SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beat the Prosecution, presented by Northern Virginia criminal defense and DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz, where we are here to regularly present you information and ideas for beating your prosecution as best as possible. Nothing on any of our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or for individuals who have paid for a consultation. And now for your host, John Katz.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

This is John Katz at beat the prosecution. I am having a lot of trouble containing my excitement because I'm with two of my favorite people in the world, Don Clarkson and Chris Floor. And I'm going to ask both of them to introduce themselves. Let's start with Don.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Well, I think who is last is going to be first, huh? Anyway, uh, I'm Don Clarkson. Um I've been around these two guys that I'm looking at, talking to right now for years, and they have been sort of the backbone of my uh life experience with lawyers. Um and one has been very personal to me. Um, and I'll say Chris because he knows what I'm talking about, and he has been there for me in need, and he's my kind of lawyer. Um, and he is a guy in this place who has taken care of so many lawyers and in the process taking care of people like me who are not lawyers, and so I am this uh 84-headed towards 85-year-old man who is seeing dust to dawn, twilight, years, all of that stuff in one thing. But I want to be here for them in any way I can.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

Thank you so much, Don. Don, where do you live?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Not to be confused with New York. I live in White Plains, Maryland. Okay, and Chris.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Hi, my name is Chris Floor, and I'm really, really uh grateful to be here today with two people that are super important in my life and have shaped my career. Both of you have. Um, I am a lawyer um that focused primarily on criminal defense. I've also done some school discipline work, um, and I've been doing that now for 33 years. And uh, John, you've shaped my career because you held the very first uh um post-trial lawyers college local gatherings, and those were very memorable meetings for me, and it's been my privilege to carry on that tradition and host those meetings now at my office, um, which is where I live and work. Um, I don't live in the office, but I live in the same town in Saverna Park, Maryland. Um I'm really, really happy to be here today with you two special folks.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

Well, um Chris, what are you doing with um these gatherings in your office?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So um the chemistry here is you two guys are the people that really brought this together because you started the meetings and then uh um we decided to have a Maryland sort of footprint uh as you transitioned out to Northern Virginia. And um every month on the second Saturday, always the second Saturday of the month, I gather. Both lawyers and non-lawyers, and we're very blessed to have Don uh frequently in attendance. Um and we will either pick a case to work on of an attorney, or sometimes we'll pick a personal issue, and that provides an opportunity to help lawyers with their clients, uh, their personal lives sometimes, and also it gives other folks like me and other attorneys that participate, like you, um, a chance to direct and to practice some of the things that we were fortunate to learn um from psychodrama um psychotraumatists. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly, uh, close anyway, um, at the trial Jerry Spence Trial Orris College, which if memory serves me correct, you attended in '95, John. 95. And I was a 99 class.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

So and Don, I first met you in 1995 at the ranch. What is psychodrama?

SPEAKER_02 4:39

That is the one question I always hate in life. Uh when I'm around people I don't know, I never tell them. I just say I I do consulting work. But uh let me say the psychodrama is a has been my lifestyle. It's been the things I've been doing since 1961. Uh I was in the very first formal uh training program that was sponsored by the federal government and did my internship there at St. Elizabeth's Hospital at the time. At that time, St. Elizabeth was the Creme de la Crime of Hospitals, and people came from all over the world to be in that hospital since things have sort of changed. But in the process uh I managed to have an ongoing private practice. I also have taught and been on the um uh faculty of Howard's uh school of social work, in which I've taught all of my um um clinical social work issues in psychodrama, because that is a time when people learn how to be a part of something rather than to read, just read about it. Um what is psychodrama? I think I heard was that part of the question?

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Well, I think it's a way of viewing a life in action. It is a way of looking at the total person, not just the event without the the surrounding events that have made that person. And we have always promoted that one can never really uh be a good lawyer or a good psychodramatist or a good physician or whatever, unless they can find their own story. And that story is what makes a difference in our life. Many people go through life year after year repeating the same old story, and they think they're producing something new, but it is older than they are. Uh and so one of the things we do in psychodrama is explore the themes that people uh have grown up with, the themes that they know about, or more importantly, the themes that they don't know about. And those are the ones that give us freedom. So with the lawyers, uh who are people I love, I I really fell in with in love with lawyers back back in the day before the college started, because I was doing it with an another attorney, um, in which I found that here are a group of people who love their clients but who feel that there are things that they want to know more about their clients, but more importantly, know something about themselves. So we can talk a little bit more about that, but that's what I've been doing for years and years and years. I can't even say years anymore. It's it's another word that uh I will probably learn by the time you get through talking to me.

SPEAKER_04 7:54

Well, why did you decide to um go on this path that led you to psychodrama?

SPEAKER_02 8:03

I love that question. You you're you're traveling down a bad path with me. Should I change the question? No, you can it was an accident. Um I had been involved locally at the university uh with a minister who was working with alcoholics, and he asked me if I would come and set in. I didn't know anything about it, but I went in there and I saw this man, and he had these guys in there talking about things and um proclaiming that they were free of alcohol. And here's the joke. And as soon as the meeting was over, the bootlegger came into the place and and sold all the booze. Oh my gosh. But I thought he was doing such great work, and I didn't realize he was doing great work for the bootlegger. Um but besides from that, I come from a family that uh early on in my life that was full of uh all kinds of issues. And my mother was a alcoholic and schizophrenic uh who didn't know how to be a mother, and she wasn't a mother. And so when I bumped into the this whole idea of a psychodrama, it was an accident, and I was walking through the administration building, and I saw this big old yellow flyer sitting on the wall, and uh it says train in psychodrama, learn sociometry, uh learn the whole issues of uh understanding people and where they come from. And I saw all that, and that all was very nice, but what I really saw was at the bottom it said stipend. I I see. Did you ever meet Moreno? Oh yes, he ran several sessions with me and his wife uh up in the beautiful beacon, New York. Uh no, yeah, I had several many intimate moments with him in in terms of psychedelic.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

What kind of person was he?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Well was this he was this guy who would sit on the stage and with this slightly Austrian accent, and he would put his arms around you and say, Everything's gonna be alright, but we need to do this. And every time you think you through, he says, I think there's another psychodrama that we can do. And so uh I was trained by Marino's first tier of trainers. Um and so when we would go up to Beacon to be with him to let the master show us how we were, I was always going up there saying, This is all nonsense until I found I was stuck in the process. Um but Marino was a very warm, charismatic person who had giant ideas about the world. And he thought that he could if he could just get the world leaders together, half of this stuff would disappear because people would learn something about who they are and not about what they're protecting. That's what he was like, and his wife was this really uh wonderful woman who had had cancer and part of her right arm and shoulder was missing. And everybody told me they thought he saved her life um by what he did with her. And Marino ran uh his family psychodramatically with Jonathan, his son. So uh they were a very, very interesting group. And I felt always fearful of them. Uh I stayed scared of that man almost to the end because he would say things that I had a hard time living with, like after going up there for a weekend on our way back to the training hospital, he says, Don, my boy, uh you're fairly constipated. And so, you know, what that did to me was to uh work on how come I was scared of that man.

SPEAKER_03 12:51

So he would make you face yourself. What'd you say? He would make you face your real self.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I prefer prefer not to think I was constipated, I prefer to think I was scared shitless. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

But and that's what you do with me. Every time I talk to you about one of my clients' cases, it comes right to how I'm doing and how I'm feeling and how I'm interacting with my client and the prosecutor.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

Well you know, this man is sitting in this room with us right now. He is a gym at this. I mean, he really is. Uh, I see him get there with this group that he does on these Saturdays, which I have become not as faithful. Um other things in my life has uh sort of made my Saturdays more important in other ways. Um I'm getting payback from my uh wife who says, I put up with all your goings away. Now here's a chance for me. It's always with you obligated. But Chris is a guy who would get in there with people who didn't know each other and before the meeting could get started because Chris was a very open and warm person who is really uh in touch with many of his feelings, and because he could express them, the people in that room they do the same thing. So that's what kind of lawyer he is. Uh that's what kind of person he is. And so in any person who's to take care of me, I want them to be like Chris and you, okay.

SPEAKER_04 14:34

Okay, well, as hard as it is to turn away from Don for a moment, I want to turn to Chris. And um Chris, how did you get to this path with where you are right now? And uh as a lawyer, as a person, and and for years doing these monthly gatherings at your office.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Well, first I gotta acknowledge the kindness and and tell Don how much I love him and thank you for his words. And uh next, uh one of the joys of being your friend, John, is that we get to talk about Buddhism and uh Eastern principles, and we learn about uh right action for right reason, right, is one of the underlying principles. And man, did I apply to the trial artist college for the wrong reason? I didn't know anything about who Jerry Spence was other than he was all over the place and in the Times and New York Times, and you know, he was trying the Meldo Marcos case back when I was a public defender in New York, and I had knocked off a lot of the other um prestigious things like National College, which I'm pretty sure you went to as well. Back in Macon at the time, and uh I think I was 97, and I just wanted to knock off another prestigious thing on my list. So I wrote a letter in '94 uh to the very first Travelers College, bragged about how cool I was and how I was the shit. And uh he said, uh uh you've had a terrible, uh lovely amount of training, and uh we have people that are starving for it. So we're gonna take a pass on you, Chris. And uh after I finished jumping up and down with my friend Rick Warner, who is another fabulous lawyer I've gotten to work with, who was public defender with me at the time, we were like, We got personalized letters from Jerry Spence telling us we're not gonna get to go to his trial lawyers college. Um, and then I crazily enough waited five years uh to reapply, and I picked the perfect time for me when my son was four months old and my daughter was four years old, and I said to my wife, I got in, I gotta disappear for a month. Good luck with the children, and uh she told me, never ask me for anything again. And uh what's really funny is looking at this man I love uh next to the other man I love on this uh Zoom call here, um that Don and I barely did any work together for a whole month. I mean, I knew he was there, I think I knew he was based in Maryland at the time, uh, but it wasn't until you that I really started to get the privilege to work with Don. And my first reaction, and I should say that on the second Saturdays when we don't have a psychodramatist in the room, we use the tools of reenactment, and we're always very careful that there takes a special training and certification to do what Don does, and we don't want to cause anybody any harm, uh, re-traumatization and that kind of thing. But the principles and the tools uh have just been transformative for my practice. But the very first psychodrome I did in the milk barn on the Jerry Spence Ranch, I just was disoriented, uh crying my eyes out over somebody I just met the day before, and how different this what I thought was going to be a seminar, but it really wasn't. You know, usually there's meet and greet and lawyers kind of chatting nervously, and we were right into you know your alcoholic brother who you know uh was upending your life, and I'm just crying my eyes out over strangers. And I thought, how in the hell is this ever going to make me a better lawyer? Um, and the other thing I'll say about that time and looking back on it, how important it was. So my hope is that because you could reach a good audience here, a diverse audience, that some people might say, Hey, I'd like to try this, but I can say that now it's something I incorporate into my work. But back then, even though I spent a month with all these uh amazing lawyers and psychodramatists, I did not want to do my own psychodrama. And I tried every way to wiggle out of it, and my group just wouldn't let me off the hook. And I'm really grateful that I got to do that.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

Well, I've learned so much from both of you, and I'm gonna share to the audience that I still can't get over that. Uh Chris one day drove to meet me at this jail, at least two counties from him, with a murder uh defense client. I mean, unbelievable. And uh Don once joined me to the jail to visit a client of mine that he was helping to consult with. And uh for that one, we had to do a modified uh reenactment scene because there was no one to be around us. Um now, Don, I remember we were doing a psychodrama uh back around 2000. There were about 20 people there, and it was a death penalty case. And you were talking with the mother of the man who was the defendant. And at one point she said, I can't go through with this anymore any longer. And you put your hand on her shoulders and you said, This is the perfect time. I was just blown over by that, Don.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Well, I feel at ease or not at ease. I don't know which it is, but I don't remember any of that now. So I want to comment really well on it. But all I remember was is that you asked me to go to jail with you, and I love the little young woman. And I think one of the things I learned from being uh both with the college, but actually uh I had worked with uh uh NCD, you know, National College of Criminal Defense, and I had uh done several sessions there on the John Ackerman, uh, in which I began to learn something about caring in a different way. That people have very different needs and they need to be held in very different ways. And the thing I really learned about being in the psychodrome is that the greatest tool that we have for anyone is our ability to listen, to hear, to hold, and make their feelings yours. That's to me the secret of any of the work that you do, that you've been doing, John and uh Chris. It's there, and it certainly was the truth in my clinical practice. Uh I threw away all the uh nondescript things of being there, being a blank screen for my clients. Uh I learned how to get into their life and they would get into mine and I would get upset with them because I'd I'd say, Look, you're paying me, but I don't want to pay you for the help you're giving me. And my clients gave me a lot. So, you know, John, when you asked me to go into that jail, I think you're way back when I don't know when the hell that was. 2002. Oh, you think I can remember back to 2002? I was saying, why does this man think I should be going in this jail? And of course, when I got there, I was happy I was there. Um, but these experiences have molded me uh in this work. My work with the lawyers have really molded my life in many ways. And my work around you and Chris, you know, what can I say? Um I'm not the same person you met then. And I have uh have grown and grown because of people like you and Chris. But if you just hit me in that first year or so there, you uh I don't know what you would have felt about me. Um but that's that's where it worked.

SPEAKER_04 23:20

You started the psychojama two years before I was born. I'm not trying to rub anything in.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

You you sure you're not?

SPEAKER_04 23:28

No, I'm sure. What I do want to address with both of you is um dealing with uh clients, judges, prosecutors, jurors, and pretty much anyone, cops, who try to make it look like they have their act together and they don't. I mean, as an example, I had a client who had a serious DWI case. He was a managing partner at a major law firm, a law firm that may not have even interviewed me when I was in law school. And uh apparently he he had plenty of money to hire a limousine from the bar he left, and he he just had his uh life breaking apart there, and it seemed that something was breaking apart at the seams. And uh what what thoughts and ideas do both of you have about dealing with uh the folks who are who are trying to hide all the pain and the struggle they're going that's happening inside them, and then maybe get angry at us. You know, Chris and Chris and I, for instance, and other people, we're really getting to the heart of the matter, and and we're not going to be super official.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

I'm gonna let Chris start, but I have some ideas too.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

So it definitely is a different way of practicing law. And I just want to spend a minute since the folks that are tuning in, maybe some of them are your former clients, maybe some of them uh might be your future clients. And I just want to say having gotten the privilege of working with you on code defending cases and being right there in the courtroom with you, um, I really can't think of another lawyer that has can can match your commitment to your clients, John. And that's why anytime somebody gets in trouble in Virginia, you're the first call I make um and you're the first person I tell them about. So but thankfully that we both had this experience. Uh I didn't know you pre-TLC, but um but uh for me it definitely changed uh who I was and my willingness to go into uncomfortable situations with clients. Um for a person who chose a life of adversarial combat, I'm a pleaser. And those things get really messy. And um I realized that I felt better about practicing the way I do now as opposed to the way I did in the beginning. Like a lot of lawyers who may be tuning in, I was an imitator. I watched other people, I went to the seminars and I would repeat verbatim what I either saw them do or when I would watch and grab my notebook and a real notebook back then, a spiral notebook in the 90s, um, and watch great lawyers in Brooklyn um practice. I got to see Kunstler uh in the courtroom, which was neat. Um, but I imitated them. And um you're just such a special person to me, John, and you approach your cases in a way that's your personality, and you should let that shine through. And I think that we're willing to let the clients get a little bit upset with us to try to go for greater good. Um, and Don has taught both of us um how to do that, and to quote Don Clarkson in front of dark Don Clarkson, uh, I think the apropos quote is when people say, I don't talk about that, or I'm not getting into that. And then Don will always shoot back. If you can't talk about it, it's out of control. Man, has that come in handy? So that's my take on it. I'm ready to listen to the master there.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Well, he's not present, but I will tell you what I think. Um, you know, when you become somewhat believing in what you're doing, I don't care how angry a client may be or how devious you know, he knows you're there. Uh he may not like you, he may not care for you, but he knows you're there. And he knows you're not trying to run them around the bush. So I've always said that the the attorney or the therapist who is putting on this act will get attacked in ways that will hurt their feelings. But when you know you're there for that client, you know the fact that they can attack you, but they attack you in a way that leaves you living and not dead. Uh, you know you're you're in the right ballpark with that person. Um that's why I think it is so important that the attorney or the physician or the therapist is in touch with the things that they struggle with, the things that bother them, the things that have made them successful. But the main thing is how have you dealt with your own pain? And when you can't talk about and deal with that pain, you will never let your client deal with their pain. You will always cut them off. It's like when I always say uh to people that if you're really in need or in trouble, don't go to your best friend because your best friend will spend times trying to make you feel better. That's what you think. But what your friend is trying to do is to avoid listening to your pain because they're gonna have to listen to their pain. So they'll say, oh, Don, things are gonna be fine. You, you, you handle this and things will get better. They'll say all the things that won't do you any good except that you know they're there for you. Uh so I'm always saying I have to say this because there's a damn commercial that comes on TV regularly, and they're talking about these therapists that you can just call up and they'll be there. And and the thing that always gets me, they said if you don't like your therapists, uh, you can always change. And then I start laughing because that's where the work begins, is when they don't like you. And so I have such a hard time with these problems. And so I I think your ability to handle it, not to hide it, to hold on to it, embrace it uh is is what makes the difference between success or your success and the client's success. And your your success is no good unless the client has success. You may not have the outcome you want, but the success is based on you and and your relationship. Uh so that's what I'm feeling. And I just, you know, I go into these meetings with Chris, and I'm I'm saying, I don't want to deal with that in his meetings. I said he's running these meetings, and he says, uh, hey, do you want to talk about this? And I say, Hell no, I don't want to talk about it. I'm I'm trying to get out of the business. And he actually offered that to me earlier this week. So I want you to know um that that's the constant struggle, and I I've had enough pain, and it seems like there's an inner supply of it, but that's where I need to talk about Don.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

When you talk about uh not going to your best friend, it reminds me what you told me this was over 20 years ago. You said that uh if you have a deep personal uh issue, your uh friends, your family members can't deal with it sufficiently because they can only deal with pieces of it. And when you go to the right therapist, they can deal with the whole situation. And that really resonated with me. And I tell that to some of my clients. I say, look, I mean, I can empathize with you, I can show you my caring, but your case with me is a micro part of your life. You're dealing with the macro, and there's no scarlet letter about getting therapy. You just got to get the right therapist. Because isn't it true, Don, that uh if you get the wrong therapist, they can make things worse.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

It can also take a lot of your money and you don't get it. Which I I know I had one of those for a short time. Um first of all, you have to be able to view what is it, the issue that this client is presenting to you. That often goes unnoticed. But the first moment you have with that client often is the problem. You just don't see it because you're looking at the other problem which he's presenting you with. But when you meet this client for the first time, what does that client do to you? How do you feel? What do you what does he look like? How does he dress? How does he smell? You know, all those things, all that stuff is coming into you immediately. But you send up there, well, you know, he he has a DWI or he killed his mother or something like that. And you get hung up in the in the event, but you don't get into the problem of the client, which happens to be what he gives to you immediately. Even a person who comes to you in um uh in terror because they're about to something bad happen to them, you have to understand what that terror is about. You can say he doesn't want to go to jail, blah, blah, blah. But the terror most of the time started before he ever had the event you're talking about. And that's what you're looking for to help present this uh client, this person to the world. And that's what you want, and that's where families often fall apart because they don't see the pain that they're causing, they see the pain that the children or the other family members are causing to them, but they don't see their own pain. And you're always trying to deal with that. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but that's the struggle I've had. And I still have that struggle. Um and that's why when people ask me, what do you do? Like you did to start out this meeting, I say I'm retired.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

What you say makes a lot of sense. And um Chris, I'm gonna ask you first, what do we do with our clients who are suffering from um severe uh mental health issues? Um, what do we do?

SPEAKER_01 34:25

So I going back into my career progression, I think about how so ego-driven it was in the beginning and how focused I was on the winning argument, the winning technique, the winning case law. And I like you practice a much more holistic um approach to the law. And um I've had many great mentors done one of them. And the phrase that uh was popping as I was listening to him talk, and even though I'll get to listen to this, I'm still taking notes. Um he's like a benevolent godfather, you know. We keep letting him uh try to get away, and then we keep bringing him back into the business, you know, but he just doesn't kill people, he helps save lives, literally. Um and um so to answer your question, um, to me, the much greater joy in the practice of law is to try to get at the root causes. Um, I will often say if somebody comes back with another new offense, I've failed in some way because I didn't connect them with the right program, therapist, person, or encourage them to be able to deal with something. And I know my, you know, there's only so much I could do with some folks, and I um have worked, and now more than ever in my career, I've been dealing with real serious mental illness, competency issues, not criminally responsible issues, and uh there's a lot of complicating factors for those folks. Um, but a willingness to be able to not just let the client sort of say, Well, I'm gonna run the show. And one of the joys, since we both have public defender roots, um, is that we didn't get to turn away folks before. And although that's difficult sometimes, it is nice now to be able to say, This is how I want to approach this. And if you don't want to, there's plenty of other lawyers that'll do this differently than me. Um, but uh, I would rather you um, you know, be able, especially when you're dealing with addiction and uh the fentanyl uh and things, you know, we both started practicing where crack was king, right? And while it certainly ravaged a lot of communities and people, the death toll from the uh uh fentanyl and uh heroin is just astounding. And uh and I've lost clients to um suicide, to addiction, and um that's really important to me too. So I guess a willingness to be able to listen, to listen for the story that's not told, um, and um and then to be willing. I was gonna say courageous, but it's really just willing to be able to say, um, I would really like you, whether or not you do it for the case, to be able to do some work outside, whether it's with a therapist or someone else, because something's not going right. And I think both of us share a commonality that we see a system that is so focused on punishment and has such opportunities to deal with really seriously broken people, and we warehouse them or they try to um in in many cases. And that is just such a an awful, awful missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

So those are great um things you've recounted, and I find it's particularly hard, Don, uh, to deal with my clients who really need mental health treatment and self-improvement paths when they're stuck in jail pending their trial because they can't they can't get out on bond. There are no bonds. So how do we deal with that, Don, when people need help even if they're out of the prison walls, but they're inside the jail?

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Well, I can remember back. Um I guess I'm thinking about oh, this is an educated guess about 1963. Um we were working with the federal uh public defenders, that's what I wanted to call them. Um so what did we do? We established a group of these probation and parole officers to come to our office and work with them with their clients. You know, we would they would bring their clients, not the clients out of jail, obviously, but we would bring them there and we would work on their uh ways of uh of dealing with it because often people who are working with people like that, it is so disheartening. It takes it wears you down, and if you're not getting support, you don't realize how much you may be turning off uh what you need to be doing. So we would spend time working with them in the same way you uh uh Chris works with the class, but but the goal of this was to work with the people who are giving the service. Um because I think when you go into a uh jail setting um and the the last long lasting case that I did out in Seattle, a person been in jail for five years and never been to court. Something about that just hurts my heart. Um so we spent a lot of time with the staff uh working on that case, and that staff they were just wonderful. They get went through blood, sweat, and tears with this guy. Um and when he went to court, he finally was dismissed. But something about being with a person who feels completely uh, I don't know, totally exhausted from life that tears upon the person working with them. I don't care what anybody tells me. And if you if you can't work with that part first, you're not going to be able to work with that client. Uh and somehow there has to be some emotional support for people who are mentally ill. And people who are mentally ill drive us into another location because the things that we're used to dealing with in the people supposedly normal, it doesn't work because they have another system of beliefs, another system uh that gets them going where they want to go. And so the struggle always is to try to to enter their system and see what's going on in their their life so that you can be of help to them. But until you do that, they will defend against you, or you because you feel uncomfortable, you'll defend against their mental illness. And mental illness is one of the most disarming things we have to deal with. I told you my mother was uh uh was an alcoholic and uh schizophrenic, and so uh she was totally uh unable to deal with me. I so I was raised by a bunch of women, my aunts who saved my life from one to the other. So what am I saying to you, John, is that the people who are mentally ill, they are a special breed, but I something about this damn society makes people crazy too. I don't care what you say. The society itself promotes mental illness in in service of itself. And so those are my general thoughts. I keep looking at what's going on around my part of the world where I live. And when I turn on the TV every night, I say, How many people are killed? And every night, I don't think I've missed a night that somebody hasn't been killed. Well, we can say it's bad families, you know, we can say that but there's mental illness in our life, and it shows up in all these uh different directions, and that's what uh I struggle with. And I struggle with people like you and Chris who uh enter this world all the time, and I don't know how you do it, that's the truth.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Well, Don, I don't want to make people think that um that I'm not um totally empathetic about what you dealt with uh growing up. I know that that was raised in someone else's podcast, so I'm not gonna uh repeat it. I do want to say that I remember, Don, this was uh quite a long time ago, around 2000, when you talked to me on the phone about uh a client of mine. Every time I would meet him, he would start with the same conversation. We seemed like we were stuck, not moving forward and in uh winning his case. And you said to me, he's Sounds isolated. Uh maybe uh I could get together with him on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, get out of my office situation, go for a walk with him, but include letting him know, spend some just person-to-person time, not Laura to client time, but also to let him know how concerned I was if he was going to act like that in court. And that was right on the money, Don. I I can't say that he improved, but that was right on the money for how I would approach it.

SPEAKER_02 44:34

Well, and that's another issue. How standard of what's improvement sometimes gets confused. Um sometimes the the help comes in just being heard. And I can't tell you how many people have not been heard. I was I uh someone sent me a joke today on my uh phone, which I'm beginning more accustomed to, which I don't pay too much attention to, it says. Well, when I got married, they didn't tell me that I had to rent a husband with ears. So um I think that attests to the struggle that we live. Uh but mental illness. Uh I was trying to remember, Marino said it's one of the the things you usually do to solve problems that don't work. And people become creative in solving it, but as often is it our expense that it's being solved.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

Well, you're you're right, Don. I I I guess things did improve in dealing with my client because he probably did feel comforted that I would spend time with him and listen to him and care about him. And I know I became a better person and became a better lawyer. I think I became impatient about it. And I think I became impatient about the way he was um uh uh chomping at the, you know, going uh going off of the mouth even when he was testifying. But I I I think that's the impatience in me. And and I think that makes sense what you said.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

I I don't think it's impatience. Um I think it's when you want to help someone and they feel like they they just can't hear you, you become uh what do I do next to make this person know that I'm there? And that's what I'm talking about. That is frustrating as hell. Um in one part of my practice, I had long time to deal with some, but in my psychodrama groups, there was quick time, and all of that was because they got support because of being in the group. So I'm just throwing it out uh to you. Chris, Chris helped me with personal issue, you know, the and the thing that was so important about that the issue was important, but the issue was I had a person who I cared about who I felt cared about me, and uh I was able to pass that on to a family member. Uh and you know, I could have hoped for better, but I got the best of the best. That's what I'm gonna tell you right now.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Well, I promised both of you we would end around now. So what I uh suggest now is uh Chris, uh either maybe um uh tell everybody something that you didn't uh think about before or haven't said, or maybe tell us about the meaning of your sign-off line and your emails, peace, love, and understanding.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Um that uh became my signature after the trial or his college, and I had initially had copied a friend who um Don uh worked with um Tony Garcia from out in California. And Tony signed his emails, peace, love, and justice, and somehow it didn't sound right. So some people just think it's because I'm an Elvis Costello freak, which I like him, but I wouldn't say that I'm freakish about him, but it just I I it was a step towards getting rid of the bullshit that I used to do and the phoniness that I had, and that I wanted to sign off, and I often use that with judges as well in correspondence, that I wanted it to be something more sincere. Um so um I think an important thing since uh I'm imagining that some of the people that this is going to reach are lawyers, and um Don, you know, uh is so right about the frustration and the times where I just thought, you know, I can't sit with somebody with so much pain again, I can't absorb this. And how to this day I've been with the same therapist for well over a decade, and I still make regular monthly sessions with her. But in some dark times, I've turned directly to Don because I love him and trust him so much, and I'll get that um uh Don voice of, you know, well, I'm not gonna solve this for you, and you need to call that therapist up. But as you're going off, think about this. Like, damn. And I think it's really important, and I'm privileged to be able to work on the lawyer's assistance program here in the state of Maryland through the Maryland State Bar Association with our fabulous legal director and uh or executive director, Lisa Kaplan, who's a licensed social worker. And this is tough stuff that we've chosen to do. And uh I really want people to hear Don's um words of making sure that people do find their own the lawyers, not just the clients, but the the lawyers find out what they need to do to take care of themselves because unfortunately you and I have been practicing long enough that there are some folks that some bad things have happened to them along the way, and that makes me sad. Um, and I'm just really, really very thankful for tonight, and um and it's a good reminder for me, and and I feel I don't know about how you two feel, but I feel uplifted. And I was pretty tired coming into this. Um, so I really am grateful. So thank you. Love you both.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

Well I'm beyond uplifted, and um, that's really great that you shared about uh you're going through uh therapy for all these years, because for anyone who's hesitating about doing it, hopefully that's an encouragement to them if they need to uh check that out. Um Don, I'm interested in hearing any last words you have, and if you could include addressing uh what you said. I don't know uh the exact words. How you say goodbye to uh tells who you are.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

Uh it says how you have lived. But let me say this. I love that peace and love. You see, this is before Chris. I used to look at soul training when I was a youngster, and Don Cornelius was a person with end all of his uh dancing and pooping and hollering, in which I never could dance, peace and love. And and I would say he's so smooth, but I always felt good. And Chris always makes me feel good. I forgot the question you uh you just asked me because I was very I just got involved with peace and love.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

Well, actually, uh you answered what I said, which was uh any other words you have uh to share with everybody? And about uh how you say goodbye uh says how you live.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Well, I want to say that very clearly. Um you know, I've been divorced once early on in my life, and I I will share that with and um it was it was a very good divorce, but I didn't deal with stuff. So and so I'm throwing that out. I I'm doing quite well in this relationship of 48, 49 years. Which you used to send me to lunch. I mean, I started asked what happened to those lunches you would send me to Christmas time. I'm just joking with you. But the uh um the secret always is to look at how people begin a relationship, and you can almost tell what's going to happen to that relationship by what they start out at and how they end the relationship. You know something about who they were in that relationship, and it's not a judgment of anything, but it's a way of understanding people understanding where they come from. Um, and you know, John, I've known you for years and years, and uh my dear friend Chris from years and years. Those have been joyous years in my life, and I appreciate this moment with you guys tonight.

SPEAKER_04 53:23

Me deeply. Thank you so much, Don and Chris.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

You're welcome, John. Thank you. Thank you both.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Thank you for listening to this week's episode from Beat the Prosecution. This is a regular podcast giving people a leg up against police investigations and prosecutions. Nothing discussed on our media sources, such as our podcast or website, is legal advice. John Katz only provides legal advice to current clients or to individuals who have paid for a consultation. We welcome you contacting us via email at info at beat the prosecution.com by calling our office at 703 383 1100 or texting us at 571 406 7268.