Episode 5
· 59:50
Well, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all of you. My name
William Hocking:is Bill Hocking, and welcome to the one, the only Bill Hocking Podcast. Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, avid fans. Welcome once again to the William Hocking Podcast brought to you by my friends at thought partner group and podcastthatmatter.org.
William Hocking:I am really, really excited, honored actually, to have as my guest today Stephen Hanlon, who, in the legal system in our country is quite well known. I'm gonna actually take a couple of seconds and read from some of his work from his websites, a little bit about Steve before he kind of reintroduces himself just to give you the audience a semblance of some of the impact this man has made over decades of making a difference in the legal system in The US. I'm gonna quote, Steve, if it's okay with you, from something on your website, and this is right there on the front page. And Steve writes, or at least the website says, reshaping the nation's public defense system. Quote, we, all of us in our profession, have become the principal facilitators of mass incarceration in our nation.
William Hocking:And with that, a little bit about Steve. He's a native of Saint Louis, lived in the DC area for a while, which is how I got the pleasure of being able to meet him. He's been practicing law basically his entire life, initially practicing law with his father, John Hanlon, started about sixty years ago plus out of Saint Louis. And, according to people that are in the law business, they referred to mister Hanlon, his father, as a lawyer's lawyer. Steve moved to DC, eventually became a senior partner at Holland and Knight.
William Hocking:And for any of you all that are familiar with the legal system, Holland and Knight is one of the big players. And he was a pro bono partner with them for over twenty some years. And if I understand it right, Steve, you ran the largest pro bono practice in The States, for a number of those years.
Stephen Hanlon:Right.
William Hocking:Steve mentions also, in his bio that he had the privilege of being mentored by a gentleman named Chesterfield Smith, who, again, if you're familiar with the legal system, is one of or was one of America's great lawyers and was the founder of Holland and Knight back in 1968. Won a bunch of awards. So having that kind of mentorship from someone as seasoned and as capable as Chesterfield Smith must have been quite, quite an honor.
Stephen Hanlon:It was.
William Hocking:So I'm gonna turn this over to Steve and basically just ask him a series of questions about his life. And, again, for those of you listening to these podcasts, all of these guests on this podcast, reflect, in my opinion, are they're indicative of people who are really living a life worth living because that's what we try to to explore is what does that look like? You know, how does one live a life worth living? You know, how do we bring values back into our society, back into our our world? And we try to bring guests on on this program that are actually doing it.
William Hocking:And by virtue of their deeds, their words, and watching them, one perhaps can see what it looks like to live a life worth living. So we're gonna talk for about forty minutes or so, and, it's gonna be interactive. We're just gonna have a conversation, and I will try very hard not to interrupt him, which I sometimes do. It sometimes I can't get my thought out. I'll and I apologize in advance, Steve.
William Hocking:I may cut you off because if I don't get the thought out or the question out, I'll forget it. So I appreciate your patience. So, Steve, welcome to the program. And, for anything that I didn't include in this little bio and intro, please share it with our audience.
Stephen Hanlon:Oh, that's plenty, Bill. Thanks for having me on. Look forward to it. And let's let's get underway. Let's go.
William Hocking:When did you decide, I guess, in your career that instead of just making money as a partner, you wanted to focus on helping not the downtrodden, but people that, in your opinion, weren't being represented fairly. Mhmm. Tell us a little bit about how you came to that decision on that realization. And it it obviously motivated you immensely because you were engaged in it for so long. So was there any pivotal event, one particular person or one story that you read about that said, I'm gonna help these people.
William Hocking:I'm gonna start with this person, but I'm gonna help people that are incarcerated per se.
Stephen Hanlon:Right.
William Hocking:Do you remember or recollect what that was?
Stephen Hanlon:Well, it took me a while to get there. In law school, I had a remarkable mentor, a fellow named William P. Murphy. K. Murphy had been run out of the University of Mississippi for teaching at Brown versus Board of Education.
Stephen Hanlon:Was the law of the land that segregation was unlawful. And so he came up to University of Missouri, and he taught me constitutional law. And I've set up a scholarship in his name. I have enormous respect for professor Murphy and his class in constitutional law. Keep in mind, I'm taking that class probably in 1964.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. What a time to be in law school. I mean, it's right in the middle of the Warren Court's heyday, the civil rights movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act on and on and on. What a great time to be in law school. It was a great great great constitutional law professor.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. I would catch up with Bill later on because they ran him out of the University of Missouri too because he brokered a peace deal with the students when they were trying to take over the Administration Building right at the time of Kent State. Mhmm. And the conservatives in Missouri didn't like him doing that. So they really went out of Missouri.
Stephen Hanlon:But Mhmm. So he's a great man in academic freedom too. So but my father was a lawyer. Right. And I had a wonderful relationship with my father.
Stephen Hanlon:He was a a very good man and a very good lawyer. And he was a lawyer's lawyer. He was a lawyer's lawyer. And he really taught me how to disagree with somebody strongly but professionally. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:So my father represented small Republican businessmen in their struggles against larger corporate interests. And he was a lifelong Democrat just like me. Mhmm. And that taught me how to listen to people who disagree with me. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Which is really important in a lost skill as you know in a hard time. Then my dad had always said, if you wanna make money, don't practice law. Okay. That's just billing people by the hour. That changed over time but at that time.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. That was true. Lawyers were people in Justice Jackson's famous phrase. Were people who like to work hard, live well, and die poor. And
William Hocking:I haven't heard that one.
Stephen Hanlon:That well, that's not true anymore.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:But it was true back then. The profession was really, really respected widely at that time. Mhmm. And I had a growing family and has had an opportunity to go out and go into a business venture with a young man who left his father to go out in the business venture and we put together a large deal with Marathon Oil Company and that was a great deal. It was fun.
Stephen Hanlon:And then we also made a good bit of money for a while but then came the Arab oil embargo. Mhmm. And we wound up selling snowballs to Eskimos. And so Mhmm. I spent about a year selling off the assets of that company and then I Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:After I completed that, I thought, well, what do you wanna do? Alright. And there we had real good friends down in Tampa and he said, come on down here. There was certainly after when we got down there, pretty good job working with a developer down there for a while just to figure out what I wanted to do. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:And took the floor to bar, and there was a critical audit federal audit of the local legal services organization. It said they're not doing enough impact work.
William Hocking:Impact work, you said? Impact? Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:Impact. Yeah. Cases that really, you know, would change the system. Okay? Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:It's back in the Carter years and you you could talk like that at that time. Mhmm. Okay. Reagan would eventually go after the Legal Services Corporation. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:But during I was there in the glory years. Mhmm. And I started off at $12,000 a year. Jeez. I was the head of litigation.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. I had a great buddy, guy named Robert Shapiro, brilliant lawyer. Mhmm. And he and I did a lot of really great cases together including the the first challenge to high stakes testing, and we challenged the constitutionality of Florida's functional literacy test.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Where they would which had a grossly disproportionate impact on black kids who had spent their first I I represented the class of 1979. Mhmm. And they had spent their first four years in the dual school system in segregated schools. Mhmm. So we tried that case.
Stephen Hanlon:It went on for about six years. It was a wonderful case. We made some real good law. Mhmm. And I did I stayed in legal services for five years to '81.
Stephen Hanlon:My little girl wanted to go to Yale. Uh-huh. And I wanted her to go to Yale.
William Hocking:Not a bad school. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:And they couldn't I had to get some money, you know, with this. Mhmm. So I became and I had two more coming behind them, and I knew talking to them. Well, those kids. You know?
Stephen Hanlon:And I wanted I wanted them to go there. So Right. That's very expensive. I I left legal services. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:And I became what I call the token gentile at Levine, Freeman, Hersch, and Lemonson. And it was a great law firm. Marty Levine was the lead partner. Mhmm. Greatest try greatest trial lawyer I I ever saw Or worked with my whole life.
Stephen Hanlon:Great mentor to me. And we tried everything. I mean, it was just tried everything. Okay? Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:For construction litigation, probate litigation, securities litigation.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Real estate litigation. You know? And
William Hocking:were you practicing law in the DC area then or was that still in Saint Louis?
Stephen Hanlon:That's Tampa.
William Hocking:Tampa. Okay. That's right.
Stephen Hanlon:And I made more money than I ever thought I'd make, but I never saw any of it. It all went back up east to educate my children. But So by the end of the eighties and and on the the firm was good to me. Said, you wanna keep doing some civil rights work, you know, keep doing some civil rights work. So I was able to keep doing some civil rights work, but, you know, I I I I needed this I wanted these kids to go up east and get that kind of education.
Stephen Hanlon:So by the end of the eighties, though, I was pretty unhappy guy. Mhmm. I I was not doing what I wanted to do. And when you're not doing what you wanna do and you know what it is, okay, I'd had those five years Mhmm. Legal services.
Stephen Hanlon:You you can really that's that's not that's that's a bad place to be.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:So but it's a good choice and and place in terms of, well, you gotta think about this. This is not working. Okay? What are you gonna do? Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:No. I got very fortunate that I'd been active in the Democratic Party in Tampa in Florida. Mhmm. And I'd also represented migrant farm workers. Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:And Holiday Knight was the big firm in Florida at that time. Mhmm. They had about 200 lawyers. And they represented agribusiness. So I got to I got to meet them, okay, and litigate against them.
Stephen Hanlon:And I liked litigating against them. I liked them. And I was active with them in the Democratic Party. Mhmm. With them.
Stephen Hanlon:So one night, 11:00 at night, something like that, I got a call. And they said, we're down here at a local bar and we want you to come down and talk to us about something that's really important. Mhmm. I said, well, look. I'm married to a very traditional Italian woman.
Stephen Hanlon:I'm not just walking out at 11:00 at night down to a bar. And I said, well, this is very important. You know, we really want you to come down. So I talked to Franny, and they said they say it's important. Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:I went down. Right. So I got there, and they, again, insisted with you know, what I'm saying? We've been talking about this for months. It's not just that it came up tonight, but we really want you to strongly consider running for congress and we will, you know, back you.
Stephen Hanlon:And I said, well, it's obvious to me that everybody's been drinking. He said, I I know congressmen. Okay? And I know what they do. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Okay? And every morning, they get up and get out of bed, and they know how much money they gotta raise that day.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Then when they go up to Washington, they spend four hours out of every day dialing for dollars over in another building. Dialing for dollars, Ray. I I I don't I I I would never I don't want I wouldn't be any good at it. Mhmm. I I'd be miserable and and and I'd you know, thank you, but I I don't wanna do that.
Stephen Hanlon:But I would like to come over to your law firm and set up a pro bono department. Mhmm. I've been reading about law firms up east who have been who have been doing that. Mhmm. And thirty days later, we had a deal.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. They were wonderful to me for over twenty years. Mhmm. And we eventually did become the largest full time pro bono department in the country. I had 12 kids.
Stephen Hanlon:And I had to see something in and eventually moved to Tallahassee. Spent about thirteen years there. Most of my work has been in the Deep South in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida. And then I moved to DC in o three because I really wanted the the program to be national and all the night now is up around 1,200 lawyers. Today, there are over 2,000.
Stephen Hanlon:I
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:And it was a glorious time. I mean, I just see something that upset me in Louisiana, and I'd say, let's go get it, kids. And we we whether it was juvenile detention facilities or prisons in Mississippi or Alabama We just you know? And I got to work. I always worked with great lawyer great lawyers.
Stephen Hanlon:I worked worked with Brian Stevenson on a death penalty case, worked with Steve Wright.
William Hocking:George Kendall?
Stephen Hanlon:Worked with George Kendall. Mhmm. Kendall and I hooked up and eventually had a very meaningful relationship. He I I accused him of hijacking my career. I had never done anything in the criminal justice system.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. And he called me one day. Because I hid when I was in Tallahassee. I was doing I was representing the people, great lawyers. Great lawyers, death penalty lawyers who Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Had way, way, way too much work, and they couldn't, you know, couldn't she had no not anything like the time and resources to investigate these cases. Right. And so I made I worked on those I I had about three trips to the Florida Supreme Court on that. And over the course of about eight to ten years, and we got a little bit of justice. We didn't get as much as we deserved, but we got a little bit of justice.
Stephen Hanlon:And Right. George saw that work, and he said, you called me. He said, why you go to New York? He was in New York. He was sitting in Thurgood Marshall's old office.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. It was I had Marshall's job as chief legal counsel for the NAACP Inc. Fund. And he said, we're really concerned about, you know, the indigent defense system, the whole criminal justice system, and we're not making any progress. And looks like you found a way to do this stuff systemically down in Florida.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. We'd like you to devote your attention to this. And so I said, well, George, I don't know anything about it, but I'll try. Mhmm. And that's when I really got into it, and that's been about the last twenty five years, most of what I've done.
Stephen Hanlon:And event that that we the first case I had, I guess, was in Massachusetts, and I did that with my partner, Josh Kremholtz. He's in the Boston office. Josh is now taking over. He's gotten I've passed the torch to him and he or Josh. Yes.
Stephen Hanlon:There's a hounded night. They came back to me, you know, a couple years ago, and they said, well, I see what you've been doing. Mhmm. You know, it looks like you're making some real good progress here. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:But, you know, you're getting a little old. You know, could you use some help? And of course, I jumped at it and I said, hell yes I could use the help. Yeah. And they just did a great job out in Oregon where we got a big victory where it's basically says what I've been it's a real simple case.
Stephen Hanlon:That's why I like it. Mhmm. I like I like simple cases. Sure. When a public defender has too many cases.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. So they can't be confident for each of their clients no matter how good they are. These things these things take time. It is true. And resources.
William Hocking:Right?
Stephen Hanlon:Well, we won this case in Missouri in 2012. Mhmm. Public defender says, I I can't do that. It was against the law. Those are the rules that we have.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. Lawyers can't represent people when they can't be competent because they got too many cases. This we've just ignored this rule for for fifty years.
William Hocking:K?
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. Everybody knows. Public defendants have way too many cases. Right? And the court said, you're right.
Stephen Hanlon:Only it's four three. Mhmm. Had to fight like hell. You know? And barely won.
Stephen Hanlon:Four three. Yeah. That's right. When you stand up and say, I got too many cases. I can't do that.
Stephen Hanlon:Then you the court may not assign you any more cases. Well, that's a huge, powerful remedy to say to the system, stop. Mhmm. You know? We can't do this for you anymore.
Stephen Hanlon:When we did it for fifty years, and we should never have done it. That's why I say Right. The profession, and I mean the profession. The trial judges, the supreme court judges, war associations, you you know, and even wonderful overworked public defenders. We became the principal facilitator of mass incarceration.
Stephen Hanlon:You know? I said on PBS, you can't do mass incarceration unless the whole profession, everybody in it, just rolls over and plays dead.
William Hocking:Quote.
Stephen Hanlon:Now at the at the rate of this problem was a meeting that was held back in 1973 at a bar at the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego where six guys sitting around a table said, we think that public defenders, blighters, can handle a 150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors per year. Absolute nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Okay. No data.
Stephen Hanlon:No nothing. Just,
William Hocking:you know, out of the year.
Stephen Hanlon:Yeah. Incredible. I think they wrote it down on the cocktail cocktail nap down. We haven't that's been lost in history. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:But well, I saw that, and I said, that's just crazy. And my buddy who I was working with, Norm Lesting, great. He stood up and said, stop it. Don't do that anymore. And the and the whole profession got mad at him.
Stephen Hanlon:What are you talking about? We've been doing this for fifty years. You know? Well, it's wrong. Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:And in fact, there was Norm said it, there was an auditor here in Missouri who looked at it and and a guy named Tom Schweick. And I said there's nothing there. There's nothing to support that. Mhmm. And the truth of the matter was that a couple years after that report came out in '73, another report came out by the same organization that had done that report.
Stephen Hanlon:And it said, that's not right. You know, that's way too many cases. Mhmm. So we all knew it, you know, for fifty years. And why we put up with it?
Stephen Hanlon:I don't know. Okay. Justice Stevens said we became loyal foot soldiers in the executive's war on crime. Oh, right. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:So I got together. I I I worked on a way to prove how many cases is too many. Mhmm. After I'd won that case in the Missouri Supreme Court, so this is me. You you say I got too many cases.
Stephen Hanlon:The judge may not order you to take any more cases. Well, the problem with that is they were relying on that 1973 study. And this guy, Tom Swike, Missouri State Auditor said, there's nothing there. Mhmm. Well, that's the end of my victory in Missouri.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. There's nothing there. You got I mean, you guys have have something that's reliable before we're gonna give you the drastic remedy of, well, this case can't go forward. It'll have to be dismissed. We don't have a lawyer here who can confidently represent you.
Stephen Hanlon:That's the remedy. Well, if you want that remedy, you better not be relying on something from 1973, which was six guys sitting around a bar. So what I did was work with a lot of really a lot of people who were a lot smarter than me, particularly accounting firms, big accounting firms that had consulting arms who could really do the data and the analytics on this stuff. I knew the law and the standards. Okay?
Stephen Hanlon:So it's a two skill set inquiry. Right. The law and the standards, the data and the analytics. Right. I got these great accounting firms to work with me, and I and I've done them in about eight states in my seventies.
Stephen Hanlon:That's what I did in my seventies is to go around Missouri was first. Louisiana, Colorado, Rhode Island, Indiana, Texas, New Mexico, and and Oregon. And I got great people to work with me, people less smarter than I am. Mhmm. And then I reached out to Rand, and I said, look.
Stephen Hanlon:I've been involved in eight of these. You all have been involved in about three. The National Center state state courts has been involved in about three. There are couple others that been but we got 17 of them. Okay?
Stephen Hanlon:Let's put them together. Rand, you, data. Right. We'll apply the right law and standards, and we'll come up with new national standards. And we did that in 2023.
Stephen Hanlon:The four of us, Rand, the American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts, and lawyer Hanlon, okay, which is my law firm. Right. And then you create
William Hocking:a national public defense workload standards.
Stephen Hanlon:Right.
William Hocking:And three years ago, that was a result of all that work.
Stephen Hanlon:Yeah. And, again, I had a lot of people. My role model is Bobby Bout, the great head coach of Florida State Seminoles. And they asked him what is because Randy and I were up there in the glory years of the Seminoles when Bobby Bout we were two times national champion. We were in Tallahassee.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. And they said, Bob, what's the secret of your success? And he says, I find people who work with me who are smarter than I am. And he says, now that's not a high particularly high bar. And then I give him a lot of rope.
Stephen Hanlon:Okay. Mhmm. And that he's my rule mob. And I found people that were really, really smart to do in the accounting firms. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Young woman named Malia Brink. She was with the ABA. Of course, my great mentor, Norm Lipstein, who unfortunately died after he had said, do not rely on the 1973 NAC standards.
William Hocking:You know
Stephen Hanlon:I mean? Mhmm. So lo and behold, the Washington State Supreme Court in 2025, we adopt the new national public defense work with terrorists. Boy, was that great? That's a great win right out of the gate.
Stephen Hanlon:And they said, get it. Look. It took us fifty years to dig this hole. We're not gonna dig out overnight. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:So they said get it done in ten years. Get back to us in three. Let's get moving. See how it's going. Of course, they have a county based system, and Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:They're they're they're not gonna do what the Washington Supreme Court told them to do. So I'm working with a great lawyer up there now, a guy named Toby Marshall, and we're gonna file a suit in Spokane. There you go. And because the public defender says, I can't do this. And they're gonna say, you're fired or whatever.
Stephen Hanlon:But the public defenders should stand up, by the way. I should have said this before. These are heralds. The I mean, the judges go after him. Everybody goes after him.
Stephen Hanlon:The governor goes after him. The legislature goes after him. And these people stand up and fight and take on the whole system. I got a public defender in Missouri named Kat Kelly. Kat led that great battle.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. And everywhere I've gone, these tremendous, courageous public defenders standing up and saying, I can't do this. And the judge said, I'm gonna throw you in in jail. I'm gonna hold you in contempt. The San Francisco public defender just stood up and said, I can't wow.
Stephen Hanlon:You're in contempt, and I'm fining you, I don't know, thousands of dollars every day or whatever, and and I'm working with those folks yesterday. In in in Oregon? Oh my god. They went after Shannon Wilson, the public defender in in our Oregon case in Salem. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:But we beat them. Okay? We just got the ruling that when Shannon sent us, I'm relying on the 19 or on the new national standards. Mhmm. And that's all I can do.
Stephen Hanlon:Can't do anymore. Mhmm. That's it. That's yep. Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:Your their good faith professional judgment Mhmm. Relying on those standards. That's Yep. So this gives public defenders a tremendous lever of power in the system. The legislature in Oregon is gonna have to go back and say, well, what do the public defenders say they need based on those nineteen seventy three I'm sorry.
Stephen Hanlon:Those twenty twenty three new national standards, and the public defenders are gonna give them a number.
William Hocking:Yeah.
Stephen Hanlon:And they're not gonna like that number.
William Hocking:They're of course not.
Stephen Hanlon:And the public defenders are gonna say, if you can't give us that, then we can't do all of those cases for you. So
William Hocking:Which means they these people will go they'll be released because they can't be represented properly.
Stephen Hanlon:So so you better start prioritizing. So make sure we got enough to handle those murders and the rapes, armed robberies, this and that and that. But once you drop below that, and this is about 39% of the system. Okay? 39% of the system are people who are not dangerous.
Stephen Hanlon:That's the Brennan Center study. Okay. Mhmm. And they do not belong in in jail and prison where they're gonna deteriorate, come back out, and recidivate. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:This is a worthless system. We know what these this is the criminalization of homelessness, poverty, mental illness, and addiction. Mhmm. It has become very fashionable over the course of the last forty some odd years to do that. We will criminalize it.
Stephen Hanlon:Okay? And it it hasn't worked. It won't work. It can't work. That's not what that population needs.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. The population needs mental health services, people who are familiar with drug addiction, people who are familiar with serious mental illness, people who are familiar with poverty issues and housing issues, etcetera. Mhmm. And and simply stigmatizing these people, this whole group of people with criminal convictions, which will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:They're they are being we are making the they can't get jobs. They can't get housing. They can't get health care. They can't these criminal convictions have what we call collateral consequences Sure. Which will destroy their lives.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. Okay? More stuff that is now if you're talking about dangerous conduct, that that we're gonna have to remove those folks from society for some period of time. Sure. But if we were smart, we would really work on that treatment while they were in there.
Stephen Hanlon:We don't do that. And Right. They we release them back out, and they're worse now than they were before they went in. Okay. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:And we have these really long sentences. Okay. Mhmm. And there is no evidence that that contributes to public safety. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Whatsoever. And we just release people back onto the streets. Haven't really hit no effective mental health, addiction, anything else treatment. And they're they're still dangerous.
William Hocking:Sure.
Stephen Hanlon:So the system is the system the the the potential for for reform of the entire system by republic by public defenders reforming themselves first Mhmm. Okay, is enormous. Okay? And so the system's gonna have to There are two solutions to this. One's a supply solution.
Stephen Hanlon:One's a demand solution. The demand solution has 39% of this has no business being in there. It's counterproductive. It's just it's causing crime, frankly, what we call criminogenic. And you need to get that out of there and get that to people.
Stephen Hanlon:And there are programs all over the country right now. Seattle, San Diego really know how to deal with folks like that and and and and and and get them the kind of treatment they need so that they can turn their lives around and become productive citizens. And then for the the rest of the system, these lower sentences are not then they're extremely costly. They're counterproductive, and they're making our society and they're making our society more dangerous. So you're you're gonna see there's a whole new generation of public defenders right now.
Stephen Hanlon:They're not gonna take it anymore, and they're not gonna be used like this. And they're gonna stand up. They're gonna take the beating that they're gonna get from the judges and the governors and the legislature, and they're gonna fight like hell. And they're and and we're winning now. The Iowa Supreme Court the other day just public defender says that's it.
Stephen Hanlon:That's it. Mhmm. And we're gonna win in California. That San Francisco case. We won on this principle already in Oregon.
Stephen Hanlon:We're winning in Washington. Mhmm. Maine. This is a movement. It all started here in Missouri.
William Hocking:Okay, avid fans. We're gonna take a quick break from our dialogue right here, and I'm going to put a plug in for somebody who I feel is truly scary smart. His name is Dr. Kent, and he's the gentleman that got me started on this podcast route, as well as getting my first novel published. Talk To Kent, t a l k t o k e n t dot com is his alias, and this guy is scary smart. If you've got a book inside of you or an idea, you want help with branding or help with coaching or any number of things, Talk tokent is a solution for you.
William Hocking:I highly recommend you give this guy a check out. Talktokent.com. As you're saying this, it reminds me of someone that we both know that I'm extremely fond of and you're fond of and don't need to mention his name, but one of his axioms, to me as I was growing up was do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. And part of what you just described in empowering these public defenders through this new NPDWS is you did the right thing because you feel passionately that it's the right thing to do. Yeah.
William Hocking:This 40% of of these people that are incarcerated have no business being in there and that with the proper help, they could be they would be productive citizens. So why keep them in there? You know, they're just everything you're saying just makes so much sense. But, really, what you I think you can point to is by virtue of your work, you've empowered a whole army of new public defenders that aren't gonna take it anymore, like the guy in movie network said. You know, just not gonna take it, and they're gonna stand up and they're gonna fight for these peep rights because you can't legally represent a body of people if there's way too much work and not enough help to do that.
William Hocking:So, you know, it's obvious how much passion you have at your at your age there and whatever your age is about all of the impact that you made. And this it's to me, it's indicative of, you know, doing the right thing is the right thing to do in this case to help reform the legal system. And, you know, instead of saying we have a criminal justice system, now what we have is a criminal processing system, and you're trying to change that. You're trying to turn it back to what it should be. And so just
Stephen Hanlon:Exactly right.
William Hocking:Hats off to you for that. As we start to wrap this up, Steve, tell me a little bit about I mean, you've been on, I'll say, TV quite a few times. Sixty minutes, PBS, etcetera. You know? And being on the other receiving end of somebody like Anderson Cooper or whatever, that must have been interesting.
William Hocking:You know? What what was your favorite or most rewarding experience of being in front of the microphone with somebody like Cooper?
Stephen Hanlon:Well, I I was really impressed with Anderson Cooper. I got him at the end of the day. He was tired. And he'd interviewed a whole bunch of other people before me. He'd come down to New Orleans the night before.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. And we had a wonderful conversation. Now, you know, and it went for about an hour. And you wind up with maybe thirteen point five seconds of that that actually makes it into the program. Right.
Stephen Hanlon:But one you know, this was early on. You know, this is Louisiana, which is 2016, 17, somewhere around there, maybe 18. And I was trying to I the conversation that I got into with him that never made it was it's not just Louisiana. It's not just New Orleans. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:It's, you know, it's the whole country. It's like this. Mhmm. Louisiana happened to be probably the worst because they had five times as much work as they could handle confidently. We've proved with the new nasal study that on average, probably divided by having about three times as many cases as they can handle Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Are confidently. And but and so I then Anderson got it. He saw the the national significance of it. And it isn't just a problem in Louisiana.
William Hocking:Right?
Stephen Hanlon:So we talked about that for the better part of an hour. And at the end of it, he looked at me and this was a guy who was tired to begin the interview to begin with and he looked me right in the eyes and he said, Steve, that was just wonderful. I said, well, I really I really hope I really hope you all can use. And Mhmm. Of course, the producers said, no.
Stephen Hanlon:Not
William Hocking:provocative enough or whatever.
Stephen Hanlon:No. Don't think of that. No. National problem. How do you know?
Stephen Hanlon:You haven't been all over the country yet. Okay? So actually I'm talking with a producer over at CBS now about doing a maybe a ten year look back off of that interview and see. What's changed? Yeah.
Stephen Hanlon:Yeah. Because.
William Hocking:Great idea. Yeah. Let's see if they
Stephen Hanlon:You know, there's one of the problems in doing this work now is that, you know, we're trying to educate the public. You gotta get the public to understand, you know, the depths of this problem. Mhmm. They can go to their legislators, you know, get people to start talking some sanity Mhmm. For change.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. Get smarter on crime and and instead of tough on crime. And by the way, there's an organization called Smart on Crime, and there's a lot of conservatives. There's a lot of left right consensus on this. Many conservatives regard both the criminal justice system and the prison system.
Stephen Hanlon:It's just two more examples of large failed government programs. So we have some real common ground with them there. But as you know, there are a few other things going on in the country right now that draw press attention. And so it's been very hard for us to get up above that. Sure.
Stephen Hanlon:And we'll just gonna have to wait our turn, I think Right. Before that happens.
William Hocking:Well, it seems pretty evident to me, Steve, that, you know, what you've been fighting for for all these years is slowly, inexorably, hopefully, starting to really make a difference.
Stephen Hanlon:Yes. We're
William Hocking:doing Sometimes, you know, the proverbial how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Somebody's gotta start, you know, that that eating exercise and take the first bite and start that proverbial snowball down the hill. So as new lawyers enter the workplace and have that passion that you had and still have, you know, all those years ago, but have a passion now. They're just starting out, and they wanna defend.
William Hocking:You know, they wanna help people because it's their god given right and constitutional right to have legal counsel.
Stephen Hanlon:Yeah.
William Hocking:And they know what's in front of them. They know everything that you just described or at least they've heard what's the obstacles are.
Stephen Hanlon:Yes.
William Hocking:How do you what would you say to them to to motivate them to stay in there and keep slugging and not to get intimidated by the judges, by, you know, the other people that basically are saying, you know, here's five more cases. You know, here's 10 more cases. You know? What what's your message to them if you had a particular message to give?
Stephen Hanlon:Well, the first message is stand up and fight for your client. This is your client's most important right. Right. The right to a lawyer who can be effective and competent. Okay?
Stephen Hanlon:So get out there and fight for your client. The second thing I would say is this is why you went to law school.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Yeah. You're gonna change the world. Okay?
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Well, there's no this is it. This is where the you know, this is the new civil rights movement, if you ask me. Right. Be a part of it. Public defense today is entirely different than it was I mean, entirely different
William Hocking:Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Than it was as little as ten or twelve years ago. Wow. There's a new organization that I served as their general counsel. Mhmm. I'm a special adviser to them now.
Stephen Hanlon:It's called the National Association for Public Defense. Mhmm. 25,000 public defender members Mhmm. Led by a great African American woman, Laurie James, Dr. Laurie James. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:They're not gonna take it anymore. They're not they're just not gonna take it anymore. So we we try and get them to be smart about it. We do. Make sure you got your data.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. Make sure you got a good lawyer to represent you. Make sure you at least have a shot in your state supreme court. Mhmm. We can't go we gotta stay out of federal court because of the disaster that's occurred in the US supreme court.
Stephen Hanlon:If this thing ever got to the US supreme court, yeah, we'd we'd get slaughtered. So we only go in state supreme courts or states with receptives in the courts. Mhmm. Used to be able to go in Florida, but that's gone. Used to go in Missouri where I won four to three.
Stephen Hanlon:I'd get slaughtered some of the nothing in Missouri right now. But there are plenty of good states. Is a great one. Place we're really looking at. Uh-huh.
Stephen Hanlon:You know, Pennsylvania. There are plenty of great state supreme courts around the country. Sure. Sure. New Jersey.
Stephen Hanlon:It goes on and on and on, and we'll keep doing that. And then, ultimately, you know, this is an unfunded federal judicial mandate. Gideon versus Wainwright was decided in 1963 just before I entered law school. Mhmm. And it said you got a right to a lawyer.
Stephen Hanlon:You can't put him in jail unless you got a lawyer. Okay? But then then where's the money gonna come from that? Well, that's unfunded federal judicial mandate. So it has to be federal money.
Stephen Hanlon:And I've worked with senator Booker and Kamala Harris when she was a senator on the Equal Defense Act, which would provide supplemental federal funding for states who come up to these standards over a five year period. Mhmm. And we can't do anything with that right now in the current political climate. But this climate is not gonna be here forever. And when it changes, that'll be back in there right now.
Stephen Hanlon:We can tell them. Now there's a wonderful fellow who's kind of a guy named Ben Cohen a little bit NYU who's done a study. How much would it take? Take about 26,000,000,000, which is I mean, of course, the savings. Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:But if you actually have real lawyers in there, you know, who are fighting for their claims, I mean, there are gonna be far fewer people gonna wind up in jail, etcetera. But the the Right. I think it's about 26,000,000,000, he said, was, you know, over five years. Gonna do it. I mean, because we can't do this service for you anymore.
William Hocking:Right.
Stephen Hanlon:Okay. We did it for fifty years. We should never have done it. Yeah. We did.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. We have to acknowledge it. The profession has to acknowledge it. Mhmm. But we can't continue doing it.
Stephen Hanlon:You know? So there's gonna have to be. If you wanna put them in jail, well, then you're gonna have to provide, you know, a lawyer who can actually be a lawyer. Right. But one of the nice parts about it that I like the argument I like about this, and this is Yeah.
Stephen Hanlon:This principle is articulated in the American Bar Association's defense function standards Mhmm. Which were developed by prosecutors, judges, defenders, and academics. So you got everybody agreeing to this? Mhmm. Okay.
Stephen Hanlon:A court is not properly constituted Unless there is a judge and some court personnel and unless there is a prosecutor. Right. And unless there is a defender who could actually be a lawyer for this client. If you don't have that, that defender who can do that Mhmm. You're not in court.
Stephen Hanlon:Right. You may have a rope on. You could even have a gavel. Mhmm. And you might sit up on a bench.
Stephen Hanlon:Mhmm. You're not a cork. It's a three pronged stool. Mhmm. And you take that third prong out, and there's no court.
Stephen Hanlon:It falls No business handling out any sentences or anything whatsoever. You're not legitimate. You're it it it is you lack jurisdiction. Okay? You're not properly constituted.
Stephen Hanlon:So we're getting the judges to understand that. Okay? And we're starting to get legislators here to understand Mhmm. That unless you have somebody there who can actually provide the representation that's needed, can't go forward.
William Hocking:You're not. Legitimate. Go forward. Yeah. I mean, that's a powerful word.
William Hocking:You know? Unless you have all three components working together, it's not
Stephen Hanlon:legitimate. It's not legitimate.
William Hocking:That's that's just powerful. And without legitimacy, you know, our whole justice system relies on that three pronged school in order to sit on and and bear the weight of
Stephen Hanlon:the whole system. And and you take one of those out of all over. When we go to these state supreme courts, we say, at stake in this case is the integrity of the criminal justice system of the state of Oregon. Okay? And you, judge, have been put here by the people Mhmm.
Stephen Hanlon:Okay, to make sure that that system has integrity. That's your job here today. Don't worry about funding. That's the legislature. Don't worry about what should be a crime or shouldn't be.
Stephen Hanlon:That's the legislature. You know what? Stay in your lane. Your lane is we have a legitimate justice, criminal justice system here. Too often does the state supreme courts in the past have said, oh this is a legislative problem.
Stephen Hanlon:No. It's not a legislative problem. I mean, it is, but that's for the legislature, not you.
William Hocking:That's right.
Stephen Hanlon:Your job And your job. Is to ensure that everybody there has a lawyer who can really be a lawyer for them. And if that has certain consequences, then well, let the other branches of government figure that out. Okay. Absolutely.
Stephen Hanlon:So that's where we are. Well, Steve,
William Hocking:I think, people listening to this are gonna gonna get a crash course in, I'll say, legal legality, what you need for an intact and authentic legal system with integrity and just the the battles that public defenders have in front of them. But, you know, you've been there. You've seen this, and you've actually made a real legitimate difference on how you know, in different states, how public defenders can do their job. And, you you didn't take no for the answer. You know?
William Hocking:You're one of the few people I know is stood up and said, this is wrong, and I'm gonna do something about it. And you just watch, and you did. And, there's a whole lot of people that I think could could and would thank you for your efforts over this time. And I I would love to hear about that that ten years back article or interview that you may do with CBS. I'll look forward to hearing more about that if and when that happens because I'd
Stephen Hanlon:like to I
William Hocking:hope so. I'd like to hear it.
Stephen Hanlon:Now I just get I get to sit back and watch the kids do it now. Okay. Right. Well,
William Hocking:if I was a kid
Stephen Hanlon:coming Passing the torch. Passing the torch.
William Hocking:You are. And if I was a kid coming up and I heard about Stephen Hanlon, I'd say, Steve, I wanna find some time to talk to you. Tell me, do a magic wand scenario. If you could go back in time and now you're me all those years ago, what would you do different? What should I learn from you, in terms of, all the things that you experience, etcetera?
William Hocking:So I don't beat my head against the wall too much. In other words, there's wisdom and then there's experience. I'd much rather learn by wisdom by somebody else's trial and error versus my own hard luck. Right?
Stephen Hanlon:Good. I'm a lot of trial Exactly.
William Hocking:And, anyway, Steve, I just I wanna say thank you. You've been wonderfully gentle with your time. You have a lot to share, and, I'm really looking forward to getting this out getting this message out to people and and getting your name and your voice and your words of wisdom out to people so that they can benefit from it. So God bless you.
Stephen Hanlon:For doing. Really appreciate it.
William Hocking:And we will we'll hopefully see each other soon. Have a wonderful day, Steve. Tell your better half I said hello. Okay? Okay, avid fans.
William Hocking:Well, that's another wrap. And as we exit stage right, I've got to put in one last plug for the group that helps me make these podcasts happen, and that's podcasts that matter. Podcaststhatmatter.org, just like it sounds. Really should check them out. At that website, there's a plethora of different voices up there that I'm very confident you'll really enjoy.
William Hocking:One in particular I want to put a plug out to is called Adopting Joy by Colleen Ryan. She has an amazing voice, and you should hear her podcast. There's a lot of them up there, but I particularly like that one. So I hope you exit stage right. Check out podcasts that matter.
William Hocking:Glad that you did. Well, avid fans, as they say in LA, that's a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope that you learned something that perhaps there was a few pearls of wisdom that you took away from today's conversation. Thanks again, and until next time.
William Hocking:God bless.
Listen to The William Hocking Podcast using one of many popular podcasting apps or directories.