Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
There's nothing worse than getting home from your trip only to find out you missed a can't-miss travel experience. That's why you need Viator. Book guided tours, excursions, and more in one place to make your trip truly unregrettable. There are over 300,000 travel experiences to choose from so you can find something for everyone. And Viator offers free cancellation and 24-7 customer service. So you always have support around the clock.
Download the Viator app now to use code VIATOR10 for 10% off your first booking in the app. Regret less. Do more with Viator.
Hey, everyone. Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday. Welcome back from the Thanksgiving break. And it's now, believe it or not, it is December. We are officially in the final month of the year. We are officially in holiday season. And in that spirit, we're going to try something a little different today just for fun. Interested to hear what you think. As always, send us your thoughts, questions, or comments to letters at cafe.com. ♪
Welcome to my Carol Hardy moment. In 1960, during a late season game against the Baltimore Orioles, Ted Williams came to the plate for the Boston Red Sox. The Splendid Splinter, as Williams was known, had established himself as the greatest hitter in baseball history, and he arguably still holds that distinction now, six decades later.
During his first at-bat in that game, Williams fouled the ball hard off his leg, and he limped out of the batter's box in disgust, surely cursing in that charming, old-timey way that baseball players used to curse. He called out to Hardy, some otherwise forgettable kid on the bench, to grab a bat and get in the game. Thus, Carroll Hardy became the first and only person ever to pinch hit for the great Ted Williams.
Preet's fine. He hasn't sustained any bone or tissue injuries as far as I know. But this week, I'm going to grab a bat and step in for the Farazpour Flash, the emperor of Eatontown. You see, our loyal Cafe readers and listeners send dozens of great questions into Preet every week, but he can only answer two or three per podcast. So as a little holiday time special, I went through the list and I picked out a few of your questions that intrigued me. There's lots of good ones in there that he wasn't able to get to.
Back in 1960, when Hardy Pinch hit for a Teddy Ball game, he hit into a double play. This, by the way, is about the worst thing any hitter can possibly do in baseball. Let's hope I fare better. The bar is low.
OK, the first question comes in by thread from at Sandy Regal Muto, and she writes, just curious about the relationships and friendships between Supreme Court justices. Do they socialize with one another? Do you believe the other justices would have known about Clarence Thomas's, quote, friends with benefits? It's an interesting way to put it.
Here's my answer. The justices are, in many respects, just like any other group of nine people forced to work together. You've got friendships, you've got rivalries, grudges, alliances. I feel like Sam Alito has a lot of frenemies, probably.
Sometimes judicial, or is it justicial relationships? Surprise. Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg disagreed constantly on the record, but they were fast friends outside of work. They shared a love for the opera and elegant wine. Now, that's not my crowd. I think I'd be closest with Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She's a legit baseball fan, Yankees, but I'd forgive her. She's a card player, she's a decent home cook, and she's completely down-to-earth.
Now, the question raises an interesting angle I hadn't really thought about before. We're all familiar by now with how Justice Clarence Thomas managed to live the high-flying, globetrotting, yacht-hopping life of a tech billionaire, despite an annual salary of around $250,000 or so. This recently prompted the court to grudgingly adopt its first-ever code of ethics, which is basically one of those flimsy, generic band-aids that don't fix anything and don't even stick right.
But don't you think the other justices had to know something about Thomas's lifestyle? Don't you think any of his eight colleagues ever said, hey, Clarence, how was the weekend? And perhaps when Thomas responded with tales of private jets and exclusive resorts and mega yachts, his colleagues might have pondered, hmm, how's Clarence affording all this on a government salary? We'll never know, but I'll bet you they wondered.
Okay, the next question comes by an email from our listener, Peggy. She writes, in a Trump trial, what kinds of questions could be included on jury selection questionnaires to suss out fear or bias?
Boy, good question. You know, I thought we had a tricky task years ago when I had to pick a jury in the trial of the notorious mob boss, John Gotti Jr. How do we find 12 unbiased jurors? Can we see 12 ordinary New Yorkers who can truly put aside their views on Gotti negative and in some cases actually positive and rule impartially?
But that was nothing compared to what the judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers will have to do to seat a jury in the upcoming trials of Donald Trump. It'll be a tough task, but certainly not impossible. The goal is not to find 12 people who've never heard of Donald Trump. That would be impossible.
The goal is to find 12 people, plus a handful of alternates, who can put aside their views on Trump and return a verdict based solely on the evidence introduced in the courtroom and the law as given by the judge. But that's easier said than done. Passions around Trump, for and against, run hotter than they do around almost any other celebrity or public figure in American history.
The judge and the parties will likely use two tacks to thin the herd. First, the judge likely will come straight out and ask, can you rule fairly in this case? It'll be up to the lawyers whether they take the potential jurors at their word. And as a prosecutor, I surely did not always believe at face value what the jury pool members said.
Second, we'll see questions aimed at the periphery, but intended to reveal any underlying biases that cannot be overcome. For example, do you belong to any political organizations? One can imagine different responses by the attorneys if a potential juror belonged to the ACLU on one hand or the NRA on the other.
What public figures do you most and least admire? SDNY judges commonly used to ask this, and I found the responses to be revealing. Imagine here, for example, if a juror named Rudy Giuliani or Barack Obama on either list, the most or least admired, that'd tell you something, right? I do know this. We will seat juries in all the Trump trials. It'll take work, but it's not impossible. Our system can handle it.
Okay, next question. This comes by email from a reader, Ronnie. Ronnie writes, is it typical that the attorney general or any prosecutor makes remarks before and after court proceedings? These people all work hard to bring their case forward, but to me, it would look more professional to at least save any remarks to be given at the close of the day.
Okay, now, Ronnie is clearly referring here to New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who gave extrajudicial public comments to banks of cameras on the courthouse steps, both before and after testimony by Donald Trump and his family members in the ongoing New York civil fraud trial.
I agree with the spirit of this question. It is inappropriate and ill-advised for any AG to turn any case into a personal and political media platform. I've also taken issue with Attorney General James in this podcast for running for office on an explicit promise to pursue and bring down Trump specifically. Worse even than the AG's courthouse steps remarks, which have tended towards blandness, are her tweets in which she openly brands Trump and his family members as liars.
And there are many examples of this on the AG's Twitter feed, but here's one example from 1046 AM on November 9th. She writes, Okay, that's the tweet.
Now, to be clear, the AG made these derogatory public statements repeatedly about witnesses while those witnesses were testifying and while the trial was ongoing. This is patently inappropriate and perhaps worse. Imagine if, for example, during an ongoing criminal trial, the assistant U.S. attorney gave daily, real-time, out-of-court public commentary calling the defendant and the defense witnesses liars.
That AUSA would be disciplined, probably fired, and the case might well be thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. Now, A.G. James is handling a civil case here, so the stakes aren't quite as high and the remedies might be less severe. But the point stands. She's the chief law enforcement official for the entire state of New York, after all, and she wields enormous official power. Prosecutors are fond of saying, we do our talking in court. A.G. James should abide by that.
And now our last question, it comes by Thread. And Thread, I guess, is the sort of Twitter version of Instagram, I guess. You know what it is. Thread from atthereallord who writes, how is your fantasy football team doing? Okay, this question was sent to Preet. So I'll answer first for him. He doesn't have a fantasy football team. I don't know that for a fact.
but I'm certain of it. Preet doesn't waste time on such trivialities. Now, to be clear, he does waste plenty of time on trivialities. Just quiz him on Springsteen lyrics or pled versus pleaded or set him loose with a Netflix account and an unscheduled evening, but not this particular case.
Now, with the necessary disclaimer that nobody cares or wants to hear about your fantasy football team ever, mine is doing surprisingly well, currently sitting at an 8-4 record. As with life itself, that's about 70% luck and 30% skill, and the luck can turn in a moment. So things are looking pretty good right now, but I'm also quite sure that I know how this will end, with the modern equivalent of Carol Hardy bouncing into a double play to kill the rally.
Thanks for listening, everyone. Keep those questions coming in. We'll try to answer them from time to time. Stay safe and stay informed.
On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Watch Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app to watch live. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.
