Guest for me, too. Im such a big fan of your book as well. Im going to hold it up because its phenomenal. Host your wonderful. A i appreciate that but were going to talk about you today. Try to if we must thats fine. Host there will be overlap. We talked about the same things. We are two black women who are attorneys and the district of columbia, with given at least part of our careers to the criminal legal system, except at opposite sides of the table. You as a prosecutor and the as a defense attorney. I think this is a perfect opportunity for us to talk about your book, just pursuit a black prosecutors fight for fairness. So this is going to be great. I do want to waste any time. My guess is that you and i could talk for hours about that. Guest we are kindred spirits. Its a legal system aspired to be a Justice System for even though we came from different sides of the table are both at the table knowing that same concept. Host we will come back to that. Want to talk about what does ite mean to have a seat at the table as a black professional but before we get there i want to make sure all of the listeners how to foundation for what your book is about. First sentence of any book tells a lot about what this is going to be about and youre first sentence is indeed quite powerful and compelling you say the pursuit of justice creates injustice. And also very early in the book. You also said i thought the job and the job being your role in the United StatesAttorneys Office for the district of columbia prosecuting people for criminal offenses that occurred right here in the Nations Capital. And you said i thought the job would be an uncomplicated act of patriotism and that justice was what happened when a person was fairly tried and convicted for their crime. And so i thought that would be a great way to start. Can you tell us what do you mean by the pursuit of justice creates injustice . You know, im so glad were starting there and as youre right, its very intentional how you begin the book. I wanted people to be invited into this vicarious episodic experience understanding what i think is often counterintuitive people think about justice as you well know in this very binary way. They think about okay, you must mean a trial. Therell be a conviction or an acquittal and and then justice somehow is miraculously served. When we think about it in this notion of that binary way, we find ourselves in the cycle of thinking that the ends will justify the means and frankly. Its what happens in those means the in between the Collateral Damage that occurs and illustrate that the book the ways in which that concept of how can it be that you could create injustice by pursuing a conviction. I lead off the book talking about a very complicated notion where our immigration policy intersects with the law right the idea of being a nation of laws, but yet when i find out that a victim of a crime has an active deportation warrant, and im required because of the law to turn this person in and equate him with the person who is actually committed a crime again the idea of if i were just pursuing a conviction and that binary sense of how you pursue justice you would overlook the obvious unfairness the injustice of whats happening to someone who weve asked to report. A crime that we want to report these crimes that is in this unfortunate and horrible position of either. I report a crime, but i also face deportation or i dont report a crime and i invite further exploitation and victimization and here we are in a world where so often your moral compass can point one direction and the nation of laws and whats ordered another and what do you do with this chasm of what is right . And what is lawful what is required and what is just and so i was quite intentional even in the title a black prosecutors fight for fairness for that very reason and i think if we overlook the instances where injustice occurs in that pursuit of that binary objective, we really miss the nuance we miss the indignities and we miss what truly is required in a just system. I love that. I love that you went for the nuance right you talk about dignity. I talk about humanity right . Its really important. Im gonna come back to that story about manual. Around because i think thats such an important story the deportation story, but lets back it out a little bit and sort of tease it apart for the audience. So the i imagine or not even i imagine i know from you know, perfect experience and from your book that much of this complication that youre talking about in the pursuit of justice arises out of the meaning and the relevance of race in the criminal legal system. And so heres the thing right both of us have practiced represented clients or represented victims in the Nations Capital what most people do not realize is that how profound and how stark the Racial Disparities are in our court right . Virtually everyone whos written a book about the criminal legal system in washington dc says exactly what you say in your book i can count the number of white defendants on my hand. Right right. I can tell you that in 26 years of practice. I have had are white clients period and so its shocking 2016. Yes, not shocking given the experiences that well see. Thats right. I want to go and thats the idea first one. I dont even need all my fingers to count the number of white defendants. I ever saw right in the courthouse let alone the trials i was doing yes, and i remember sort of tongue and cheekingly and i was serious they didnt realize know me at this point one of my first days in the criminal courtroom when i had the stack of manila folders and all the matters. I was going to be handling that day and that sort of baptism by fire moment. I had that moment of turning to a colleague who was sort of training me that day and saying where all the white people and him responding on the bench coats in that moment. It was really that moment of you intellectually. I began in private practice and i was in the Civil Rights Division before becoming an ausa in dc. So my my views were policy based in many respects they were the idea of being presumed to fight on the right side. I had an intellectual approach and often ways as many lawyers and law students. About well, heres what happens in the law and youve got this esoteric notion of what the law is like and you understand intellectually disproportionate impact and disparate treatment and you know, the idea is of overrepresentation, but then you go into a criminal courtroom. And the discussions about well, it must be white officers. No, its black and brown officers bringing these people in as well the idea of well, hold on a second. Its always going to be about a different race of the victim and the defendant the alleged perpetrator and you see black and brown victims and yet the same conversations are happening about how you are perceived and Civil Rights Division. It was a foregone conclusion on who side i was on right it was black and brown people marginalized having the rights and friends as a prosecutor. It seemed to be a betrayal the idea. Well, how can you possibly be in the position where the stereotypical the man the white man would be given this disproportionality given this disparate impact and even though youre victims are overwhelmingly black and brown and it really disrupts this what i think should be a fallacy of that black and brown people are but supposed to occupy but one space within this criminal legal system, but it doesnt come with that a lot of and realizing well, if youre going to have a seat at this table, what are you going to do with the power there realizing that black and brown people do not have a monopoly on crime nor do we overrepresent in washington dc and yet in this quadrant system of the capital where a stone throw away right now right these band you see that a stone throw from the capitol are some of the seats of extraordinary ingestis and it plays out in courtrooms all across this city. Thats great. Why dont we dig there because i really want to get to this seat at the table. Right . So you have this powerful chapter in your book where you are sitting in the cafeteria, which i could totally see right sitting at the courthouse and a defense attorney a black defense attorney comes up sits down and begins to basically call you out right for being a black woman who is a prosecutor sending, you know, black men to jail and you she asks you so how can you do it and youre response is for justice and i fast as a defense attorney reading it at first i was like that wasnt satisfying to me as an answer, but since then ive seen you talk about it even more and continuing to read your book understanding that for you is very similar to what you just said that its not just what seat you occupy, but how you show up in that seat and so can you say more about that youve started to talk about it here but in very concrete ways, what does it mean on a daytoday level to show up as a black woman in those positions and let me just sort of add i i often get the question when i talk about criminal legal reform. People ask me. Well, would it make a difference if we just diversified all the state actors, you know judges prosecutors probation defense and i think thats an oversimplified answer. So i love this notion of its all about how you show up at the table. So what is that look like what are we to do . Well, first of all for the record people who read that chapter it was not you christine. I was having as a form of escapism right it was not you who approached me. So ill just make the record clear. However, i suppose he would have a very similar conversation albeit. Im sure a less combative one. I describing the chapter but really its about both women believing we had the proper seat at the table and wielding our power effectively, but we have to realize the imbalance of power within this system certainly the role of defense counsel as you well know is not only extraordinary. Its critical. Its required. Its so necessary and it should be revered but the decisions and choices you make are reactive to decisions and choices that have been already been made oftentimes by a prosecutor the decision to charge or not charge a case what charges to bring the evidence that theyre going to hand over if they abide by their ethical obligations to give you exculpatory information . A vet and have a healthy level of skepticism towards the officers who seem to be regurgitating scripts from the Supreme Court in a way you say really the door was a jar. It wasnt just open you gave chase. You didnt just run and there was a third of gesture in a waistband. Wow. This is taking exactly from a Supreme Court holding. Did you read that or what actually happened in this instance . How did you exactly smell the presence of narcotics within a crevice of a body as you walk by a fully clothed man interesting right these notions of what a prosecutors role is to be able to realize and i i didnt appreciate the scent that i do now, but i learned very quickly that when i would stand up and say laura coates on behalf of the people of the United States it necessarily included the defendant it included protecting their civil rights as well. Theyre fourth amendment, right . Theyre right to counsel affect the representation and to try to ensure that whatever plea decision they would render was not about the fact that they had the weight of the federal government again. That they were thinking i already had to pay for the presumption of innocence. I dont know that i can take much more. Im already in jail awaiting trial and so youre telling me even though im innocent the only recommend three years and im facing 10 to 12. So im gonna make make a cost benefit analysis here. Well the power that a prosecutor is wielding in those moments. All the things i just described require you not just to have a robotic approach to the application and enforcement of law but understanding who you are when you enter a room. And these battles of allegiance often come up and unexpected ways. I mean i like you dont have the luxury of putting on sociological blinders when i walk into a room or thinking to myself. Well, im going to compartmentalize here i am a black woman and here i am somebody who is a wife a mother a human being a proponent of civil rights, but i got to check all that at the door because im now a prosecutor and that just means you apply it robotically and one of the real irritations, ive always had and i know it sounds quite glimp, but with the stupid mascot at the department of justice this blindfolded woman as long as youre not seeing anything the scales of justice will just balance out just right . Yeah, and so when you ask about how you walk into a room and what you do when youre there take off the blindfold and see the world in the country for what it is because balance does not just all of a sudden coincidentally occur. It comes when you bring your entirety into that room and so much like in washington dc it a paraphrase the late Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg and tshirts. Im sure you see all over georgetown and all the universities its a womans place in the house and the senate and the oval office and everywhere power is supposed to be you need to have civil rights proponents in every facet of our ecosystem and we cannot be in a position where we think you can either be a civil rights proponent or a prosecutor. What does that say . Ultimately in the end, but youre right. I dont oversimplify in the way of as long as we have black and brown people there because what about officers who also abuse some power and theyre a great officers and theyre also those who believe the color blue and under the color of law will trump every other color. So we have to think about it holistically in terms of what people believe the role of a prosecutor is supposed to be and how we pursue justice. I love that. I love that. I wish i want all my law students to be listening and could youre giving a lesson on how to occupy this space, right . Yeah. Thats a way to say that right healthy skepticism protection of the rights even of the defendant right not showing up with an oversimplified perspective on what justice looks like, but its got to be a nuance and complicated analysis. So i love that. I hope all my students are listening, but its not easy. Its not easy right . Lets talk. Yeah, so if i cant lets press because i want to press you back on the the immigration the deportation case that you have right and it manual. Is that his name Manuel Manuel of course and what i found, you know, sort of fascinating about that story is you had a choice right you had a difficult choice you had to choose whether or not to notify youre supervisor whether or not to give him a little notice that he could he deported but you knew that if you told him he might leave you had a choice whether or not to call the martial whether or not to notify ice at all. And so you were forced to make this hard choice and there was a powerful quote you say that i always thought if confronted with a justification for civil disobedience i would act on my principles and not on a directive but i felt like at the end of the day that you did act on a directive and let me i really want to Say Something that i really liked about this book a lot which was you could have written this book in a way that made you out to be the hero right and i felt like with each and every story you revealed your vulnerabilities and there were even moments when i was reading and ive said to myself. Oh, i wish she had done something differently, but you were honest and you were transparent in this book, so i want to really appreciate that. This is one of those stories where at the end of the chapter. Were left with but you follow the directive right . So i wanted to hear you speak more about that. Like what was your thought process at the end of the day . How did you decide that indeed . I have no choice but to let my supervisors and the marshals know and then my second question is would you do it differently today . Well first why i appreciate you acknowledging that honesty and you know in the books that are written i think oftentimes there is a temptation to sell for grand eyes to answer the al bundy reference of how you were the star quarterback, and i know im dating myself. Im making a reference of mary the children right about using olympics one and that right but the idea here of i think if youre gonna speak truth to power you ought to actually tell the truth. Thats right. And the truth is that there were moments when i felt like a champion and moments when i felt like a coward moments where who i thought i would be in the moment was not who i was and and realizing that some of the choices that you speak of frankly are a lucery and yes just as we talk about in america all the time free speech right . They can say whatever. Want well, thats true, but they come with consequences. We cant just Say Something and not have accountability in many respects, but we still have this feeling of being able to do whatever you want and in that instance in in the book i talk about how in many respects. Yes. I could have made the choice to alert for somebody had an active essential warrant. The choice would have led to consequences that are being experience even in places like massachusetts right now. Were a judge alerted somebody and was indicted for having done. So the idea is of disparment as the consequence and certainly there were personal decisions that i made as a class benefit analysis in a sense of what would be the personal risk of doing this and i didnt think i would make those sort of calculus is in my mind. I thought in my mind thats when you snatch the degree off the wall and you walk out. Its where the Jetblue Airlines person of going down the inflated slide and say forget it. Im done with this and then in the moment you think about that and what that would mean and realizing of course, it wasnt as if it was hunger games where i pointed a prosecutor i invite ask for the opportunity to do so and what that meant was also abiding by the law as its currently written and being able to pursue justice when the constraints of that and so i hope when people read this book theyre not with the impression of well there were, you know, you can just do whatever you want. Its also if you find yourself saying there should have been an alternative there should have been a different mechanism. The law does not compute and align with what we know is the right thing. Thats where youve got the right fertile soil for reform and realizing that do we really want a system where when i was in private practice, i had personal clients as a prosecutor. Its the United States. Its society whos offended even for the socalled victimless crimes. Its the victim has a stance and has a position but we r