 This morning, we have the honor of having with us one of my personal favorite people, although this is the first time we've actually interacted directly with each other. Ken Lawson is not only an extremely highly respected criminal defense attorney and civil rights attorney. He is faculty in criminal law at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii. He is the co-director and one of the founders of the Innocence Project here, which deals with excessive incarceration, wrongful sentencing, and other systemic problems. Ken, thanks. Welcome. Tell us a little bit about what brought you to where you are today. That's a long story, but we've been in Hawaii for 12 years, my wife and I. I've been here at the university since 2010, and as you mentioned earlier, I've practiced law in Cincinnati, Ohio for 18 years prior to coming here. The rest of the story, I've done public talks on it before, so people can go to my YouTube channel to get that part, because we only have a few minutes. And I think the topic that you want to discuss is extremely important. So let's jump right in. What makes that topic, not just judicial independence and impartiality, but what's wrong with it, what's broken? What makes that topic so important and timely right now? Well, I mean, it's been going on for years. I think now the public, because of the protests and the focus on Black Lives Matter, unequal justice, and that global movement that we see now, the centers on justice. It's almost like people are coming to where a lot of us have already been. You know, like, oh my gosh, you know, is there judicial bias? Well, yeah, especially when you have them elected, or they're here in Hawaii, you know, if they get pointed through the ledge or, you know, you know what I mean, they're reviewed by the state legislature and all that's political. And when it becomes political, then you see decisions that are political. You see people who are supposed to be independent judges, free of any bias, free to rule on justice, afraid to do so, because they don't want to upset the political party, they don't want to set their voters. You see people that put them in office. And normally what that means is, when it comes down, whether it's local here, Micronesia, native Hawaiian, people of color, right, we need you, judge, protect us and those people. And you see them with longer sentences, etc. And so, hey man, you know, when I practice law in Ohio, I mean, we've, and this is considered a liberal state, you know, in the Midwest. And you fight them judges all day long. Right. And they would know, they would know, man, they would know the cops was, you know, so, here's how you know, when a police officer. So, especially the neighborhoods, right, you, you will get clients that please pull up, what are your young men doing on the corner. I'll go after yourself, you can't tell us nothing, right. So next thing you know, you got the disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault, please, when you see those three charges, you kind of know. Because the whole, because it always goes back to what, why did the officer even start talking to you, we were just standing on the corner. And then he told you what he said, man, get off the corner, whatever. And that's like, you know, I know my rights, I don't have to move and then it escalates. So now the judge knows that this is some BS, that there's really no crime here, other than one cause and created by the police coming in there, you know, starting stuff, and then charging the individual. And so you say in court, everybody knows a cop is lying, judge know they lying, prosecutor know the cop line, I know the cop line, my client knows the cop line because he was there. And the judge know it. And then there's still a guilty finding. And, you know, getting back into the innocence project. You know, a lot of the wrongful convictions happens with misdemeanors. Right, you got somebody that can't afford to get out on bond. They charge you one of these frivolous charges, the judge knows some BS man. I mean, you know, and in order to get out, I plead guilty and he'll let me go today with a fine. So now I have a record. And I've seen it with law students here, you know, as you know, law students have to pass a character and fitness before they take the bar. Part of that is, have you ever had any prior convictions? Some of them may say, you know, in high school or in college, you know, I got disorderly conduct at a frat party, you know, and, you know, the judge found me guilty. What were you doing? Well, I got drunk and I started, you know, calling the cop all kind of SOBs. You know, and I mean, anyway, so I think I kind of rambled on there and got off tangent, but I had gone back to your original point. There's no, the closest we get is federal judges and even then it becomes extremely political because in order to get the appointment, you have to have certain views. And what we see going on now with President Trump in office and Mitch McConnell over the Senate, and while President Trump is distracting the whole world with idiotic tweets, everybody gets upset about that. Right. And, you know, injecting Lysol to prevent COVID. And so we're talking about that for three days. And Mitch McConnell and his gang is appointing some of these judges that have no idea what justice means. Right. And part of them qualifying is to make sure that they told that that that far right wing agenda. And that has nothing to do with equal justice for all. In fact, if anything, it's the enemy of equal justice for all. Absolutely. So I guess here's the question. If you look at the Trump McConnell appointments, guided by the Federalist Society and the American conservative, whatever that other group is. There's a clear pattern of not only right wing radical conservatives, but younger white men with histories of strong biases against minorities, LGBTQ, black, Hispanic disabled, whoever it may be. Absolutely. And that's not by mistake. I mean, when you talk about make America great again, you we all know that that's that that's cold for make America and keep America white. Yeah. Right. And also this weekend, you know, basically after everybody knows, but now everybody should know the history of the riots on Wall Street right and just just killing black folks in Tulsa 1921. And to have that as your sounding board and then to move from north to down in Jacksonville where there's another race. Right. All that is cold right all this stuff about the Confederate flags and really the two decisions this week. Right about the LGBTQ T that and the one this morning about doctor. All over all that is you know all that is done to try to appease the far right but also keep America white again. Right. And to keep and that's what the fear is this is right and I think that's what's ironic about this whole global movement we're seeing where you see white people black people brown people Asian people all coming together saying black lives matter. Right. I mean not just here like normally, you know I've been doing police misconduct cases when I did civil rights on the mainland. Since my first one was in 1994. So I represented individuals that was killed by the police black unarmed men and women in Cincinnati and in the, you know, Kentucky and Indiana tri-state area. And I did, you know, did it until I came here. And, but all of the all of the marches was always mainly just blacks, right to protest with black people, you know, mainly you know what I mean. Now this is just different. And I think it's different, not only because of what people saw happen to George Floyd. I think it's different because of what people are being has seen has been happening to our nation globe here locally. I mean nationally and globally that America is turning out to be racist. I mean, at least from the administration, I mean, not the people. So, there's this systemic racism that is coming across and what Trump is doing to build a wall and all the, you know, shithole countries and stuff like that. You know, it doesn't surprise me that the Federalist obviously is sitting there with a list of people that because you're what's going to happen is the voting rights, you know, the gerrymandering and all that stuff that's going on is going to continue to be upheld. Because if they don't, if the country is becoming more color, so to speak, brown, white, right. Which means, and Latino and blacks and what the only way you can still stay in power is to dilute the vote. And the way you do that is you control the courts. So you can get away with voter suppression, you can get away with gerrymandering. Yeah, just like, go ahead. And those are racially biased decisions and actions as well, right. I mean, you know, back a few years ago when it's clear when they just dismantled the voter right, the voting right act. I mean, it's just like, oh, everything is good now. Are you serious and as soon as they did that, you saw all these states getting busy gerrymandering and creating districts to which it's almost impossible to get some of these people out. So is what's happening to judicial independence and impartiality of the attacks on that by Trump McConnell, that whole group in the sector. Is that as racially motivated as minority inimical as the police conduct that you're talking about. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is the same because I look. And that was, you know, that was my point earlier. The judges know what's going on in the streets. Right. And so the only reason why police officer would do some of the things that he that they do is because they know that once they bring these trumped up charges once they say that you did it, or once they say that you resisted and that's why they beat you because you want it when excessive force is used. And I know that I'm doing something as an officer that's illegally by beating someone who I have no right to do I had to charge him. Right. And that that will justify what I'm doing. And most of these judges know that all this is BS, but they, they continue to do it and if they didn't then we wouldn't see so many police bringing these trumped up charges, and it leads to a good number wrongful convictions. I mean, it's in the sentences, when you look at the disparity in the prison senses between white and black, you know, when I did criminal law in the Midwest, people really don't know this, even as a black lawyer and a pretty racially divided state. About 40% of my clients were white, and they will come out from, you know, the farmland and they will come out from the boonies but they were just old country boy country men and women right, but they believe you know they got charged they believe the fight and so they will come to me and just being able to see the difference and the way my white clients was treated as compared to my black clients was just night and day night and day. You know, and I'm talking about some serious offenses, you know what I mean to wear okay with this client's going to get probation and then the same black client that does the same act is in prison. And so yeah, all of it. We're sitting here thinking, oh well, for example, we're a solid ball we've got all kinds of ethnic groups and so we don't have this problem. Is that your perception. No, I mean we look at the Micronesian, look at the Micronesian population and I don't know if you remember this or not but there was a prosecutor who made an argument to a judge a closing argument, no for sense. We need to sentence this Micronesian young man to prison and teach all them down their lesson. Right and a guy reversed at the Court of Appeals, but for any prosecutor to feel comfortable enough to put on a record something so racist and for a judge not to at the trial level. Not to say hey you know what, you know, new prosecutor we start over or what have you know or you can't say that I'm not going to consider that for that just to go on. Unless you know that the racism is there, you know people talk about implicit bias. And I tell you now I have written a law review article on it in 2015. But you know after Trump took office, I'm really you know this stuff is conscious you know as a judge who's in front of you, you know as a police officer that man you just shot in the back is black. You know that you shot him. You know what I mean, or you know that because you just sense the man, you got the PSI in front of you before you come out the sentence, you see is racist nationality. You see his record you see where it comes from so that your decision is conscious. Right. What's going to bring about real change in the erosion of that judicial independence and impartiality. What's going to change the playing field and level it. I think it should just be merit based I think you know. And it's always been a debate about that I really like one from judges are elected. They run in, you know, and we live in a majority white county so our county judges were always white and they were always former prosecutors, you know what I mean, I mean. And I don't know if you remember this is a judge Nathaniel Jones he passed away but he has a federal court building and he was six circuit court appeals judge was an NAACP lawyer. And he worked with our good Marshall a lot of those guys and he was in Cincinnati and he bought a lawsuit that allowed our municipal court judges to be elected within the city of Cincinnati. Not the county where more blacks are located so we start getting more black judges. We're going back to your point I think we have to come over some type of merit based instead of being appointed by the ledge. I don't know how it worked. But there's some systems that you know where the judges are appointed based on merit where you take in to account the local bar, every, you know, criminal defense lawyers prosecutors and stuff like that. And they're evaluated every few years. But it's just the politics. So our judicial selection commission here in Hawaii based originally on the Missouri model is supposed to do that. But they give a list of six to the governor the governor and then picks one, and they still have to get Senate approval at that. So you've got two political levels involved in the final selection process, that list of six may have some really highly qualified independent impartial people respected people on there. So whether those people get the final selection and governor approval and Senate approval is another question. Right, right. How do you think we're doing on that. I think I think it sucks. You know, I see judges here scared to make decisions because it you know it's almost like having somebody, you know, if I do this, what would they do. I'm not looking so much so it takes the focus off just justice and keeps the focus on you keeping your position. Right, when a judge is sitting here she should be able to focus solely on justice, not whether or not how my ruling is going to affect my job. And when you enter when it's made clear because the ledgers made clear over the last few years that your job may depend on with how you rule. Right now. So justice is not your job your job is to make sure we're happy with you. And if we're happy with what you're doing, we're not going to remove you from that seat. And so you're sitting there at arm at the mercy of us and we will tell you what justice is. Right here in Hawaii. Off the top of my head, I can think of three really strong, very independent judges that I have a great deal of low honor respectful from my 42 years of practice, all of whom were not renewed because they offended the wrong groups. All three are women, all three are people of color. Yeah. And that's the whole point. It's not justice. And I think I think you know the more that we shine light on this the more young people and other people of color. Look, we saw 10,000 people at the Capitol. When I spoke down there at the Black Lives Matter, and these people hadn't flown in from over these are 10,000 people on a Wahoo. You know how many young people of color and white black. If we just use that power to vote to get some of these legislatures out of there and put people in that are progressive that understand what justice is. And then then they can appoint it if this is a system we're going to keep, they can at least point somebody say you know what, that's your job to be the judge you're qualified you go be the judge. And as long as we trust you to do what's in you but we may not agree with everything you say, but the fact that you were the judge and you should be independent. Go with our blessing. You know what I mean. But we. And so I hope that people can see with this movement that it doesn't just end with protests. Right. That's the beginning. The end has to be go vote register to vote check your registration. And get some of these people out there and then if we don't like that, then change it, but you're absolutely right man. I mean that is so unjust. I mean, I mean it pisses me off because the bottom line is when you have a system like that. So this is why they can't say, hey, what are these klohas come from this or crooked. Well you created them. This corrupt system you got allows corruption to persist. And the only reason why y'all talking about them now is because they got caught. But you knew there was no good when you had them in there. You knew there was no good when y'all was doing tiff or tat deals. See when they fired Chuck total over there when he was doing the investigation and got rid of him to help cover up them and then they want to get this man $250,000 to to retire. After he'd been indicted by a federal grand jury. And then when we when a judge stands up and says something is wrong, this is then they get removed. And people want to sit back and say, you know, what's going on with the corruption of government. Well, it should your corrupt government created the corruption that we send. And my point is this as long as you have judges that are down there that are ruling based on what they think the ledge likes, you're going to see justice being thought it. And we look at that and we're still seeing that as we look at it today. To leading police commissioners, probably the two most independent and respected police commissioners. Steve Levenson and Lorena Sheehan quit because it can't be effective. I mean, I mean, it's so corrupt. Don't please don't give me. I mean, there are articles and I just something new show about the real spending $190,000 on some type of game. The whole thing. Look, when you have justice Levenson and the I forget to say, right. I mean they're trying to do their job to make the police better and see what happens is this the police union they don't like it. And so they'll put you in a position to where if you say something about us, you're anti police. If you say something about us, that means you won't crime the rise and somehow if we really all this stuff happens. And so now they appoint Doug Chan and whoever else this guy is, and it's going to be more the same. And I know he may watch it show whatever I really don't give a shit. I'm just telling you that they're putting him in there at a man. I mean, people should be upset enough to go vote. People should be upset enough to go vote. Yeah, and I think it will be interesting because I've known Doug Chan and Mike Broderick for some time now and their people of conscience their people of character. But they but they're so police. You're right. So I'm not saying that they don't have good character what I'm saying is they're so far to the to the right of the police that they can't see when we say black lives matter what it means, they can't see when Micronesians may have to say Micronesian lives matter. What does that mean? You know, they told the line of the blue. And again, we all do that but what we want is a good blue. We want, we want a community and a police that works together, not against each other that when there's a police shooting, we should be open records, and that's not going to happen. So, you know, I don't want to come across like I'm impure and I'm not impure in a character what I'm saying is, if you want somebody to make sure that the police department is doing what they doing, you don't put somebody in there who's not going to disagree with the police department. You put somebody, you know, iron sharpens iron, that friction you need that if you want to make it better. Now if you just want to keep going on and not make it better keep putting in the same old people that's going rubber stamp it. And we see that's also a political appointment. The choice of Doug Chin and Mike Broderick is about as favorable as we might expect from that political appointment process. So we'll see what happens, but that's only two. And we also saw what happened was Loretta Sheehan, who was the most independent member on that police commission, it was removed as chair and replace with someone who's been very favorable to the police to the Chopo Union and to Captain Well, tell them to appoint me. Any of those people, but Tell them I want to tell them I want to I want the third seat. Charles, you got you got any connections on it. Tell them Lawson said he wants to be the third seat on there. You know, as the 60s guy, I'm completely comfortable with that. I couldn't agree with you more can until we have real diversity, not just a parent diversity, not just superficial diversity, but real diversity on the decision making bodies, whether it's judicial appointment, whether it's the bench itself, the judiciary. And I think if there's one thing that gives me personally some hope. I think we have a state Supreme Court and a state chief justice who seriously conscientiously honored equal access to equal justice. You know, I'm on a national instance network board with Barry Sheck and a whole bunch. And I get calls all the time, like you guys are so blessed to have such a great Supreme Court, and that's absolutely true, absolutely true. And maybe that's comes for hope because if this process in these leadership people can make that possible. Maybe there's room. Where do you think the real momentum for change has to come from is it from the youth is it from the younger generation. Like Malcolm X said man she's either the ballot or the bullet and we ain't got enough bullets so it's the ballot right and it's the power of that vote. You know you go down here to me both of you and I we old guys man you go down to the state ledge man I walk around and Yeah, you smell Gerrita just it smells like you know, hey man, we need some more young people down there. Gerrita and so on. And didn't you cream. It might be mine, it might be mine. So we're down to about the last minute or so. Coming back to what's wrong with judicial independence and impartiality. No, I know I just think that the more the people see it. The more that we can shine a light on why this really affects a lot of people's lives in a negative way. Then we can get that change people get motivated to change when they can see this is really wrong and it's really affecting people in the wrong way. Couldn't agree more. If we do. What does it look like. You know, I don't know but it can't be the same old system it has to it has to be more independent you know judges should just you know, I would like something like, I mean, I don't know, but it has to be some merit based system where the local bar and the local lawyers who practice in front of these judges not the ones who never see the judge. You know you got lawyers who practice and you know, just improve a corporate they don't see the criminal and civil judges down here. Right. Those people should really have like an input and whether or not the judges have have merit it the right to stay. Okay, so we're going to wrap up here. I'm going to leave it with one other thing there is another element we haven't gotten into today maybe next time, which is the media, we are losing some of our absolutely best most independent articulate respected people Lee I'm going to Rob Perez, two of our best investigative writers. That needs to be part of this as well because without that kind of watchdog input. Yeah, change gets harder. Ken, thanks so much for your time. Let's do this again. And I enjoyed it really appreciate it. Thank you. Take good care.