library to be the first stop on judge pratt's book tour. there's a lot to unpack in the book title. the power of dignity transforming justice heal our communities judge pratt sees the dignity in every human being who comes into her courtroom. through the transformative innovation she champions. her court became a solution. to the inequities and indignities too many individuals face in our criminal justice system. and through healing one person at a time. judge pratt repairs our community stone by stone for the betterment of all of us i think of judge pratt as an instrument of grace. through her courtroom work. she is a medium. for delivering the assistance that comes from above. for our human regeneration but she is also. graceful she has in her past taught dance. and i originally met judge pratt more than 10 years ago at the new jersey performing arts center where she danced as part of a modern dance ensemble in a celebration of lawyers in the arts who knew there was such a vast and varied collection of artistic talent hidden in the new jersey legal community. with us tonight and introducing judge pratt is mr. jethro antoine. the director of court reform programs at the center for court innovation how well matched judge pratt and mr. antoine are both are striving to transform our criminal justice system. into a space of problem solving and a resource for communal improvement. look who's here? hi. before joining the center for court innovation, mr. antoine practice law. he also served as a senior management consultant in the public and private sectors. hi, baby. maybe he is a graduate of new york university, new york law school and columbia university school of international and public affairs. please join me in welcoming mr. jethro antoine to the newer public library. good evening, folks. good evening. i have to correct something which was said. i am not a match for victoria. no one really is. before i begin, i want to i want to join in thanking you, you know, the friends and the patrons of this wonderful wonderful institution in newark for being here to take part and hear of a story that you all helped, right? um, and and so many change makers like victoria and our moderator, you know, they they explored the world. and found their voice and then found letters through free public libraries and i just think it is. it is truly a testament to this community that this space exists. i was here. this is one of the first places we we stopped off. and so i want to tell you a bit about two people. i'm going to start with our moderator and then i'm going to move on to victoria because i know you want to hear about victoria. our moderator is associate professor jason williams from the department of justice studies at montclair state university a town that i love town that i live in and the professors work and is around critical research around race gender and justice and i couldn't think of a professor someone more suited to to kind of to talk to victoria. i want to talk to you ever so briefly about how i met victoria how we and when i say we i'm talking about the center of record innovation the organization that i work for for those of you who don't know about the center. the center is a bunch of reformers that have been working up until the point we met victoria and and other residents here primarily in new york city. and nationally we hadn't done much work in new jersey. i was introduced to victorian 2006 or early 2007. she was then the attorney for the municipal council here. and immediately it was clear that this was a person who had drive and intellectual curiosity. and just wanted to bring good ideas back to the people she was serving and not only the council but also to to new workers. i remember she was one of the first people to to say yes, when we said we could take you to brooklyn and show you how a community court is run and how the community respond to it. and that was the red hook our project in red hook. i thought that was the first time i had actually met or come across victoria. it was not. victoria and i are neighbors in in a way and we in the same town. when my children were very young. i would drive them to the ymca for swim lessons or whatever and i would drive down park. and every morning we would see a relatively short woman power walking. up park avenue power walking and my daughter is the older one who graduates on sunday from from rutgers university said to me daddy. that's the same lady. why does she walk so fast? so when i met victoria for the first time i was like wait a minute. that's the that's the person. so victoria has been walking fast. ever since i would then come to know her as the judge who sat in part two the arraignment part in the in the newark municipal court. and i watched her do what? good judges do which is care. about being in the space. and then i saw her do what exceptional judges do. she wanted everyone in her courtroom who were on her team to buy into what she was doing. she broke a eggs in doing so. but in the end she transformed first that courtroom. and then she transformed with the help of other people many of them in the room here. the rest of the courthouse as she rose to the role of being presiding judge chief judge in the municipal court and then finally she did the thing that my kids totally love when i was able to say this. she invited me to the taping of her ted talk. and so i was there and i thought it was very cool. i didn't get anything. although i got an amazing swag bag. if anyone doesn't know anyone invites you to go to one of these ted tapings go because they'll give you something really cool. but victoria this is so exciting. i know that this book is one among many things that you've authored and you know, i know that you wrote it wanting to share the story. but not in a selfish way. wanting to share it because many of the people in this room many of this the people around the country, you know, this is their experience and you know, you've given us something to aspire so, thank you. victoria pratt well, good evening, and thank you for coming near and far. i feel like we can have a whole course session here. we got all our folks from part two here. so, thank you, and i want to thank jason for agreeing to be here and have a conversation. about the book. i want to thank you the library for hosting this. this is home to me and what was especially great about being to do this here is that i use the library as a part of my sentence so often times i may when remember one young man who was babysitting his nephew and when i said, well, what do you do with your three year old nephew every day you was like we play video games. and for those of you who know me the top of my head came off. and early was like well a part of your sentence is going to be to go get a library card. and bring your nephew to the library and videotape yourself reading to him and when he came back to the court, of course, he was initially very annoyed that i would make him go do this place that he didn't know where it was located. and he's very proud though that he's showing me this video of him reading of him reading to his nephew. but he says i got a problem now judge and i'm like, well, what's the problem he was gonna every day. so i am especially grateful to the library for the work that it does. well first of all, congratulations again on the book launch, this is an incredible. feat and i also thank you for pending this very provocative and paradigmatic book. you know, this is definitely going to shape conversations, especially around contemporary justice reform and also as i told you on the other day the book not only informs but through author's words you can feel the passion, you know, and and that's something that i have to say was was ever present for me as i delve through your book. so thank you for sharing that passion and for all of the public service that you have done and continue to do it's immeasurable now moving into the first question. this book is definitely contemporary primer around reform of the legal system and especially that of the court what compelled you to write this book. and what was that journey like what are interesting question with jethro sitting here who came in the office one day and was like, i hope you're taking notes in journaling all of this stuff. looks like don't i look busy enough, but it really was a book that was inside of me bursting to come out. i was a judge sitting in the system that incarcerates black and brown bodies before they have an opportunity to shine their brilliance in the world. i was sitting in a system that ensnares the mentally ill the poor the marginalized and then disproportionately punishes them for being those things. i was sitting in a system. that did away with our children that told our children you make one mistake and that's it for you particularly in urban spaces. and one of the things that makes me move is when i get angry about something and i didn't become a judge because i thought the system. always did the right thing or mostly did the right thing. i became a judge because i committed myself that every person who comes before me is going to get justice. that was a commitment that i made to myself and to them and also this idea that at the municipal level you have such an opportunity to help people shift. most people will only see court at the municipal level. but it's in that space that you know minor contacts with the criminal justice system create major disruptions in people's lives. so the opportunity to really get into a place where i thought well, wow right here you could shift people right here. you can literally change the trajectory of a person's life that brings us to your brand. you know you often foreground dignity in your courtroom and your public talks. i think that ted talk was phenomenal. thank you and in fact in chapter three, which is i think affectionately titled i see you a very compelling title coming from a judge you write quotes true delivery of justice requires being curious about the information before us and that curiosity requires us to see both. what is obvious and what is not so obvious but also what is there and what is not so easily apparent and again my takeaway to this quote is that individualized justice ought to take day, that's how justice should process but we know unfortunately in the current system, it isn't so individualized but from your perspective why? why should judges operate with dignity? well, you know, it's interesting that you pick the icu chapter as well because this idea that people come before us and they carry everything. that has happened to them all of the trauma what happened during the course of that day all of their needs their family needs evictions. they're hungry and the justice system requires us to look at a complaint as a judge and to make a decision that will impact the person's entire life based on a few minutes of something that happened. it's not the full story. it's not actually sometimes it's not even an accurate depiction of the story. it's oftentimes what happened when the officer came and people may have said that this thing happened and so idea of treating people with dignity you know, my mother was a beautician down the street on halsey and it's amazing when you become your parent after telling you you're telling yourself your whole life that you will not do that. and then i found myself channeling her and miss elsa who i talk a lot about in the book was just this amazing woman who just had love and kindness to give and i always say that you know, she was a beautician who used hair care as an opportunity to heal people so she had a beauty parlor and my mother would feed the homeless. she had an entire quadrant of adopted children. she would go into hospitals and visit people who were hiv positive and if you remember in the 80s people were discarded. when they turned up positive my mother would work a full day and then go visit them and kind of seeing this idea these folks as full people and she funded into my self and my brother and it was very important we learned to see. people as entire things that had families and had things and had a story like they had a story. and so sometimes when you're sitting particularly in a municipal court that has the volume of newark in any place. they want you to move the calendar move the calendar move the calendar. so you're looking at cases and you're checking off boxes, and hopefully the people can read it, or maybe you don't care whether they could read it or not, and there was so much happening while you're not looking up. checking off boxes. there's actually a jurisdiction that tells people. not to look at the defendant when they are giving them a negative ruling that means if you want to send them to jail if you're going to hold them to a bail and i think about how disrespectful that is to the person who's receiving. your action first of all, they don't trust the system at all because they think that the judge, you know, the judge is doing me dirty. they couldn't even look me in the eye and i promise myself that if i couldn't look a person in the eye when i was giving them my ruling that i needed to rethink what that ruling was. i really had to rethink that because there's something in me that's not comfortable with this and if there's something of me that's not comfortable with it, then they're not getting justice and sometimes we make the offender a victim because again we have the system that's has the sensiated desire to punish. so we disproportionately punish people and then while they're being punished they're thinking about how the judge and both system has victimized them. so this idea of people treating people with dignity and respect is funny because the center of court innovation greg burman came to visit our court i had been on the bench maybe a year and we had had our new york community solutions program running and he asked me do you just do that naturally and i got a little embarrassed because i wasn't sure what it was i was doing. you know and i went into my court and i just put my head down and i was like as long as nobody's asking about all this stuff just for us to what i'm gonna keep doing it and even if they ask as soon as they leave. going to keep doing it. so. and he told me about this thing called procedural justice and so i had been practicing this thing not even realizing that it was something that there was evidence and there had been research about so it's this idea that if people perceive that they understand if they believe that they're being treated with dignity and respect it increases their trust in the justice system. not only does it increase their trust in the justice system it gets them to obey the law, right? so ie you're reducing crime and it also gets them to be satisfied with the judges rulings even when the judge rules against them. so they begin to see the justice system as a legitimate authority. to rule against them. literally. they said people we submit to governance to today's an election to the mayor's power over us to the city councils government authority over us and to make rules that were subject to because we to see them as legitimate authorities that was not happening and it and it doesn't happen often times so judges give people or i like to say, you know, you smash them out with these hearts sentences and then they go right back to jail because pretty much what you've done is illegitimate to them. so this idea of creating this this idea of looking at people is really significant because we're dealing with populations that nobody asks them what they think nobody sees them. it was challenging when i'm got moved to this court because it was the arraignment court. so it was the people who like i picked up on bench warrants. they had been running on the streets for days trying to get high. so instead of they were drugstick instead of going to the hospital they ended up at green street jail, and so you would see them and they'd be filthy or they'd be having auditory hallucinations and then you're dealing with these folks and it just it made you feel terrible because here you were they come in you'd revise their time payment a fine. they got that when you gave it to them. you knew they couldn't pay and so they go through this cycle of injustice right this conveyor belt of injustice that you're participating in and the system forces judges to participate in the hallucination, you know, sir. how much are you going to pay me? oh judge. i'm gonna pay you a hundred dollars a month when i get my check. well if he had a check, he probably wouldn't be living on the streets. or my favorite was one day the prosecutor wanted to impose a $80 fine and 33 dollars court costs and i was like manny prosecutor. did you notice that he's wearing one shoe. right one shoe if he had five dollars, maybe he'd go get another shoe. but here the court is engaged in this thing that we're going to impose finds that we know that we're not going to get and then we punish him by when he doesn't pay the hundred dollars. now i got to issue a bench warrant. and then he gets picked up and in a couple of months people get arrested multiple times on fines. an open charges, i think one of the numbers i saw the prison policy say that in a year people. before they even get convicted 10.6 million admissions at the low level of people just churning through the municipal court. and if we keep our heads down and just keep looking at the paper. yeah, we can do that and not be affected by it, but that's not justice. that's not justice. so this idea of looking and seeing people it also gives the judge an opportunity to make decisions about what it is. they're seeing when i'm when i'm on the bench, you know, i the whole courtroom is my living room. so i need to know what's happening and i think one of the things that i got why i got really good at it is because i engaged the entire courtroom. so at the end of my session i would say tell me what i missed and i have my officer the officers here was our judge you missed that he was intimidating her you missed that he was talking to. himself, and it got to the point that before i even got on the bench. the clerk would say oh this person you might need to see them first or the officer would say i put their file up top because you might need to get them out of the courtroom or this person's has another appointment. but this idea that the entire system everyone who touches them needs to see them and needs to be asking themselves questions about why is this person? responding in this way, which is a whole nother way of seeing them. you know, i am talk about a young man in the book who comes to court and he's just his behavior is odd, and he's looking at the officers both ways and i'm the i believe that he's about to be done with the program because he had already gotten into. trouble with me and mr. drogo who's here begins to read this horrible report of all the stuff. he hasn't done that. i've already given him multiple times to do but the entire time she's talking instead of him trying to interrupt her. or plead his case. he's just looking at the officers. he's looking at the officers and he's putting his hands in his pocket and taking his hands and i'm just like wow, this is not how somebody behaves when they're about to get in trouble when she stops speaking now. i'm looking at him and what i'm expecting to hear is check it judge. check it. let me tell you what really happened, right? and instead what i hear is just shoot me just shoot me just kill me and he literally lunges for the officers. he had come to court for suicide by police. and just sitting there thinking what could be so horrible. that you would come to court so somebody could kill you literally lunge for the officers. guns now because the officers were in a courtroom where they understood that their roles were peace officers. i mean lifted him off the ground and took him in the back. but that's why you need to see people because what he's frequently told officers. was that everything for the past two weeks had been going so bad for him? that he just wanted to end it. he just wanted his life to end now in a place where people are not looking and not sensitive to this. it could have ended differently, you know, the officers could have responded to his aggression with more aggression. but there's a whole life and it's a life. with a lot of trauma that you need to understand folks who come through the criminal justice system. so seeing them and seeing what's not there because of again. i was just like wow, this is not whatever. however he's responding is not normal. to and i don't mean normal. like he schizophrenic but not normal in terms of what is customary when these things happen. what's customary when this young man has been in court before me and that sometimes a person what can look like disorderly behavior is just some stuff that's going on that we need to resolve before that day. we didn't i didn't care anything about the case that was in front of me. we needed to resolve what was happening to this young man so he could stay alive. yeah, i think the marriage and together of your personal biography with that of procedural justice is quite fascinating and i think it connects to a quote from chapter 6 to david palin's case. you wrote quote the failure to infuse a procedural justice approach. it's a policing will continue to produce terrible outcomes throughout the justice system. yes as was the case for david and and we later learn in this chapter that david was a law student he had been arrested by transit police on a disorderly person's ticket. but again this connection, you know from personal biography to understanding decline before you you all know that for instance. he wrote his eyes right when you when you called his name and something happened for you there. what was the procedural justice takeaway? know he got sent to my court because now we had this newark community solutions program that provided you with alternatives to sentence defenses defendants to jail so we could do other things we could get counseling and because newark is this huge college town we needed to figure out why college students. i had never had a law student in my courtroom at all. so i was thinking what could he have possibly done other than the drunk outside? and even the complaint as it was written just said disorderly and i'm like, there's no allegations here something strange happened and when he got up and rolled his eyes at me. i was like, this is an extension of what happened out in the streets, and now you're mad at me so i kind of laughed because i was like, oh nobody told him. i'm just pratt don't play but you know, we'll get through this. but it was just i didn't respond to that idea that i knew whatever his first contact with the police was was horrible. and in newark, you have 26 law enforcement officer all agencies writing summonses complaints and tickets. so if you're in newark the chances and i mean live park their car here work here come and shop here the chances of you engaging with law enforcement is great and then different bodies of law enforcement. so you're looking at new jersey transit rutgers police as this county police the prosecutors investigators office the newark police, new jersey transit conrail has a police force, you know all of these places, so that he came before me and he was really upset but he was this law student. so a part of his sentence was to write an essay at the time. i did not know the extent of what it was that happened to mr. polanese. and so he read his essay how good decisions and bad decisions might impact my life. and his case was dismissed he was sent off. the one day i was at the law school, and this nicely dressed young man comes up to me and it's like i don't know if you remember me. and he is now at that time a prosecutor. right because processing him on that ticket would have created an issue for him. and it just said disorderly persons. but i don't know what that means because that could mean anything and it could mean you just spoke you you spoke back when the offices spoke to you. then i see him so like i'm like wow, this is amazing and i said to him you got a second chance when you see somebody who deserves a second chance you give it to him if you see somebody who's supposed to be under the jail you give them that too. but if somebody is salvageable, you know, you give them exactly what you got. i interviewed him for the book. and he says i never disclosed what really happened to me. he was at the city subway. and his friend decided they couldn't he couldn't wait and he started urinating on the place. new jersey transit officer comes and starts saying all kinds of obscenities to him. what does the young law office of the young law student do he does what he learned in the first year criminal procedure and criminal law he told the officer you don't have to speak to him that way. i mean, you know if he needs a ticket give it to him. he gets slammed to the ground. he gets slammed to the ground by this officer officer puts his knee in his back arrests him for speaking. literally. he was arrested for speaking. and what is so crazy about this is that he never disclosed this even as he went through the process. he had a public defender. he never disclosed this so there was the shame about this but also this idea how do i trust the system you know, he now is this? i mean he has he's moved on to one of the large. terms in the state of new jersey like maybe the second largest before that. he was working at one of the the most powerful political firms in the state and i'm thinking like one encounter could have changed all of that if the judge didn't slow down if the prosecutor didn't slow down if the public defender had not asked the question. are you a student right because before i got? a plea i needed the prosecutor. is this person a student? do they work? do they have any medical issues? yeah, that's a lot of stuff, but you better start talking to your clients before you come talking to me about why they should accept the plea and especially in a college town a lot of young folks want to just plead guilty so they can go home and their parents not know and then they figure out. oh wait, i don't have any financial aid anymore because i play guilty to something that was stupid at the municipal level. because i didn't ask anybody and no one saw value enough in me to say. we're going to stop and i'm not going to let you do this, you know, one of my favorites when people wanted to go to trial and they didn't want a public pretender. i would always say so you're going to represent yourself. i guess you watched a lot of law and order, but i hope you know that in law in order the prosecutor always wins and i can't there's no do over that trial and so this idea that you have to make sure people are also informed to go back to this idea of procedural justice when you talk about procedures justice and the principles. it's one giving people voice the opportunity to speak that clearly in that interaction. he did not have the opportunity to speak. in fact, he was penalized for speaking ensuring that the process is neutral and that the that there's the appearance of neutrality and sometimes the neutrality peace is a little challenging for judges not because we don't want to be neutral but because the person who is receiving the neutrality has to believe that the process is neutral and sometimes we mess up when we go. stuff like when we say stuff like oh, where's my office or where's my prosecutor? we have this relationship that with people that we are familiar with even attorneys that come in day in and day out and you become familiar with them when we go back in when we go into the back to conference a case and a person is representing themselves. they can't go back there. why is the judge going in the back to talk about my case? why can't they do this where i can see and participate in this process and not understanding how that impacts something as simple as a rule all of the judges know it here we do an opening statement that we take the private attorneys first, and then we go to the public defender cases and then we go to people representing themselves. people sitting in the audience representing themselves feel like they're being shafted because the person who's got the attorney gets to go first. the reason we let the attorneys go first is because they're they have to be in another court in another part of the state and can't hold up the entire process, but it is important that we say things like that that people and so that's why this neutral piece is challenging because we really have to make an effort to make sure that people do that understand this neutrality piece this idea also of understanding that people understand the process the justice system doesn't tell us that it's our responsibility as judges to make sure people understand but who else is responsibility is it? if i want you to do what i've asked you to do to not do the things that you're doing to go back into the community and be a full citizen if you don't understand the process what's expected of you? how can you participate fully you can't? you can't so yes, it is our responsibility and this idea of respect and what respect looks like. what is it, you know, sometimes people think oh if you're being respectful it makes you look weak and i'm like, no respect makes you look. wrong, right because you have to be strong in who you are not worried about the second. i realized that i worried about whether i would appear vulnerable on the bench, but when i realized that they needed more help. than my concern about being vulnerable. then it worked out like i was like, oh, i don't really care about whether you think i'm weak because you realize i wasn't because i was trying to make sure that this process because the process doesn't end in my courtroom. what happens in my courtroom then goes into the community and and i have to be cognizant of that. so this idea of respect is like literally there's a study that shows that when when women are asked questions judge it you have to pause you have to give a woman a second. to think but that when women are asked questions in court. they go on quickly. don't wait for the answer. they just go on so judges have to be conscious of the fact that women are thinking about it. have to think about not just gonna give you an answer, but that there are differences. there might be differences culturally that you have to wait for an actual response. so those are some of the things that what respect looks like, you know, i always say the i start my ted talk with judge, i want to tell you something. i want to tell you something. i've been watching you. and you're not too faced you treat everybody the same. well, that was said to me by a transgender prostitute who before i had gotten on the bench had fired her public defender. insulted the court officer and yelled at the person sitting next to her. i don't know what you're looking at. i look better than the girl you're with. right and so she says this. but when i called her case. i say her male name low enough so that it's picked up by the record, but i say it her female name loud enough so that she could walk down the aisle towards council table with dignity. and and it was a small thing and it changed everything because again she was telling me i'm judging you as well. it's not just you think that you get to judge me it based on how i feel about you depends on what i'm going to do when i leave here and whether you're gonna have peace in your courtroom while i'm here as well. so yeah, i love that. you know that what happens? in the courtroom ult imate ends up back in the kitchen that baseline of understanding but in keeping with this same vein of thought down a little bit more into the letter written. yeah that's allowed you to establish another kind of justice, but perhaps an even more effective. so the essays yes, so i picked up the essays from my mentor in new york. does calabrese from the and a lot of judges give people essays what i found is that so much of the population that comes through. let's just establish this it's a small portion of the population that comes through our court systems that are responsible for the that we see as offenses in our community and so many of them are poorly educated so i would get these essays and i couldn't read them. so the reason i started giving these essays is because so much of the conversation is about how to shift a person how to get them to transform their thinking and the essays are cathartic they write about the thing that's got them stuck. and it's not just that i want to know your business, but if you start writing and thinking about this thing, they got that has you stuck we can get past it because it's really about unpacking the lie. hello. it's about the lie that we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck. and so in the essays people had an opportunity to really just express themselves the folks who came before me and court. nobody asked them how they're feeling what they think. no one does that. and so now i was actually criticized by someone who was well meaning it was like how could you give these folks essays and i thought how little would i have to think about them that to think that they don't have the right to express themselves? and so again the lie there is an example in the book. but it was just a really powerful one as well of a woman who was very ill one of the things is that when people started reading the essays aloud they got really they got really good and i didn't know that people would be so honest about what they were experiencing. and so she starts writing this essay and one of the great things is that when people wrote read the essays they often would bring people with them because they were proud of themselves and we would clap at the end the essay and she starts her essay off and she says. i've been suffering from a fatal disease for 24 years. and i made a note of it and then she starts talking about how her life spirals. so how she started doing drugs and then her illness and then she got are illness and so when she was finished everybody, i mean resounding clapping it was wonderful, and i looked at her and i said, do you know that you beat that disease 23 years ago. you can't have a fatal disease for 24 years, right? and i told her you have been telling yourself. the wrong story been telling the story where you're the victim and in fact, you're the victor every morning you wake up and you tell that disease. i wish you would try to take me out. every morning you say that to the disease and if you could have seen her face it was a first time that she had ever thought about her diagnosis in that way and i tell you she just stood up straighter. and i thought like having the had had she not written that. we wouldn't have been able to unpack the lie. she was a fighter 24 years. somebody told you he was supposed to die a year in a year and every day you wake up every day you wake up you may feel pain, but you've overcome that disease. and so those you know those things i stopped. giving young boys the young boys young guys the essay where do i? see myself at 25 because they would always start these essays. i don't i don't know. well, first of all, they had attitude. i don't know why the judge gave me this stupid essay to write. but i don't expect to see 21. why is she asking me about seeing 25? whoa, first time i heard it i thought yikes. second time i heard it third i was on dated for this essay because we need to have essays here that pour into them. so the topics like if i believe one positive thing about myself, how would my life be different now that essay i could really care less about what they write because for two weeks. they're thinking about a positive characteristic they may have right, they're like, oh no, i don't. write about that, but i'm good at that, right. and so it's this idea of giving people different feelings about who they are even though we're in the courthouse. let them go upstairs and your community solutions has a quadrip social workers case managers. we got community service and when they came to newark, they put together this guide of all the community service places and social service places that most folks didn't know about so you could do community service at a church on sunday that had a drug rehabilitation arm and that would send you off to drug treatment on monday. and so that's what i mean about this part about the community healing itself sending people to one of our partners who's here to the food bank. and it's not just about punishing you it's about you giving back to this community and you owe it and you owe this, you know, i'm i talk about mr. m. and how he when i ask them about community service and he was like, oh judge. it was terrible. i had to go clean this. park and it was full of empty heroin envelopes and i thought well when he said he was terrible. i was hoping nothing bad had happened and as he rung his hands he said and i realized that it was my fault because i used that same park to get high. and before you sent me to the park to do community service, i had never been in the park when i wasn't high and i never noticed the children playing there every drug addict in the courtroom lord their head who better than this person to teach that lesson and i told him i said, i don't think the people in the suburbs. the kids in the suburbs don't have to see empty heroin envelopes in their parks, and i don't think the people in the suburbs love aren't their children more than we do, but even the fact that he would have a feeling about that shows you that there's a human being that this human-centered justice is important. there's a human being in there that when he's not high cares about his entity and what do we have to do as a part of the system and as a part of this community that we tap into it? it sounds like the very essence of therapeutic justice. you know what justice should reflect. yeah, can give around. and chapter 4 you begin to touch on this notion of poverty not being around and in fact you write quote the scene before me. was a the scene before me every day was was basically a scene of an abandoned america and i think that this is a powerful statement, you know, especially coming from a jurist. can you win pack that further? how does that inform your practice? well, someone is interesting, so i did a podcast and someone asked me if i was the president. what would be what would i do to further my criminal justice? movement and i was like eradicate poverty. and he thought that eradicate poverty. racism and i had a whole list of things and he thought it was strange that i said that maybe because he was in britain, but i said the reality is that so much of this is driven by poverty. we punish people for being poor. we punished them. i mean we make it illegal to sleep in the park. we make it illegal to smoke in public right and smoking in public in newark is being down at penn station trying to get catch the bus. and smoking out there because that's public property so you can get a ticket for smoking and if you live at penn station, you're definitely get in the ticket for that. and drinking in public right? and so if you are homeless the public is your home. and penn station, which is our unofficial homeless shelter because if you get locked into one of the train tracks, it's warm people come down there and feed you. there's a health truck that comes down once a week. and commuters will give you a dollar just to get you to move away from them. but we're not addressing the issue of poverty instead. we see a homeless person and legislators. not letting them off the hook because that's where we get our laws. somebody's driving down the street and sees them a bunch of homeless people. at the park and they're like, you know what i'm gonna go to the office and write up an ordinance to make it illegal to sleep in the park. now they tell the police officers every time you see people sleeping in the park arrest them. and then now the officers have to arrest the sleeping the people who are homeless. and then to bring them down to the courthouse and now you want the court to impose fines and jail. because the person is homeless sleeping in the courthouse when it was a governor who got rid of the mental health housing that created. more homelessness when it's gentrification or as i caught like the it rentification that's causing people to lose their housing. and so it's all it's nonsensical. and so this idea that we not only punish people for being poor the justice system also pushes people into poverty with costs and fines. thank god we don't do this in new jersey, but there's paid to stay laws where if you get arrested in certain states, and you stay at the jail. you get a bill from the jail. for each day, you stay there now you didn't ask to stay at the jail. and when you don't pay the jail now you got another case. and so it's this idea that we don't care about poor people because it doesn't affect us. that's why the private prison industry is so terrible. that's why. private probation is a horrible idea you talk about going down and we don't have probation in new jersey, but it's in the it's in this country alabama ran them out of the state a person would go they would have a traffic ticket and have to pay $100 while they showed up with fifty dollars and they need a time payment. they need a payment plan to pay them next fifty dollars. so the judge puts them on probation a private probation to pay that $50. well each month that you are on that private probation. you have to pay that private probation company. 25-35 to pay off that last $50. when you don't pay now, you have a violation of probation this objects you to jail. and so it's this idea that we are constantly. shoving people into the system and then these fines chase them for years chase them for years and people can't get from underneath them and then what it does to women particularly black women because black and brown bodies particularly black. bodies are in jails. women bear the burden of litigation and incarceration whether it's putting money in commissary whether it's traveling whether it's paying for the actual litigation whether it's paying fines to keep their sons out of jail. the pay child support to keep their sons or daughters out of the system. what that looks like? and so there was a study i have it in the book. they the 83% of in of incarcerated folks there the cost of of incarceration so they pay for all of this stuff 34% of them went into debt. just for litigation costs. 38% of the women that had to pay made less than 15,000. and over 13,000 in legal fees. and 65% could not even meet their basic needs when i talk about basic needs, you know, we're talking about food. the electricity and so in newark, what what you would see in my court was a woman in her minimum wage suit popeyes some minimum wage to sitting in court waiting to find out what happened to her loved one. and she'd be sitting so every hour that she's sitting in court. she's losing money right and potentially losing her job. and so she sits in court waiting to hear what happened. then she gets someone gets a bail. they get a bail and the person posted not understanding that bail again we go back to procedural justice in this idea of understanding bail is held until the end of the proceeding. which takes months and if the person can't come back to court, you definitely don't need to be posting mail for them. i see them in two weeks, right? they would come back in two weeks. judge. can i have my bail? i need my bail back because that was my rent. right now i'm like, but bail has to be held until the end. of this litigation case to make sure this person comes back now this person's facing eviction. because they don't have rent in advance. they don't have too much rent. they have that rent. and so again you're looking at even how traffic matters get people stuck in this cycle of poverty and they just never come out of it how our education system also pushes people into this cycle of poverty and we ignore it because if it's not directly impacting us, we just want our money money that we can't that's undeliverable as i call it so really and the courts in most places are your second or third highest revenue generator i talk about ferguson in the book and how ferguson exploded because the officers had to go out and ticket the poor people in this community so that the city could have money. to do what it needed to do. but what happens when you can't get money from them they get incarcerated so yeah, i've actually done a ferguson a few times on research and you're absolutely correct for many of the people down there the damages right from the court system are irreparable. absolutely. nothing that can be done to really to no no, and that's why the court needs to be involved in healing and that's why transform how transforming our court system can heal our communities because we are so often responsible for the damage that's caused in our communities and that's why when people say why with the court that's why because we're causing this damage that's happening and these communities. yeah, i love how i had back to society and you mentioned the legislators and so forth as well. it seems like you know anything that we don't want to do with as a society. we thrilled to the criminal justice system, right which is just simply ill prepared to handle those those issues and we don't train we don't train officers like it was amazing to me to see in my courtroom how the officers became these peace officers who could identify mental illness who could identify when somebody was in danger they could identify all these things because we were looking for it. but then we send offices out and then we say okay deal with this person who's really big and being very aggressive when people are like, oh, well, what am i supposed to do when the person's being aggressive ask them if they're hungry? hello, because if they're always hungry. and that's why we fed them in court. and so if you ask the wow, and you are you hungry? immediately they come down. i mean i'm hungry now, and i know i'm gonna eat. phone and i'm good right like but i'm gonna be a little i'm gonna have a little attitude but imagine you don't know where your next meal is coming from. and then what's next for you or what's next for you? and now somebody wants to stop you and talk to you about. why you sleeping on the bench? i was sleeping. you've irritated me now, so and keeping with this trainer thought in chapter 5 titled reforms that transform you you start you started talking about root causes some of what we've just discussed and solutions you nudity great work that organizations in newark are doing for instance the north community solutions the center for court innovation. why is it important for us to raise the profile of these organizations? because i think that the partnership with the judiciary is key when the center for court innovation came here and when newark community solutions was created jethroat touched on this. went the library was one of the places they had a meeting where the community could come out. they went into the different wars asking people. what do you want justice to look like? and what was interesting was that the people in newark didn't say i want those guys on the corners to be locked up. they wanted them to get jobs. they wanted the drug added to get into drug treatment, and they wanted the court to be the place that did that work. and so when you talk to the community about how it wants to save itself the fact that you would talk to the community at all. is significant because they know i would sit with my community providers. i'm seeing this in court. what does this mean? why is this happening? the young men are coming in and this old does that's happening because there's a turf war in this particular space of the community officers. why am i seeing so many cases that look like this? so it's this idea of being able they're things that they can do that the judiciary and that often the judiciary is not comfortable doing but being able to send people to a place and connecting with organizations so that they know the courthouses a part of this community come in and be here like sometimes people would just come to court early and sit in the back of the courtroom, which i always thought was interesting. would you hear five just came to see i'm like, yeah, you're not in trouble today hun. you just trying to make sure. wow, do do to the time constraints? i'm going to go ahead and skip down to my last two so we can get you to the end. okay, um. you are a human being god look you're answering these questions eloquently and and i think adequately for all of us but you are also human yes, you are a human being you're a minority yourself what type of vicarious trauma have you had i would say sometimes i'd get off the bench and i felt like i was in a physical fight because i would physically feel like someone had put their hands on me because every case that comes before a judge and this is why judges need to understand vicarious trauma that they experience every case is a different problem and different trauma that they're absorbing from the person that comes before them making decisions with the best amount information of information that you have. hoping that when these folks leave nothing happens to them. hoping that you caught whatever it was that might help them. and so you hear these stories again and again and again and you have to figure out how to break away from them if you understand that your job is mission work is hard because you don't leave it at work. you can't it's impossible to just leave and be like, okay, i'm gonna go play soccer or whatever it is that you do, but you have to figure out and understand that sometimes you're feeling something that's not even yours. is that person you left? and you're not sure if you made the right decision if you gave them enough information. and how it's gonna what's going to happen like particularly municipal courts where we can have entire neighborhoods fighting and you give them a new court date. oh you hope they don't go out there and have another block of fighting again. but you know, it's it's really that but the most important reason why particularly judges and officers and people who deal with these folks have to understand is that you cannot become numb to them. because of the trauma that you were experienced you cannot and that's the first thing that we do is that we just shut ourselves down, but if you shut yourself down and you're you're gonna miss everything while those things are happening and the ultimate conclusion. what do you want readers to take away from the book most humans-centered justice? has to be a priority. has to be a child. now we're going to pivot to the judge. she's going to read some very prominent excerpts. so i'm gonna read a treat come. yeah, i'm gonna read this one. oh boy. i thought i had a had the page. and i'm gonna put on my readers chapter one a better approach a nation's success or failure and achieving democracy is judged by how well it responds to those at the bottom and the margins of the social order sandra day o'connor picture this newark municipal court in newark, new jersey summer of 2012. felt as hot as the sun itself in the brick city newark's moniker, of course, the faithful air conditioner was out of commission in courtroom 222, which house part two criminal court. an affectionately known as the deuce a sea of black and brown faces mostly black and belonging to mostly poor and mostly marginalized people packed the deuce. it was your typical urban courtroom inundated by low level offenders with high level problems for them seemingly insignificant interactions with the justice system upended their lives. my tiny death fan was rattling beads of sweat gathered between my shoulder blades and inched down my back as i worked feverishly in my black robe made of my girls polly and esther. it was one of those days when the more people i moved out of the courtroom, the more people seemed to pop up in their place jamal henner as solidly built young african-american man with a honey brown complexion in a striped short sleeve polo shirt and jeans walked into the courtroom and plopped himself down on a rear bench. i hadn't seen him in years. i felt my irritation rise while i sat while he sat there with a blank stare his mouth. lately a gate why is he here again? i wondered as i gave him the side eye. he was about 22 years old, but he had started getting arrested and appearing before me at age 18. initially, i found his case is a bit odd. they were all harassment cases brought by his family members. they would go to his he would go to his relatives homes and incessantly ring the doorbell or he was stand outside their homes and yell at their windows instead of just letting him in they would call the police. i later learned that the early signs of schizophrenia began to reveal themselves and males at around the age of 18. after we successfully got him through newark community solutions a court program that provides alternative sentencing. he returned to my courtroom on new charges when i called the next case. i noticed he had put his headphones on and was rocking in his seat. i said sternly mr. henry, you know, you can't listen to music in court. take your headphones off. i shook my head and disapproval as a bead of sweat gathered at my right temple. he rolled his eyes as he removed his head his headphones. i quickly realized that this exchange was about my own misunderstanding. what was he doing? he was drowning out the voices in his head. he suffered from auditory hallucinations which cause a person to hear voices or music without any external stimulation. he attempted to cope with his condition by playing music louder than he hoped the voices could speak. unfortunately i missed it. i knew about his diagnosis but in the heat i had forgotten to consider what it took for him to make it through a day in court watching mr. henner out the corner of my eye and noticed that the 40 something year old white police officer assigned to my court had walked past him and stopped as if rooted to the spot the young man must have mudded something the officer did a double take inferred his eyebrows officer cosgrove and athletic dark-haired 20-year police veterans veteran looked over his shoulder and responded to mr. henry's comment. then he shook his head and kept walking. i wondered why is office of cosgrove talking to mr. henner doesn't he remember that mr. henry's schizophrenia makes him hate and act aggressively towards police officers. then it hit me like a high-speed moving train -- the police officers assigned to my court that day had been working with me for less than a year. they didn't know mr. henner and mr. henner didn't know them while the officers weren't new to the police force. they were new to my courtroom and with certainly to this defendant. in this case, they had no expert no experience with mr. henner one of our more challenging defendants who ended up in my courtroom, mr. henna, mr. henry. i yelled as i signaled with my hand gesture for him to approach council's table your case is next come up come up. mr. officer solomon and older husky paternal african-american man, casually walked over to mr. henner and tapped him on the shoulder son. he said the judge just called your case. oh, no, i thought. wheezing my eyes shut officer solomon touched him my chest tightened even though no single wave is responsible for tsunami. i couldn't skirt from responsibility for the mayhem that was about to ensue. i pride myself on giving people who work in my court a heads up about challenging defendants on this day a massive caseload my irritation with mr. henner and my preoccupation with moving cases along calls me to forget. to attend to that detail. it all happened so quickly mr. henna shot out of his seat like a rocket. he landed with his chest out and his finger pointed in office of solomon's face and yelling profanity profanities before i knew it the two officers and the court attendant were restraining mr. henner who was lifting the 300 pound officer solomon off the ground officer cosgrove had mr. henner in a chokehold. he was no longer restraining mr. henner. he was in a fight. i had no instruction manual on how to handle the situation that was unfolding before me like other judges. i had only received guidance suggesting that when an incident encouraged in your courtroom, get off the bench for your own safety and avoid becoming a witness to the situation, but i believe that my job is to serve as a leader in that courtroom not to run and hide when an incident occurs. i was not going to abandon ship for mr. henner because of his decompensating mental state the mere touch of the officer felt like an assault the police officers were responding according according to their training not some malice of harder to desire to unleash violence on the young man as i watched the chaos audience members running for cover staffers leaving their posts everyone observing in horror. all i could think of was eric garner. mr. garner and unarmed african-american man was killed by new york new york city police officer who placed them in a chokehold after stopping him for selling cigarettes as a pendant monium ensued in my courtroom. it was like i experienced deja vu vivid images of news footage flash through my mind of mr. garner lying on the ground in a chokehold gasping for air being restrained by officers as he repeatedly cried out. i can't breathe this phrase this plea for mercy became the rally in cry for protesters across the country. i said to myself not here not today. according to the research individuals with untreated mental illness like mr. henner are 16 times more likely to be killed during encounters with law enforcement than those who are mentally sound. those killed by police are also disproportionately black and native american imagine the number of mentally ill people who have non-fatal yet traumatizing encounters with the police because of their mental state. this abuse continues throughout their contact with the justice system in the courts probation jail or prison and parole. this is because just justice system. actors expect people to comply with their rules and obey commands upon issuance. they don't concern themselves with a person's limitations and how those limitations make it temporarily or often permanently impossible for a person to accomplish. the task commands is trivial as sit quietly in court. stop making so much noise on this corner show up to your permission check on july 3rd, or not easily accomplished when you suffer from auditory hallucinations, this is compounded by the stark differences and perceptions of fairness in our country according to a pew research center study 68% of black people surveyed said that black people are generally treated less fairly by the justice system. then whites why only 27% of white surveyed believe that blacks are treated unfairly by the justice system. rakea boyd, michael brown george floyd eric garner dante wright, brianna taylor was thanks king police shootings and killings of unarmed black men and women never seem seem never-ending this unequal treatment extends to the imposition of harsh and desperate sentences for the same crimes people of color historically and presently have faced injustice. from the criminal justice system and they carry memories of their own experiences and those of their friends families neighbors and acquaintances when they attend court to respond to their cases even without an instruction manual i had spent invaluable years watching ms. elsa my mom handle the drug addicted the mentally ill and the emotionally unstable at her beauty salon barring from ms. elsa's playbook. i sat forward in my seat lord my voice and said mr. hinner is judge pratt. please listen to my voice. the police officers are not trying to hurt you. i need you to stop moving. at the same time a gestured with my hands for him to stop. while trying to break free he responded tell them to get off me judge. cosgrove releases neck i said officer cosgrove gave me an incredulous look as if i had lost my entire mind. nowhere in his 20 years on the police force had he been trained to respond in the way. i was directing. however, he had previously told me that he had seen things happen in my courtroom that he had never seen in the course of his career. he knew that i had a way of handling challenging people and difficult situations that brought about what he viewed as unbelievable unbelievably possible to have outcomes. he trusted me, so he released the young man from the chokehold huffing and puffing. officer solomon and the court attendant both follow suit and release mr. henner. i told mr. henna to wait outside the courtroom and i directed the court administrator to give him a new court date mr. henner was willing to listen to me because he had spent time in my courtroom where he had been treated with kindness acceptance and respect he trusted that i would keep the officers from hurting him and my courtroom everyone responded to his condition in a respectful patient manner that allowed him to maintain his dignity. offers cosgrove the approached the bench and said he'll be worse when he comes back judge. i replied watch. procedural justice and the other techniques that i use to build trust save the day and a life on that sweltery morning in the deuce two weeks passed and mr. henry returned to court when i called this case. i told him young man you owe this gordon apology. officer cosgrove ran to the front of the courtroom and interrupted me judge. we worked it out. it was all a misunderstanding. he shook mr. hinder's hand. wow. mr. henner was readmitted to the program a while later. he walked into court on a random day mr. henry you don't have court today. i said, i'm not here to see you. he said sharply responded as if i had taken some liberty with my assumption that a person coming to court might be there. me he walked over to office at cosgrove who dug into his wallet and gave mr. henner lunch money to buy a soda and a hot dog from the cart in front of the court house. this became a regular occurrence or for solomon who would give him an extra lunch from those that had brought have been brought to the cell block for people being detained at one point mr. henner had been detained and sent to the county jail due to a probation violation on a superior court manner officer solomon called the officers the sheriff's officers to advise them on how to handle him. it was sad to witness mr. hinder's mental health drive his contacts with the criminal justice system and even the justice systems. well intentioned attempts to address this behavior like placing him on probation were woefully inadequate. as it exists in our country the probation system requires one officer to supervise between 100 to 125 probationers. this is a system designed to fail then at a hearing to address a violation. patient the court is asked to sort it out by restraining this unsuccessful relationship. we're sending the violator to jail. although serious issues exist in the courtroom in the court system for addressing people with mental health needs i still managed to find ways to turn my courtroom into a resource the feelings of trust and mutual respect. i established created an environment where a veteran we're veteran police officers and a young african-american man with schizophrenia. we're willing to step outside of the heat of the moment during one eventful day and behave in an unprecedented way. there was no arrests no trip to the coroner's office, mr. henry realize that these on these uniformed officers were not trying to hurt him the officers became better at crisis intervention and recognizing that many officers could be motivated many factors could be person's behavior. now what's great about this is that i have some off there's some officers in here who worked with me. i'm sorry. and that did this work and so they trained other people i talk about them in the book as well at about how when they left me they ended up training people and how i dragged other officers who had this human-centered approach to justice into the courtroom to help as well. wow, see this is why. i have to get it. there are many more many more depictions of that element vulnerability. i guess at this point because i can say a lot more too, but i guess we will pivot to q&a. if anybody has any questions yet, we can probably take two or three. yes, please. have a question in a comment. yes, so it is a parent that are a real life superhero many people and so i wanted to know i kind of know, but i want everybody else to know how the what's your origin story like every great hero had oh boy origin story. how did judgment back that little girl? let's go question right decide. i want to get into law. my mother was a hairdresser my father did you know, so how did i just yeah. what was that turning point for that little girl back in the day? i think it's the same thing that upset me. and seeing my mother spoke with a very strong spanish accent and people got over on her all the time and were disrespectful. my father had like an eighth grade education and seeing how differential he had to be to whites because he meant he was born in harlem but spent his summers in the segregated south. so his experience in america was different and and getting angry and having to speak for people immigrants in my family who came to this country, but really getting angry about inequity and i charge everyone to do the same figure out that thing that really -- you off and don't just talk about it. please stop posting about it. stop posting about it. you know you you know you have these advocates that don't go and touch the people go touch the people about it go do something about it do that thing that makes you uncomfortable and scares you but be of service, you know be of service stop worrying about the likes. stop worrying about the likes. what you describe in human centered justice is what we need, but how do we get there for me? i mean you talking about changing the whole system and i know you're thinking about this. i guess i want you to share with us. i'm sure the book is part of it. but how do we get more of you on the bed? oh, wow, you can't how do we get more people thinking same way that you are to be on the bench nationwide and go beyond that. so i'm doing a lot of trainings, but i think that we have to remember about what civics because i guess they don't teach it in school like why you vote people into office because you want your community to reflect what you want and what you think so you have to begin to hold people accountable for reforming criminal justice and putting people on the bench. like i always laugh because then mayor now senator booker took a chance on me people told him foolishness like oh, she's too nice. she's too little i think that's a real funny one. she's too little i'm not trying to get on and ride at an amusement park. they should have been talking about my legal acumen, right? he was like, this is exactly what we're about letting young younger people do this work. and so if you want people who care about folks, make sure you're electing people in new jersey and making sure they're appointing judges. who do this work. i was really fortunate because in a place like newark, we had folks like i laughed my mental judge gia and it's here, you know, but i saw him and i was like, oh you can be real respectful, huh? and you know and then one of my other friends just really love that on the bench. i was like, oh, okay and and seeing people do this work. so we really have to insist. that our taxes go to that that our taxes go to that. i had the pleasure of watching you record. i also have the pleasure. i'm sorry. one second. um kristen. yeah. she no. no, she has to go. oh, yeah, okay. i'm sorry. i'm so sorry. i also have the pleasure of what are my students coming to me? and i said why have you missed so many classes said i was in court. he said who was the judge? it's a judge pride i said thank god because he was a college students you he may have been dragged into the system now before me stole my my question, so i'm going to pivot. how does a judge who wants to be human centered? stop themselves from becoming no. well, that's it. i think you have to make a commitment to it. you have to make a commitment to it and when i tell you my entire staff checked me. you have to be like willing to be vulnerable judge you missed this. judge, you didn't see this. you misunderstood this wow. yeah, but i'm like, right because i'm not. wearing a cape even though he thinks so, but at some point if you want to get better no matter what you're doing you have to be willing to listen. you have to be so i think that having a strong group of people around you who aren't afraid to tell you the truth, and i've always had it. so if you can't tell me the truth and also being around folks who have experienced something right because if you haven't experienced anything any heartache, i don't really want to run with you because that means that when things get tough for me, you're gonna tell me. oh, no, that's not for you change. do something different and so that that's how i think you achieve that. you're welcome. hello there. i can. just pratt was my roommate in college at workers university. oh my gosh. since how people that i'm not sure. i'm not please. me do it. we got this. i'm not sure exactly what would it become of me without victoria being. oh, there's definitely some guidance there. um, i'll give you an example and i'll keep it short. i like to change our room around a lot and we're talking about a very tiny room. yeah. so at any given time she could come back from class and be like, where are my sweaters? i think why do we have my bed now? like it's just was you know, and i would just think, you know, i needed to do this so every couple months. i'm changing around. she never said a word she just dealt with it. let me just get my bed over here. where's my computer and then one day she comes in and i look a little upset, but i'm not changing room around and she says what's going on with me and i said, yeah, this is bother me. you want to change your room around and i said what she was like, oh, i don't know if you notice but when you're upset and anxious you got something coming up. that's when you change the whole room around. so maybe that's your thing that you need to do when you're anxious. we're stored justice y'all at 8:00. age 17. she saw me she understood what i needed. she stayed back and she was supportive of me at age 17. i love you. nothing too. hi, judge, fred. i just want to say to you. thank you. oh, thank you. you have saved my life you i am one of those people, you know that came through your court and i was broken and beat down i had lost my son. it was nothing ahead. no. oh but you gave me hope when i came to your court james later. you told me i didn't come back. she'd want to send a patrol car out to come and get it. so i know she was my plan. thank god for that. because now i'm an activist. yes. i think you're nine information. i met them vice president of the united states. i'm a true activist for people and that is because of the work that you have done you see us. thank you. we want to be seen we all have problems. but just see us know that we exist. and you've done that for me and i am eternally grateful for that. i have a good life now. i have my children. i have an apartment i have friends. and you're one of them. oh, yes. well, thank you for coming out. thank you. i saw my husband come in. maybe he's still here. the first phone call i had with this man almost 10 years ago. he said how many books are you going to write? i said, excuse me. it took and i want to thank my family. i see my cousin. she was i just got off the plane from dubai who called me every day to my friends who came up from camp to everyone who loved on me while i was being unlovable running and writing this book sent me texts. thank you. thank you guys for your continued support their books in the back. there's a reception. oh, i'm sorry. i didn't even see you. it's okay, but thank you. i did want to thank you personally. thank you and stacy. good morning to all of those who are joining us from the us. good afternoon to all those joining us from greece. we are very excited to welcome you to today's event. we have dr. evangelis malinatus who will be speaking about the mechanism of antitheatera. first i will like to pass the mic to professor, anastasia genetic. who is the director of the center for hellenic status here the university of chicago and she will be introducing our speaker for today. anastasia, okay. thank you very much. my dear christina. thank you all for coming on this saturday afternoon. i am very pleased to to welcome you all and i am delighted t

Related Keywords

Jersey , New York , United States , Newyork University , Alabama , Dubai , Dubayy , United Arab Emirates , New Jersey , United Kingdom , Montclair , Spain , Greece , Chicago , Illinois , Britain , America , Spanish , American , Jethro Antoine , Michael Brown , David Palin , Dionne Williams , Victoria Pratt , Dante Wright , Brianna Taylor , Jason Williams ,