoercion. It should not be a part of our system but it is. And thats not to say i cobble criminals. Im in the responsibility business but peter, i still remember when i was on a formal probation violation io calendar i would have people coming back every month or two to report back to me and i arget reports from the probation department. If you got three stars for example that meant there taking it seriously but going through the motions, four stars you are taking it seriously and five stars mean there taking it seriously and youre also helping your confederates and i had a procedure where if somebody got five stars i would call them up first, congratulate them, tell everybody in the audience or the other offenders how they had been successful, get off the bench and shake their head and on two occasions i had young man early 20s break down in tears. Your honor, no man has ever commended me for anything ive ever done in my life. So people need mentoring. People need help and in fact the first case i prosecuted for the dea or handtohand sale the agent for the dea said he was the one that was going to make the fine and arrest everybody in sight. Just at the end he saw the guy was going to sell it to him and said i know that guy, i went to the high school with him, bring in somebody else so they arrested everybody and i said agent, tell me about that guy. He said judge, mister gray back then, we were friends but i was meant toward by our basketball coach, he wasmeant toward by a drug dealer. But for the grace of god it could have been me first. Mentoring is huge, judges can do that and so can others. I tell you somebodys going to mentor our children and its not the parents, is not the basketball coach, its not the assistant. It will be the drug dealers. It will be the street gangs. Charles manson, say what you will is very good at mentor and his family. There are always people looking to mentor our children. The judge is in a great position to assist. Host in all rise you talk about Mental Illness and the criminal Justice System. I would venture to say that at any one moment in the Orange County jail or any other jail in the country theres 35 to 40 percent of them have a Mental Illness and another 20 percent drug addictions and these are people you can put them in jail all you want to, your causing damage. What you want to do in the criminal Justice System is not incarcerate them. You want to reduce crime and the way you reduce crime with regard to drug addicted people so they dont steal from you is to help them address their election. If there mentally ill you help them address those Mental Illnesses and live at the highest ability they are able and there are places that can do that but putting them in jail i remember sometimes i would have the criminal defendants sitting in my jury box and some people would be singing to themselves and you could tell their spaced out. Thats not an appropriate re thing to do. You need to address the root of theseproblems. Same thing with homelessness. Many of them are mentally ill or drug addicted and you can put them in houses, thats not going to help. You need to address their fundamental problems and we are only beginning to do that. Drug courts are a big step in that regard and i would tell people in our drug court were all on the same team. We want this subject to be able to live a productive life. Youve got to get them off their alcohol or whatever it is that theyre addicted to. Arbesides drug courts whats another libertarian way . Compassion. Responsibility. Again, you dont have liberty without responsibility, they go handinhand so you did something you have to be accountable for it but over incarceration is not the answer. We have too many people in prison in our country today. The United States of america has five percent of the worlds population and 25 percent of its prisoners. There was a federal us senator named jim webb from virginia, he was faced with those statistics and said these are the most criminally orientedpeople in the world or were doing something wrong, whichyou think it is . I know what i think about that. Its over incarceration. Judge jim gray, final question. Whats the goal of the book . Guest the goal is to show peopleliberty works and put into concrete examples. Forexample education. I got into the constitution. The constitution was we methe people will delegate to the federal government certain and powered authorities. You can look in the constitution for anything that allows thefederal government to getinvolved in education, it isnt there or healthcare. What works . E School Choice. Id like to talk about my second book because School Choice is the failing of so many Public Schools of our children, of our students is the biggest unnecessary problem in the United States today. If you empower which is the word i use, you empowerthe students to choose where the government money will be spent for the education of their children the parents will choose excellence and they will receive it. If you look in the Public School system its the only area in our economy in which the supplier, the provider chooses what the customer will purchase so they dont need to compete. They dont need to get better but you bring in choice, now competition comes into the equation and all of a sudden of Public Schools better start losing their customers either go out of business and be replaced by somebody else or get better. Its a natural thing to happen. Right now arizona has stopped School Choice and School Vouchers and so have other states around the country. We talk about this in our book that ive written with my wife and its a novel and its it was the basis of School Choice. Trying to show parents they can be empowered to assist in making their childrens lives educationbetter. She has one thirdgrade son and hes just not enjoy school and thats before covid. During covid he was floundering and then covid ended and he didnt get anything out of school. She started bringing together other parents telling them look we can help. This is critically important for a lifetime of her education, its really important to our future. She got a group of parents together they found a disenchanted thirdgrade teacher at the school and they convinced him to be able and they convinced administration to allow him to change the whole pattern of the education in fourth grade. So he called his fourthgraders researchers so that they could be investigated so they would learn how to construct the table. Then you have to measure and jeff just saw and get things right. They started getting involved in education and in their education made it more fun and, of course, you can imagine but it was successful. But that is something that really is important for parents to understand. You are in much better position to decide where and how your child should be educated than the government is. Not every child wants to be a a mechanical engineer. Maybe they want to be a mechanic. Maybe they want to be an electrician. Maybe they should go to vocational school. Maybe theyre interested in the arts. Parents will know this and if they can choose where that money is going to be spent and everything will work well except for teachers who cannot teach. Right now the teachers unions support them. You cant fire a public teacher so there are some places, new york city is the worst. I understand there were so many teachers that a been found to be harmful to be in the classroom in new york city but they cant fight them so to put them in a gymnasium and the read and play games and read the internet and stuffed under still paid full salary because they cant be fired. Thats stupid. But if you bring a a school ce all of a sudden things will get a lot better. Its an unnecessary tragedy in our country today. Mostly for lower economic children which in many ways unfortunately happened the africanamerican, hispanic, africanamerican and hispanic parents are realizing school of choice will help our children and are gravitating over to School Choice and libertarians are leading the way. Host the third book you out i just want to bring up. Guest yes. After i ran for congress as i told you earlier, didnt win but i just wanted to be part of the discussion some wrote a column in a local newspaper every sunday and then eventually after a couple of years took the letters and columns, merge them together, talked about all these various issues, drug policy and School Education and healthcare and the rest, declaration of war, for heaven sake. Thats in these books as well. Our founders would be absolutely at our throats if they knew that congress that delegated the powers to declare war to a president by these war power acts. I swear to you going into iraq was the biggest mistake of my lifetime. If we had required congress, that would lead to discuss it can discuss what the benefits are, what the goals are, who the enemy is. It never wouldve passed congress nor should it have. Probably the same thing with vietnam and somalia and rest in these things. We bring all of these things together and its in in a manageable form. You can read these things in a fairly short time and then generate a discussion. I ask people for feedback. I dont have all the answers. I prove that pretty much with regularity but discuss these things and then people are interested. Come to my website judge jim gray. Com and you can to make it with me through that. But there are lots of things that we just want to discuss a world and i think its important. By the way, let me ask you question. Why did the scarecrow, why was a scarecrow given an award . Because he was found to be outstanding in his field. You have to have a little there you go. The latter without the chuck at some point in his room and we get is that as well. We are all in this together. I saw a cartoon recently where this makes couple were talking and walking with each other and theyre saying what colors we . The answer is red, white and blue. We are. We should be. Recognize that yes, we can be indiscriminate but not be disagreeable about it. And discuss things. I can learn from you. You can learn from me and we can all learn from each other and understand if im even in office, just because you didnt vote for me doesnt mean youre not my constituent. You are somebody i care about. Healthcare, you know, bring the Free Enterprise system back. We talk about this in all of my books. Bring the Healthcare System back into the Free Enterprise system. When i was growing up 50s, 60s with the best Healthcare System in the world. Good, modest prices, goodquality and then the government started getting more and more involved. Get the government out of our healthcare. In fact, peter, if you want the equivalent of the department of Motor Vehicles to run your healthcare thats exactly the direction were going to what about the poor . What about the people that cannot afford it . Provide them vouchers on a sliding scale that they can use in a free market to purchase healthcare insurance and pay for copays because long as they still of a modest copay of some form. You make a free people to get finish of it. You pay three dollars come five dollars to go see the doctor. Still only go when you need to. It brings and accountability in participation. And by the way who is in a better position to decide what you need . You and your doctor and get the government out of the stuff. So thats a we talked about in our books. Libertarians are leading the way with regard to these things and a proud to be a libertarian and decides to be able to discuss these things with you. Host author judge jim gray, thank you for your time. 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