SPOTLIGHT Jon Gegenheimer

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Hi, and welcome to this episode of Sasses Spotlight. Today we have with us John Gegenheimer. I'm Lisa. I'm one of your hosts, and today I treated myself to a beer, so I have a medallion.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I wish I had one.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

I wish I could send you one.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

I should have brought a glass of wine with me, but you can always go get one now if you want.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

It's fine. We can wait. We always wait for wine.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 0:39

I'm your co-host, Agnes, and I am just drinking a lot of decaf coffee.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

I'm getting older and age, and caffeine does not agree with me. But as long as it tastes like coffee, I'm fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

That's good. Drink decaf.

SPEAKER_05 0:57

Because I do not need caffeine. And now you're fully stocked. I I just have five pounds. I don't know if it's not enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Some somebody over here traveled on an airplane with five pounds of decaf coffee for her.

SPEAKER_05 1:11

Oh I like bribery of food.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Um and I want to exchange for room and board.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

Our guest John, what are you having?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Right now, nothing.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

I will have some nice, a nice glass of wine when we finish this. Okay. I'm at a hotel. I'm at a hotel and we've got we have a little wine um get together downstairs at five o'clock. So in shape.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

Nice. Are you a red wine drinker or a white wine drinker?

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Uh during the summer I drink white. Beginning in October, I'll switch to red.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

I love that equal opportunity wine drinker. Yeah. I think if I had to do both, that that would be my thing. Because the wine, the white wine in the summer, it just hits different. Especially if you put a little fruit in it, it's really good.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

White wine sangria, my favorites.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I just drink the straight dry wine.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

That's oh nice Pinot Grigio.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:15

Mm-hmm. The drier the better.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Right. Is that I hope that beer's dry.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

It's nice and uh pull me off here. Are you okay? Oh yeah, no, no. I haven't had beer in a while, so it's you know, I I drink whatever I find in the refrigerator that my husband surprises me with. So this week it's beer.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

I like good strong beer, so what's your favorite beer? I like uh Guinness.

SPEAKER_04 2:55

Oh okay. Yeah. That'll be a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I seldom drink beer, but when I do I drink the real you know, the You drink the real stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

I don't think I've I can do Guinness personally. That's that's give it a try.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

It's like it's like Scotch. You you acquire a taste for it.

SPEAKER_05 3:14

Yeah, I can do that. I can't drink brown liquor. I can't. I don't know. It doesn't agree with my system.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

That's good. Stick to the wan, stick with the wand. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Or tequila. Or Vaco. And Voc does. So Lisa. Yes. This is your show, because she's the best with starting off. And that is coming and mess things up.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Well, y'all just laying the foundation, but what's to follow? That's good.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

Yeah. I'm I'm gonna just jump right in with my silly question then.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Would you rather skip everywhere or speak in rhyme?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Uh skip everywhere. Why?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I I I don't I'm I'm a uh I'm I'm prosaic. I I write prose and I'm not much into poetry.

SPEAKER_05 4:09

Into poetry. And I think at least for me, I think the skipping would take less mental work.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

So if I have to it flow it flows easier.

SPEAKER_05 4:21

Yeah, if I have to actually think about a rhyme as I'm walking, yeah, no, I would trip off my own foot because I couldn't think of a word. So, John, tell us about yourself. I mean, we can give you the the best introduction in the world. I think you were probably the best one because you're an author. Um, you're in politics, you're a lawyer. Are you kind of like a history buff or just a history and law buff?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Uh both. History and law and law. Uh history is my my uh avocation. Law was my the way I made a living for 20 years before I was became a public official. Which Okay in which the law is involved because I'm a judicial official, so I'm still on the administrative side of the court system rather than actually in the courtroom itself as an advocate.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Do you miss being out front forward in the law, or do you like what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_01 5:23

I like what I'm doing now. I'm sort of a policy wonk type person uh who likes to accomplish things, set goals, uh uh have uh have have visions about uh futures such as uh uh uh core technology. We're in the age of technology now, and now we're even a step beyond that with uh AI, so we're working on that and trying to adapt some AI principles and apply those to the court system.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

What kind of law Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna ask, what kind of law did you practice?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I was a trial lawyer, not the ambulance chasing trial lawyer. I I tried uh cases uh in complex litigation, contract disputes, um maritime uh disputes.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Oh and and those types of things. I was a municipal attorney for six years, repres represented of the uh uh parish seat here in Jefferson Parish uh before I was elected clerk. And uh been the clerk uh of court now uh for 36 years.

SPEAKER_05 6:30

Amazing. That's an amazing um CV you got there. I'm going to jump a little bit because if I don't ask questions when I think of it, I won't think of it until like later on tonight.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

I have I really would love to hear your point between the law and morality when it comes to the Griffith case. The Griffin Murders?

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yes. That begins uh strangely enough on uh Super Bowl Sunday when the Saints won their first, uh won the championship. That's a funny way to begin. Actually, it's the beginning, it's the beginning of the character development of the two main characters, and it shows you what what they're made of. And then uh later on in the next chapter that we feature the uh oral argument on this very contentious issue of separation of church and state, which has been somewhat distorted over the years. Um it it all stems from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a friend uh who was concerned that the uh America might become a theocracy, much as England did when Henry VIII uh seized the uh Catholic Church and established the Church of England, and he was a monarch and he was a religious head at the same time. So you sort of theocratic rule. And the founders wanted to prevent that. And Jefferson was uh said in the letter, rest assured that there will always be a separation of church and state, meaning there won't be a theocracy. You'll have a civilian government, and you can have religion, you still have freedom of religion. And a lot of people have sort of transmogrified that concept uh to mean that there shall be nothing that religion should be banned from the public square. Well, if you go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which I have been to a number of times, there are the Ten Commandments or all the ball and uh they're all over the place. The Congress has a chaplain. Um so they sort of contradict themselves themselves. The same people who uh advocate for this uh sort of distorted concept of separation of church and state are exposed to church and state uh coexistence all the time. And that's not what the that that's not what separation of church and state means. That came from a a uh an opinion by one of the uh the famous justice, uh I think it was Hugo Black, um, who who said that there shall not be any religion in the public square. In other words, prayer in the public schools. That and there should be, they could, they certainly can be, as long as every religion is uh given the same opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Excellent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Uh whether it's uh Judaism, uh Christianity, uh Islam, as long as they're all given the same opportunity and it doesn't interfere with the educational process in the schools. That's what it means. And it doesn't mean you can't have a manger at the at the city hall or anything like that. Uh uh if you allow the star of David there as well, and whatever is not so familiar with Islam as I am with the other two religions, whatever their symbol is, symbolism is, you can have that, as long as it doesn't interfere with the uh operation of the public entity. So that begins the story, and there's this uh uh the cases argued before the Louisiana Supreme Court, and you have the uh one side of the bench uh uh which says goes with the this this uh separation of church and state, no religion at all in the public square. The other side uh which happened to be in the majority on in the story, because a couple of the people whom who you think would decide the other they turned and uh sided with the majority. And the uh plot thickens when hold one second, let me take that off. The plot thickens when uh the two protagonists, the Associate Justice, who was for the more conservative viewpoint of uh the religious uh uh separation of church and state uh concept, uh he is playing football in a levee with his friend who happens to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, they're lifelong friends. All that unfolds in the story. And they uh every Wednesday they would go to the levee, uh, which is right near the courthouse where I worked. In fact, I can see that levy out of my office window, and they would play football. They were stark football players at Tulane University, which I happen to be an alumnus of. But you see, you draw on your life experiences when you write these stories. And uh they play they're playing, and one of them, uh, as he just catches the ball, he's going back to his quarterback friend and he spots a body on the on the batcher. You know what a batcher is?

SPEAKER_05 11:52

No.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

You won't find it in the dictionary. Have you been to uh New Orleans?

SPEAKER_05 11:58

I have not yet.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Okay. Well, if you anywhere along the Mississippi River, you'll you'll see levees.

SPEAKER_05 12:04

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And the land between the levee and the river is called the Batcher.

SPEAKER_05 12:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

And that's where the river sand accumulates, and trees and vegetation growing. That's all. They find this body clothed in a black robe on the levee, and uh but the body had been submerged for a couple of weeks, and the physical appearance was somewhat distorted. And then the Holmesian character, um Justice Wynn, Associate Justice Wyndham says, This is our my colleague on the bench, Justice Wilson. Why would she have been murdered like murdered like this? The serial killer, there are five serial murders in the story uh centered around the French quarter in New Orleans. If you haven't been in New Orleans, you've got to come and at least visit the French court.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

But in any event, the uh there are five of them, and the the modus operandi for the killer is to uh inject pufferfish venom into the carotid arteries so that the people suffer agonizing deaths before they uh succumb to the effects of it. And uh Wyndham, uh the Justice Wyndham, who's the Holmes in character, uh put puts two and two together, sort of like Sherlock Holmes. He has this amazing intuition and uh imagination, and he's uh he says that this is uh the result, I'm sure, of uh Justice Wilson's crossing over to the other side on the court to decide uh against the the uh the the separation of church and state crowd. And that is the motive for the murder. The murderer is such an ideologue that he um kills those who he feels betrayed him on that issue. And uh so the the the murder of Mr. Murderer is revealed in the last part of the story at Justice Wyndham's house in the French quarter, 1140 Royal Street, which y'all are familiar with the the uh actor Nicholas Cage.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Well he lived there, he had a home in New Orleans, and that was his home. Uh it's the La Lorie Mansion. The owners during the Civil War, uh, the La Lorries uh had slaves and they uh had him, they they treated him terribly and they had him in the basement, and people found out and they ran him out of town.

SPEAKER_05 14:37

Yeah, we know about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Like that's and you saw the go the ghosts in the book. Uh uh kind of the house is sort of haunted, but but he solves the murder. He had already solved it, but he reveals the murderer at a post-Mardi Gras party on Ash Wednesday. The day immediately followed the Mardi Gras celebration. And uh the I guess about, I don't know, fifteen people whom I know who read the story, uh none of them guessed who the murderer is. And uh he reveals that it's kind of shocking when you when the uh identity is revealed. Um but it it all boils down to uh ideology. The serial killer was an ideologue, uh he was a uh uh very much would kill uh in furtherance of a cause, which a lot of ideologues will do. The Bolsheviks did it. Um the Iranians do it. Uh the uh uh Putin has done it in Ukraine, uh just as Hitler did during World War II. We had this this this Yeah. Amazing uh repetition of history. What you saw would happen in World War II, they appeased Hitler, all except for one man, Winston Churchill, who saw through Hitler and ultimately defeated him. One of my books, by the way, is about that, the Churchill. And of course, they tried to appease Putin, can't appease. Zelensky's has held on, much like Churchill would have done. Uh you can't appease these people in the Middle East right now, as you as you see with all these negotiations going on. You can't deal with the you don't appease them, you don't appease tyrants. And so history repeats itself. Hopefully we learn from it. Often we don't.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

We don't.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Definitely do not.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Often we don't learn from it. So that's that's uh sort of part of all of the stories. Now, my first book, The Second Hill, it's a very long one, but it's about this extraordinary young woman uh who's discovered as an infant in a the church yard behind the St. Louis Cathedral in a basket. Nobody knows where she came from. And it was shortly after 9-11. Uh, everybody knows what that is, but this was happening in New Orleans. And uh she becomes the president, quite an extraordinary young lady. Um began this story in 2005, uh, just after Katrina hit and destroyed just about everything here in New Orleans. And uh I did it as I was a court court official then, but the courts were all closed down, and business was shut down, and the place was in shambles. And I had to do something to try to uh uh capture some sanity out of that insane situation.

SPEAKER_05 17:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

And so I said, let me start writing. And I just drew, I started thinking. And at some time how these ideas come into your head, and one idea flows from another, and it just continues and continues. And I wrote this story, uh, it began in 2005, it was published five years later. It took me five years to do it because I have a day job. And um in the story, uh this young lady becomes she becomes the president, she's impeached. Sound familiar, deja vu?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Uh and she uh after she she she uh is is made to made aware by intelligence of a terrorist plot uh hatched by the uh uh Iranians uh in Washington, D.C. But she beats them to the punch. Uh she she finds out also through intelligence, uh, very much like we find with the Jewish uh intelligence agency, which is a really something else, along with ours, you combine those two, they uh really something else. Uh and they they said you'll find the people who are behind the plot at a hotel in Myanmar in the uh far east. And so she said, Well, we're gonna in the hotel we we and they said, and they said, Look, we can send a drone to blow up the hotel so that it will collapse from the top down. There'll be little collateral damage to either side. And so she said, Well, how many innocent people will be in that hotel? And they say, maybe 14, 15 people. There's no way to get everybody out. She said, Well, if we're gonna save thousands upon thousands of locks, we've got to do it. And she does. And that's why she's impeached. And so you see this is happening. Uh, of course, it's in a different order this time, but it might happen again. Uh, who knows what the future brings. But I hope it doesn't, but but it shows you how history repeats itself, doesn't it? Who would have known back then that in in when I wrote this between 2005 and 2010, that we would have an impeachment years, not too much later, but 15 years later, uh 12 or so years later. And then this uh systematic bombing uh of Iran. So and oh, also she goes in and bomb and and and finishes Iran off with the truths, ground troops. We're not doing that yet. I hope we never do. Um, and that's happening right now. So it makes the stories, even though written years back, a few years back, all these stories are super relevant today.

SPEAKER_05 21:01

And I feel like, like you said before, what history repeats itself, it's based in things that's happened in the past. There's always there's been issues where you have to pick, choose one over many. And I think our government officials around the world are constantly dealing with those situations. It's nothing new and it's not is it fair? Life is not fair.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

No, it isn't.

SPEAKER_05 21:28

And they we elect them to make the hard decisions, and we hope and pray that everyone that we elect makes the best decision with the information at hand.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 21:40

And it does it always look pretty at the end? No. Do we and do we get a full picture? No. Because there's some things I don't even think I want another full picture of everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Because Well, because we because we don't know everything that these people know and they can't release it because of security.

SPEAKER_05 21:59

It kind of goes against the whole point of having intelligence and being competent.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, you have to stick to your guns. Uh make your decision. Uh no matter what the polls say, you got you gotta do what you think is right in the long run.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Uh huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Uh you have to look at at the at the broad at the broad picture and think about the future, not just about today and the the relevance what you're doing is uh Uh to the future.

SPEAKER_05 22:27

There's plenty of situations where we now are looking at history and we're like, yeah, so and so absolutely made the right decision. And we can say 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, people were like, Yeah, no, that was horrible. But like, whoa, whoa, look at the big picture here. It's easy at the moment to say that was a horrible decision or that was a great decision.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 22:54

We don't know everything. It's just Well, we don't.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

As you say, you have to let the years unf uh history unfold and then get you'll get the ultimate answer, which we're still getting from decisions that were made years and years ago.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

Right. And there's decisions that we don't even know. Um we may not ever know.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

There's a lot that we will never know.

SPEAKER_05 23:12

We're still developing opinions on the Bay of Pigs. And it's still a relevant conversation now.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 23:20

Sixty years later or something.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Sixty years later, Cuba is back in the spotlight.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Yeah. But no matter what the event was or what the decision was, there's always going to be people that agree, and there's always going to be people that disagree. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So And the key is the key to that is to be civil about it and not want to shoot each other if you disagree with, you know, you know, just discuss it, they have your disagreement, fine. Then you go have a uh have a beer or a glass of wine afterwards.

unknown 23:48

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Both.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

That's what we used to do when I when I practiced law, um, my opponent in the courtroom, and often the judge, we'd have jury trials, these lengthy jury trials, and when the jury was deliberating, the judge and the and the and I and the my adversary, who were quite combative in the courtroom, would go across the street and have a few drinks and fraternized. And because that's our that's our we're all playing a role, and we were just doing our jobs. And but to the best of our ability trying to represent our interests, uh, which is what we've sworn to do. And the judge, of course, is the referee. But uh, this judge was a really harsh person behind the bench. But once you got him at the bar across the street, he was quite different.

SPEAKER_05 24:36

Like, is this the same person?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I guess often uh many of the jury trials were uh there were 16 judges, and it always seemed that this the stuff fell to him. Uh, I don't know why, but and see now I'm in charge of allotting the cases, and we do it randomly now, but it's the computer program that does it. But before the law was the clerks could allot to anybody whom they wanted to allot. So that's and that shouldn't be. And I got the law I got the law changed 30 37 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 25:09

And I think um I the last let's just say the last second half of this generation, where to your point, a lot of times you could be adversaries at work, but ultimately everyone involved really believed in what they were doing. They were believing in the good. They like they believed in the good of what they were doing. And not I'm taking away the exceptions because there's always people that have greed and self-interest involved. But when you have people that really believe in what they're doing for the best of whoever they're representing or who the picture at large, I sometimes I feel now that I think it's more people have their own self-interest, and that goes front left, right, middle, sideways, and they're forgetting the big picture, mankind as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

I think I think you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what's happening right today.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

I think and and I and I really believe if most people just sat down, took emotion aside, and just focused on facts and outcomes. I find that most people may actually agree with each other more than they think they do.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, but you gotta sit down and talk. Without emotion, yes. I mean, it takes two to tango, right?

SPEAKER_04 26:31

Absolutely. It's very hard though. It's very hard because the emotions get caught up in it.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

They do. It's people start feeling rather than thinking rationally.

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 26:42

Speaking of rational Yeah. Um, speaking of rational, I think it's tough and mycilly question, and it's totally irrational. If someone gave you a giraffe illegally, but not illegally, because you are a man of law, how would you hide it?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

How would I hide the giraffe?

SPEAKER_05 27:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Never thought about that. I don't have a barn, so I I don't I don't know. I guess I don't know. Um I don't think I would.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

Maybe plant some tall trees and keep the giraffe in the center.

SPEAKER_05 27:22

Oh, a whole bunch of palm. Can you imagine palm trees and leaves?

SPEAKER_03 27:26

There's no giraffe in my backyard, I promise.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

We do have palm trees, and I hate them in Louisiana because we're just gonna go. We should have nothing but oaks and cypress trees, which is the native trees here. I agree. If you plant the palm trees because they're they're wind resistant, and we get the R8 gains. But the oaks are very sturdy too. They'll stay in the cypress trees are and we have these wonderful smaller trees called uh crepe myrtle. And they bloom these beautiful flowers. Google it, crepe myrtle, different colors. I have four in my yard, and uh they're really beautiful. I got some cypress trees in the I live on a golf course, and some oaks and some cypress all around.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

I don't I don't like palm trees. Maybe maybe in uh Beverly Hills, we know when you're driving into the that goes, but not Louisiana.

SPEAKER_05 28:21

So if someone sees a palm tree in your yard, they know that you have an illegal giraffe because you have no choice but to be because they eat that, huh?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Now we do have a beautiful we do have a wonderful zoo in New Orleans, uh giraffes there. Uh you'd you would really would enjoy our zoo here.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Oh, that's I love zoos and different, I like to like see the different states.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

This is one of the top zoos in the world. It's been really one of the top six zoos in the world.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Okay. It's a road trip. We'll meet in the middle, you and me, and we'll just go straight there.

SPEAKER_05 28:51

Oh, you can hide your giraffe in plain sight in the zoo.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

You know, you know, that's the first thing that occurred to me when you asked the question.

SPEAKER_05 29:00

Really?

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:02

The best cards I've done.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:08

I will keep that in mind. I am now going to go to the zoo and look for an extra giraffe. Like, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

There you go.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

You just don't want a hippopotamus.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

Oh, those are vicious little but they have the cutest paws. The deadly, cute, the cute, deadly paws. I mean, I uh I might get trampled by a hippopotamus because they're adorable. The aquarium I went to a few months ago, that's it's about an hour away from me, but it's a really nice aquarium. And the hippos are are you're just separated by the glass, and it's like a half a wall. So the keepers are throwing the lettuce and the vegetables for feeding time, and they already know, so they come up to the glass and they have their paws up on the glass, and they just have their face on the glass, like waiting for their lettuce. And I'm like, so we can share food and they have cute.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Where is this?

SPEAKER_04 30:04

This is in Camden, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Camden, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

Adventure Aquarium. Oh, is that near um right across the bridge from Philadelphia?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Oh, yeah. I was in the service near there, Fort Dix, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_04 30:19

Okay. Okay. Yeah, from from when you're there, you can just see right across the Ben Franklin Bridge, right in throw a rock and you might hit Philly.

SPEAKER_05 30:30

Okay, now I know where it's at.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

Okay. Yeah, it's nice down there. Well, that's very good.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Yeah, well I enjoyed Fort Dix. Well, not not the the tr the basic training, but other than that, it would be very nice.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

You survive basic, so if you could survive basics, it'd be pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

It wasn't fun, I'll put it that way.

SPEAKER_05 30:49

Do you think your basic was harder than your entire tour?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

No, no, because I was I bec I became an intelligence uh uh analyst. And uh that was uh that was almost uh it's an academic more than anything else. You learn these interrogation techniques. Uh in fact, I was able to use that uh in the courtroom, what I learned there in the in the service interrogating witnesses. You you taught how to judge a witness through his um actions, his his physical uh movements, and you can tell. Well, a lot of times when they're lying, as opposed to telling the truth. You're trying to observe all of that. And of course you had to do that with P.O.W.s.

SPEAKER_05 31:33

Right. That actually reminds me of a TV show that was on, oh my god, years ago, um, Lied to Me. And he was some he was an expert in body language and ticks and stuff. And he can tell people when they're lying just by simple eye movements, the things that you see on TV.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Subtle, subtle things like that.

SPEAKER_05 31:54

Yes. And this one particular episode, he's like, oh, this woman's lying, and whatever the case might be. And it turns out she just had Botox, her face just would not move. Um, so I don't know why I remember that episode.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

A lot of these Botox these days.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

Um, yeah. But it is fascinating. It is. You know, I'll I'll sit and I'll watch like the first 48, and when they show the it in um interrogations, that is one of the things that I do find myself watching is the body language of the suspect or the person that they're talking to, because you it's once you start getting into it, you can just see the physical shift.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yes, you can.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

So I find, you know, and I I have a degree in psych, and so I find all that fascinating to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

So did y'all see uh Kane Mutiny with Hunter Humphrey Bogart when he t testified? Well, that's a perfect example of it. You need you need to get to see that, and you you'll exactly uh you'll see exactly what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

I I actually one, I not only am I going to buy the book Griffin's Murders, I'm actually gonna pull up when we're done recording a mutiny. Yeah, I really am.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Technology is quite a momentous trial in the Griffin murders. Uh and I drew on my experience as a trial lawyer to uh craft all the testimony, the questions in the trial, the interactions uh between the lawyers and the judge in his chambers and in the courtroom. Uh all of those uh interactions I had seen in real life before. And I I drew on that in the uh the trial is uh is a murder case uh based upon uh the uh Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court is it was indicted for the serial murders. And uh that's he's a defendant in the case, and the main character whom the chief justice despised because they were opposite sides of the uh ideological political spectrum, uh opposite ends. And uh but the main character happens to be very magnanimous and he agrees to help. And he uh he uh hires this wonderful defense lawyer to represent the Chief Justice, and the trial is between that professorial uh defense lawyer and the very uh boisterous DA, uh, who is uh based upon Jeffarrick to Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney who indicted Clay Shaw for the assassination of JFK. And if you saw JFK the movie, that's uh that's what that's about. Okay. And uh the the uh the DA in the in the real-life DA in the case is actually the person who plays the judge in the movie. Oh wow he was very much um uh a great trial lawyer, this DA. He had this booming baritone voice, and uh he was tall, about six feet five inches, and he would play in the uh local theaters. So he was an amateur actor. So he was excellent for the part. He actually lived it. He was the prosecutor, but he played the judge in in the in the movie.

SPEAKER_05 35:16

That's pretty cool. Oh, that is really cool. Did you I feel like just listening to you your synopsis, I feel like the trial is not only about the law and right, wrong facts, I feel like there's also a play of you said in your um biography, like morality and feelings and emotion and like opinions fighting as opposed in addition to the facts.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Very much so, yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 35:47

Back to what we're talking about before where she comes into the play.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

You'll enjoy the chapter on the with the trial.

SPEAKER_05 35:52

Okay, I love that. Something about law um novels written by actual lawyers. I don't I just I eat them up.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah, John Grisham's a good example of that. He is a lawyer phenomenal. Yeah, I have I have all of his books. Mine are different from his. Mine is more literary fiction. All of my stories, the four that I've written, uh Churchill versus Hitler is the closest to being history. It's alternative history, but it's uh it's 90, I want to say 70% fact, 30% fiction.

SPEAKER_05 36:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Um but the others are straight literary fiction. By literary fiction, I mean stuff that is it's it's I hate to use the word highbrow, but it's more sophisticated than the novels that you read in the drugstores.

unknown 36:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

They're heavily footnoted. Uh and all the footnotes are factual, but they lend context to the story if you you to get a full appreciation. You have some explanatory footnotes.

SPEAKER_05 36:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Um uh people will find, I mean, you might decide to skip some of them, but some you will say, I really need to know more about this. And you read the footnote, and it's all it's all in there. And this this Griffin Murders, it's heavily footnoted. It's all all the footnotes are factual, uh, just as the other ones are. Um, but I think you'd enjoy that, and this but you'll enjoy the last chapter.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Neither of you is uh am I correct in assuming that neither of you is a golfer?

SPEAKER_05 37:31

No, my daughter's picking up golfing, though. So I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Well, there's a chapter in there on golf.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

In fact, the Churchill versus Hitler story, the subtitle is The Untold Golf Match That Changed History.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Churchill comes up with this idea uh to get into Hitler's head. I know how to he says, I know how to do it. We'll play a round of golf with you. Well, I got that concept. I used to play a lot of golf.

SPEAKER_05 37:55

That was my next question for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

And uh you want to get to know what makes a judge tick because you have to argue before him and practice before. Play a round of golf and you watch his every move and listen to his every word from the time he walks on to that first T to the time he leaves the 18th green. And you'll know pretty much there is no about the person. Churchill realized that and he gets into Hitler's head in this golf match, which is played in Sweden because it was a neutral country. It's arranged through diplomatic channels. And when he comes off the 18th green, his team is waiting for him in the clubhouse. They have a drink, and he said, I know what Hitler's gonna do. I said, What's that? He's gonna invade Poland. Well, sure enough, three months later he invades Poland, and be that's when World War II in Europe begins.

SPEAKER_05 38:49

I know there's the it's the ongoing joke slash stereotype where business gets done on the green.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

And yeah, it and that's very true. A lot of business deals are closed on golf courses. A lot of them. You would be surprised, especially well, not especially, but uh down in Louisiana, we live uh the the oil industry was big down there. And a lot of deals were cut uh on on oil-related matters on that golf course that I played on, and I'm sure all the other the clubs in in New Orleans.

SPEAKER_05 39:25

I think now I know why, because on the outside you just assume, you know, it's a private space, all the big wigs can talk amongst themselves. But listening to you, I now get a different perspective on it because you can get a you get an idea of the man you're actually dealing with or or the woman you're dealing with. You can see who they are, but how they made them tick. And I've never thought of like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Right. And and uh uh Sigmund Freud, who coaches Churchill on how to get into uh Hitler's head on the golf course, tells him you'd watch him, and he said, he and he says, listen, he will cheat. And when he does, call him on it. Well, sure enough, he hits the ball into the thick, heavy rough on one of the holes, but he sends his caddy out ahead of him. His caddy happened to be uh uh Himmler, the head of the SS in the Nazi Germany. And uh Ian Fleming, who is with Churchill uh on the course on his bag, and he says, Ian, uh follow him because I think he's up to no good. Well, Fleming does follow Himmler, and he sees Himmler take the ball out of the rough and drop it into a space from where Hitler could actually get a clean shot. And uh Fleming, who by the way was uh very fluent in German, uh calls Himmler out and he says, Here Hitler uh Himmler, you just cheated. And he said, What are you talking about? Uh and he said, I saw what you did. You took the ball from that heavy rough and you dumped it, uh dropped it onto the clean spot. And he says, You got two choices. You could either leave it where it uh uh where you just dropped it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and expose you before the referee, or you can put it back where you got it, and I won't say anything. Well, Himmler had no choice, so he put it back, but he was seething. And uh that happened to be a decisive move. If you saw the movie Goldfinger, uh remember the golf match between James Bond and Goldfinger?

SPEAKER_05 41:34

Vaguely, I haven't seen that in years.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Where the Goldfinger's caddy odd job threw the hat and killed people with his hat.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

Yes, yes. Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

And that's what I based that scene on.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

And uh actually, uh Ian Fleming, people don't realize this, but he actually 007, he was 007. He was writing about himself. Self. I obviously he was a naval intelligence officer who, by the way, in the story, uh there's there's very little historical uh uh uh uh basis for this, but there is some, and you really do the research, that uh Ian Fleming had a lot to do with planning the strategic uh retreat from Dunkirk, which was the turning point in World War II.

unknown 42:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Churchill had just become prime minister. German and French uh American and French troops were trapped in Dunkirk by the Germans, about three or four hundred thousand of them. And they would either die or be all be taken prisoners or succumb to starvation, and there was no way for them to get out, or so they thought. Well, a plan was conceived. Uh one of the architects of that plan was Ian Fleming, they would get him get him out with these small, hundreds upon hundreds of small fishing boats and sneak them out under the German radar, under the German uh sentry. And they did. And they there was a successful retreat. They saved those 400,000 troops who were then able to take up arms to fight the war. And um had it not been for that retreat, uh uh we very very well could have lost uh the British very well could have lost uh all of Europe. All of Europe could have been lost to the Nazis. And uh that was a turning point. But Churchill said don't interpret a retreat as a victory. It is a step towards victory, it is not a victory. And he made that uh the uh the famous uh uh finest hour speech before the Parliament. That speech was probably the turning point of uh hist uh the uh the the the central turning point of the 20th century, where he actually the British were really down in the dumps. They didn't want to fight the war and they were about to give up, and it was a call to arms by Churchill to the British people, the finest hour speech, probably the most momentous speech ever given by any uh head of state. If you want to see something really fantastic, if you just Google interview Charles Krauthammer on Churchill, Einstein, and Freud. It's it's about 18 minutes, and it's fantastic. Interview. Charles Crowhammer, the noted uh he was a psychiatrist by training, noted uh political theorist uh and uh commentator, a TV commentator.

SPEAKER_05 44:38

Okay. I'm be right I'm always I have my automatic transcriber because I pick up a lot of stuff from our requ our guest. And it's like, but it's also rude to take down notes as I'm listening. So as I do. Okay, I always I was like, I don't want to look down at my little transcriber. Have you oh go ahead. I'm sorry. Um as you're speaking, I would love, I don't know, not to give you any ideas on your next book. I will actually be interested in your take, your historical fiction on the Iran crisis in 1979, because I think I know we've all seen Argo and Okay, she hasn't. She doesn't watch movies. Um but and we know like there was some liberties that you know that made America look better than something like, no, we didn't do that, that was Canada. But that's something I think I would be interested in reading from you, your take and your little um on that.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

It's uh not strange that you say it, but it's coincidental that you say it. But I am working uh ideas, uh in fact uh began writing this, but as say I have a day job and I can only do a little bit at a time. Um uh a take on the current Iranian crisis.

SPEAKER_05 46:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Now this is gonna be straight nonfiction.

SPEAKER_05 46:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Um but it uh there will be some some parallels uh 1979 and current uh situation. Uh other things involved, but the Iranian crisis is uh figures prominent will figure prominently in this in this uh book.

SPEAKER_05 46:27

Back to the whole history repeating itself kind of plays into part of the Yes, yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

You'll see history repeating itself. You'll see attempts at appeasement not working. Uh although I don't know that whether this is some grand strategy on the part of the American uh Trump. I don't know whether the appeasement or some grand strategy, because as we just said, we don't know a lot. There's a lot of intelligence that these people have we don't have. We don't know what's driving these decisions and why they're doing sometimes. It seems it it seems uh uh quite disagreeable to me, but again, I don't know everything yet. We just have to let things unfold and see how they turn out. But that but I have to take this story very slowly because it's gonna evolve over time. We don't know what's gonna happen in the next two years.

SPEAKER_05 47:17

Oh, the next two months.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

I was just gonna say that. The next two months, you and I think alive. Or for for the uh the next two months for that matter, the next two days. Um history is moves so quickly right now that yesterday is in history, just like with this technology. Uh things are happening so quickly that it's hard to keep up with.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

It's hard to learn from like the current generation, the younger generation, it's hard to learn from your past when the past is just last week. And you're like, wait, I can't, you can't keep up.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

And I and I tell you, during the first story, I tell you about about the young lady who becomes the president. Um, as I was writing that story, I had to shift gears a lot uh and depart from the outline because things happened.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Um historically, back then in 2005, 2010, and I so I had to do some adjustments. But that's what happens when you write these, especially if it's going to be nonfiction, that was fiction, but again, there's a lot of fact in my stories too. In fact, uh all novelists, uh virtually all of them, based their stories on their their true life experiences. Uh and on on and they they just put that in fictional dialogue form with different characters. Charles Dickens was essentially writing about his life experiences, David Copperfield, which everybody's familiar with. That was uh David uh Charles Dickens was David Copperfield, just as uh uh Ian Fleming was 007 writing about themselves. Uh now Fleming didn't have all the bells and whistles that James Bond had, because they're you know, the fancy uh gimmicks and all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

But it's the same thing. He even had the code number. Uh I think he was I think he was 009, if I'm not mistaking. Mistaken. Uh I'll have to go back and check that. But all of that is in the story.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Was writing something that you were always passionate about, or did you find it was a good idea?

SPEAKER_01 49:28

I became, you know, uh I I wrote a lot uh as a lawyer. Your words are your tools. Your spoken word and your written word. I mean, you have to be convincing in the court room, and you have to be convincing when you write briefs. And you want to be it's amazing. I read these uh briefs now and uh opinions, and uh I'm a stickler for grammar. I think you'll see that when you read the stories. I know I know when you should put a semicolon somewhere as opposed to when you put a combo score.

SPEAKER_05 49:59

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Well, that's I'm a stickler for all that, and had this wonderful high school teacher who ingrained that in me. And um he taught me, he's the one who really taught me how to write. And so I use those, uh, what I learned from him as a lawyer, and uh all of my my briefs that you won't find any gr grammar errors in them. Um the ideas flow freely. There's no there's no awkward sentences or anything like that. You see a lot of that stuff these days because people just don't they aren't taught in the high schools and even in the universities.

SPEAKER_05 50:36

No.

SPEAKER_01 50:36

In fact, if if you uh at Harvard, if you major in English, you know you don't have to uh you're not taught Shakespeare. You go to a high school today and see if you uh uh we had Dickens for three years in my high school. I mean, I had Shakespeare. You couldn't find him anywhere in high school now, and he was the Shakespearean pro in high school, but yes. And people just don't uh uh uh the the the education has been dumbed down to to ridiculously low level, and uh that's what's coming out of the high schools and out of the universities. They come out with degrees, but they were essentially ignorant.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

Yeah, no, no, it is true. I mean, I I went to college. I I mean I started after high school, but I didn't finish my degree at that time. I I had a husband, a family, so I I did it slowly. Um But I had peers who were young, younger, not young, but younger than me. Also, you know, I made a lot of friends because I did have kids already and they also attended Brooklyn College uh because they had an early childhood program. So it was like not a daycare, but not a school. It was like a happy medium, which I love the program for my kids, but I digress. But I met a lot of people there, and some of these people were like amazing people, and I I don't want to sound like a jerk, but they were also like dumber than a bag of rocks, and I'm like, how am I struggling? And I know that I'm not a stupid person, but like I've seen what you wrote, and you don't even know to put a period in your writing and I'm failing and you're getting an A. Huh? Like and but but that's the thing, like the younger people, it's like they knew how to formulate their work in order to get the good grade. And I know from a time. Right, right, right. And and and Agnes and I are are a little bit older, so we're from a generation where it's like the critical thinking, the grammar, the sentence structure, like the I remember dissecting a sentence. Remember we had learned how to dissect the sentence? Yes, that we learned that. And I'm uh you know, and I I just couldn't understand it, but like the older I got, the more I can look back, you know, just to kind of come full circle. But it's like I can look back and understand, ah, because they're focused on this and not on this, and I'm here and they're there. It's okay. And and and these are lovely people, like don't get me wrong, just yeah, you know, but school was not their thing, but they but they knew how to excel with that framework, and I did not. I I could not, I struggled, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:32

I had a conversation with a coworker where I don't know how we got to the topic anyway, but I was like, you know, there's a generation, my mother's gen, the boomer generation, the earlier, probably maybe not even the earlier Gen X, but the education, your high school education, you could get a a wonderful job and and take care of your family with a high school education.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 54:00

Because of what they was what they were taught. Right. You can't, and as you get further along in the generations, you can't just stop. You have to get the higher education for what it is, because you're not taught as much. You're not exposed, you don't have that nothing anymore.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Did you know that at UC Berkeley they still they they discontinued the uh ACT? Uh anybody could get in, uh the college admissions. And do you know that they're having to teach remedial math to these college students? That's math at the ninth and tenth grade level. This is at Berkeley. That shows you what the high schools are doing. Yeah, and I think it's the public education system that has failed us.

SPEAKER_05 54:50

And I think it's some of it, yeah, some of it no. Most of it, I think the the no child left behind. They said that's what they called in New York. And they have and I think most public schools have adopted a process. And it went, and I think it had good intentions at first, where we have to teach our children so they're not, they don't have to be left behind. They don't have to be take a grade. We're gonna actually invest into them the gear that they're there. And unfortunately, that turned into where administrators are like, whether they know they're not, we're going to pass them. And and unfortunately, the that turns into teachers being forced to teach to memorize a test, as opposed to teach their students so they can actually learn and understand.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

People thinking, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:43

And all of our children, unfortunately, have been uh they're the they're being punished. And I know a lot of teachers that are just so frustrated with this because if they don't do this, they'll lose their job. If they actually teach their students to learn, they will get fired. Yeah. If they grade them based on their knowledge, they can get fired. And it's so frustrating.

SPEAKER_04 56:05

I worked in elementary school for some years and I would help the kids with their homework. And, you know, we're talking about like I worked mostly with third through fifth. And w when we would be doing homework, it was like that's not how you spell that. It doesn't matter, my teacher doesn't care. But you need like that's not proper grammar. It doesn't matter as long as like I do the work. And and as much as I would try to help them spell things right or write more legibly, use proper grammar, sentence structure, commas, periods, capital letters, these kids had zero interest in trying because they already knew that it didn't matter and all they had to do was turn in their work in order to, you know, quote unquote succeed.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

And that's why they're taking remedial math in college.

SPEAKER_04 56:59

In college. And and it's not just that, right? Like I have so in a couple of weeks I will officially have two children in college. Um, but last year when my daughter started, and my daughter is a smart kid, and I don't say that because she's my kid. Like this kid taught herself how to read at three years old. And people would ask me, How'd you do that? I wish I could take credit. She did it. I I I don't know how she did it, but she did it. And she is not a dumb kid, you know, like she's very smart. And when she got to college, they made her take all the basics all over, and she's like, But I did this, but they don't care. Like I have to start all over.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

And I'm like, that's a waste of no, she should have been in the accelerated program.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Yeah, yep. I mean, I had one of her teachers tell me, you know, and this is you know, humble brag, right? But he said in the 10 years that he's been teaching, she's the smartest kid that has ever come into his class. I mean, she's a smart kid, but a lot of these schools, and we don't have the money for private school or accelerated programs. So the public schools, while they can keep up with her, they can't accelerate her, they can't challenge her. And, you know, and it's like, what do you do? Because he even told me she should not like she should be moving up, but because they worry about her social skills, they don't want to take her out of her age bracket. So it's like whichever way you look at it, these kids are kind of getting the you know what ends of the stick.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 58:38

Because it's like, okay, well, then now you have the age issue, you have the social issue, but what about the academic issue? This is why we send them to school.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Which is the most important, right? Right. Well, it's a shame, but let's hope that that changes. I I uh I I'm not very optimistic, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_05 58:54

Well, I am not either, unfortunately. It's um with your fiscal My God, words would be amazing today. With your historical fiction, I like uh if I'm using it incorrectly. And obviously this will only work with those who have a grasp of actual history. Um I find maybe it's just me, but do you think that your books can actually help supplement historical learning?

SPEAKER_01 59:22

Like learning Yes, very much so. That's why yes, that's that's that's what literary fiction is all about. That's why I I have uh I'm generous with the footnotes. Um, it will make it it will l it you you learn a lot about history by reading these these books. You'll learn a lot in the Churchill about World War II. Um in the in the other book, uh you learn some constitutional law, the Griffin murders. You learn some basic constitutional law, as well as well as morals. Uh my books all have uh religious, moral, political uh themes, just as uh many famous writers Dickens did too. Um Victor Hugo, the famous French novelist, La Mise Rob, all of those people uh had these socialist political messages trying to trying to uh convey a message through fiction. And that's it's very easy to convey relevant mess messages with uh well-written fiction. And uh that's what I saw to do, to entertain not only just to entertain, which I think they all do, uh, but to inform people.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:33

And I sometimes I think when people feel like they're reading to enjoy, things stick better.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

They do.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

They stick in that that memory palace and they they can have a sense of reference. Right. And they can pull from that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Right. And I see on these books you can actually go back and check. If you uh to if you want to really recall something, you can go back and check and uh and revisit. And I love the footnotes. It's just not dialogue, uh, empty dialogue. The dialogue is uh relevant, but uh relevant as the uh as the narrative parts of the of the story. So and that Charles Dickens was very skillful at that. I get a lot of my writing uh the influence from him. Uh he was a very uh outstanding writer, as was Churchill, by the way, master of the English line.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, people forget about that. But he was a uh quite an orator, but a brilliant writer as well. And you won't find any grammar errors in anything he writes.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:38

You checked.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Check it all the time.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:45

What is your biggest um other than grammar? Let's say I don't I'm trying to be specific. What is your biggest pet peeve with law novels, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, what is your biggest pet peeve as a reader?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

That they're so inaccurate. Uh uh rules of evidence, uh this ridiculously uh uh inaccurate, uh sometimes even absurd. You notice the the Perry Mason uh store?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:17

Love Perry Mason.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

Well, people think that's a trial. Murder trials. You notice there's no jury in there.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:25

I've no yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

It's not a trial, it's a preliminary hearing. And it and it be and it takes a preliminary hearing is not at all supposed to take on the qualities of a trial. But here it does in very major. So they bend it a little bit, but it's that's for entertainment. And so they bend the facts that they kind of uh bend reality a bit in order to do that. But I try not to do that. I try to stay as in the trial scenes that I have, they're based on rules of evidence, actual rules of evidence, but I do it in a way that a layman can understand it. And a lawyer who reads the story can appreciate it because he or she can identify with.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:06

So uh I'm gonna ask the big question, though, where do you stand and where do you fall in with the Law and Order franchise? She loves Law and Order. I do love Law and Order.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

I am all for uh a law and order at the story. I haven't seen the TV.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:22

You know, the TV franchise.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

I haven't seen that in a long time. I I don't get to look at much television anymore. Uh I mean, aside from the trial happening like the next week, everything else, how do you find you know, like the the the play out of the the events leading up to the trial of indictments? Um basic investig uh investigatory work that's beyond my expertise, the uh police aspect of it. Of course, we look at what they did, whether or not they violated any constitutional rules on search and seizure and stuff like that. But from what I saw on Law and Order, I didn't see anything glaringly wrong with uh the way they conducted investigations like uh the the searches, they would have warrants where they needed warrants. Uh they didn't have uh the search warrant where they needed it. Now, if you make a search incident to a lawful arrest, you don't need a search warrant. Uh no, those they sort of kind of honored that, I think. I didn't see anything glaring there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:31

Okay, I can continue. So with Law and Order here and um Perry Mason. Perry Mason here as far as okay, got it. Okay, got it. What about Matlock?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

That's a good no, but I enjoyed him. But they took some they took some liberties too.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

They would ask ask questions that were totally improper and he wouldn't have any objections to them.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:02

Even as a layman watcher, I'm like, um, I don't think you can ask that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

Yeah, you're right. You're right.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:09

Yeah, and I think that there's a very big difference between when we as a viewer know that this is something that's not supposed to be uh like so close to the truth, and like, yeah, we're taking liberties versus when you're watching something that's supposed to be more representative of the US legal system. So, like you know, when you're so like for me, which is why I brought up Law and Order, it's like I mean I know that it's fiction, but it's supposed to be a representation, like a televised representation, fictionalized. And so that's why I asked in that in in those terms.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Yeah. Yeah, I think they're they're okay. Not not a whole lot of distortion there that I could recall. Of course, I haven't seen it in some time. Nothing jumped out at me that I would remember today, so it mustn't have been very uh good you know, uh telling uh or or wrong or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:14

I recommend people if you're really interested in it, I recommend um going to like watching a court case, watching like since I moved where I live now. Most of the cases, 99% of the cases are pleaded out, and there's never ever a trial.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:32

And then that isn't that's really the case these days. A lot of cases are pleaded out, even on the civil side, they settled them. They never get to trial.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:39

They never get to trial. So that's I know that there's a time you just go in and you get to watch a a a case, and now it's like, yeah, there's no case to watch. There's nothing to be to be a spectator and get a good feel of it. So now you're just watching like, do they still have it on court TV, like trials? And I don't know if they even still have it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

I haven't seen that. No, we do. We have had some juicy trials in my jurisdiction, some murder cases and things of that sort. Uh people don't they shouldn't plead.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

Well, but they don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

They think Barry Mason's their lawyer and he's gonna get them off and find out quite a bit differently uh when the case is over and they headed up the river to the penitentiary.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:19

Yeah. I mean, ironically, I do work for a law firm. Uh I I I'm not in the legal field. I'm I work in the accounting department.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:28

But I can see from the bills that we get that most of this stuff just ends up settling. It's not common. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

That's true everywhere, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

Okay. Yeah. And it it's civil, it's you know, it's it's not criminal.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

But must be uh they must do a lot of insurance defense work, huh?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:46

It's in the medical field.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Oh, yeah, medical malpractice. Yeah, those those are tough cases.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

Yeah. So but yeah, I mean, uh not a lot of them go to trial.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

No. No. 90 per 90 to 95 percent of them don't go in our jurisdiction that settle.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:03

Yeah. Same.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

I mean, I feel like it's you're a jurist, so but that's good, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:08

And I love jury duty. I adored Jewry Duty and I get I get actually I was um on grand jury twice when I lived uh on the East Coast and finally lived here for a hundred of years and where I live now, I feel like it. I got picked for jury duty, and I did it like I got my summons, did not get picked. So sad. I was so dis I was devastated. I'm like, oh god, your day will your day will come.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Please it'll come. Nobody wants me on jury duty. Nobody wants me.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:44

If you can tell our listeners anything, what would you want them to take from this episode?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

I would say um, as Churchill said, never give up. Um uh for instance, these these four stories I've written, I'm not a nationally known figure, therefore it's hard to get uh attention and publishers. Uh and it's really a struggle. All it takes though is that one time you keep plugging away, uh and it can set the stage for a chain of success. So just never give up.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:25

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

You're gonna fail, you're gonna fail. That's part of failure sometimes is a a a a condition uh precedent to success. Oftentimes it is. Look at the the entrepreneurs, the risk people who take risks and lose everything they have and they keep it they keep trying, they keep trying, they keep investing and trying and sacrificing, and then they become millionaires and billionaires through can not giving up. And they hire people and they they uh uh stimulate the economy. They do a lot of good things, they give to charities because they never gave they started with nothing, they become billionaires, and they uh a lot of them become uh philanthropists. For instance, one of the pri the lady died today, Dolly Parton. Oh my god, I'm so uh she started with nothing. Yeah, built her own success, never gave up, never struggled, struggled, struggled, became multi, multi-millionaire and a and a noted uh philanthropist, uh donated to various charities.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:32

That was one of the things that my daughter and I would say.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

Every success story is like that. Uh most people uh most of these uh self-made they're not born with silver spoons in their miles. They earned it the hard way. And um but you know, nothing worthwhile is easy.

unknown 1:10:48

True.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:49

And that's another thing I'd like people to take out of. Nothing worthwhile is easy. You have to really you really appreciate it if you've earned it.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:57

Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:58

Mm-hmm. I think Lisa and I were just having this conversation earlier today. So you it's funny how you kinda just hit on a lot of different things we talked about a couple of hours before. I take it as a sign.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

Well, that's good. That's my meeting I noticed. But um Okay. I'm I'm calling you from a hotel and we're at conference. But um, I really enjoyed this uh interview. Now, if people want to find out more, uh y'all might have might have the information, John Gegenheimer.com. It's a wonderful website. It's got some book trailers on it. Uh, and if you go to the click on the Facebook icon at the top, you'll see that one of these podcasts. Uh this is about my eighth one. But there's always lag time when these things are posted. But I look forward to seeing y'all's. And this was very wonderful. I really enjoyed this conversation.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:49

Thank you. Thank you so much. I was really looking forward to speaking with you, and you did not disappoint.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

And I like that cross.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:56

Oh, thank you. My mommy bought it for me many, many, many, many moons ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

Wear that proudly.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:02

I do every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:05

Um, this is thank you for listening to our episode. I never know how to end this episode. Some might actually end it to Lisa. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:14

So SassinSips.com for all the ways for more on us, on any of our guests, including John Gegenheimer. And again, we thank you for making time for us and for being here with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

Oh, it was a pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. Enjoyed the job. I wish we could talk for hours more.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:32

Well, because we'll have more questions, but you will have to follow up.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

You can come back. Yeah, we could talk some more.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:40

Yeah. And until next time, I'll I'll put your links in the show notes also so people can you know just find them really easily.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:48

And until next time, I'm Lisa. And I'm Agnes. And that's John.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

I am.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:55

And we are out of here. See you later. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

Bye, y'all. I enjoyed it. Y'all take care.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:02

Thank you so much, John.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:04

You're more than welcome. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:05

Enjoy your wine.