Joshua B. Hoe interviews Eliza Orlins about her run for Manhattan District Attorney and about her work as a public defender.
Full Episode
My Guest – Eliza Orlins
Eliza Orlins is a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. For 13 years, she has dedicated herself to the zealous defense of some of society’s most vulnerable individuals.
Orlins also appeared in 2004 and again in 2008 as a contestant on the CBS reality television show, Survivor. In 2018, she appeared on The Amazing Race.
Last year, Orlins ran for Manhattan District Attorney on a progressive, decarceral platform designed to make real, systemic change to our current cruel, unjust criminal legal system. She brought to the national stage issues of ending money bail, decriminalizing sex work, and more. She continues to use her platform to rage against injustice.
Watch the Interview on YouTube
You can watch Episode 125 on our YouTube channel…and if you like it, please like the video and subscribe.
Notes From Episode 125 Eliza Orlins – Public Defense
The books Eliza recommended were:
Prisoners of Politics, Rachel Barkow
How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith
Until We Reckon, Danielle Sered
<three of the four authors have appeared on the Decarceration Nation Podcast>
Full Transcript
Joshua Hoe
Hello and welcome to Episode 125 of the Decarceration Nation podcast, a podcast about radically reimagining America’s criminal justice system.
I’m Josh Hoe, and among other things, I’m formerly incarcerated; a freelance writer; a criminal justice reform advocate; a policy analyst; and the author of the book Writing Your Own Best Story: Addiction and Living Hope.
Today’s episode is my interview with Eliza Orlins about her run for Manhattan District Attorney and about her work as a public defender. Eliza Orlins is a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. For 13 years she has dedicated herself to the zealous defense of some of society’s most vulnerable individuals. Orlins also appeared in 2004, and again in 2008 as a contestant on the CBS reality show Survivor. in 2018, she appeared on The Amazing Race. Last year Orleans ran for Manhattan District Attorney on a progressive decarceral platform designed to make real systemic change to our current cruel and unjust criminal legal system. She brought to the national stage issues of ending money bail, decriminalizing sex work, and more. She continues to use her platform to rage against injustice. Welcome to the DecarcerationNation podcast, Eliza.
Eliza Orlins
Thanks for having me.
Joshua Hoe
So good to finally have you on. I always ask the same first question. How did you get from wherever you started in life, to where you were fighting against injustice as a public defender and running for office in Manhattan, my own home borough?
Eliza Orlins
You know, I think it’s a long, long history of public service in my family. I always knew that I wanted to do work that would help people. And public defense was such a natural fit. I remember the very first time I was an intern, I think I was 19 years old. And I was living in Manhattan and working at the Legal Aid Society in a criminal defense practice and after a week or two, I was like, Yep, this is it. This is my calling. This is what I’m going to do with my life. And, it’s hard to believe that I made that decision 20 years ago, and now here I am, a 13-year public defender still fighting against injustice, you know, seeing the cruel, inhumane way people are treated in our criminal legal system. And really wanting to make systemic change, and representing people on a daily basis.
Joshua Hoe
Now, before I ever got to know you as a person, I saw you a little bit on television. And I think I was originally interested in you, because you said even at that time, that your goal was to do exactly what you’re doing now. So before we get to the serious stuff, I have to ask you a few questions about Survivor since I’m a longtime fan of the show. So what led you to being on the show in the first place? How did you end up somehow getting – between working towards becoming a public defender – and getting on this show that flies you to another part of the world to essentially starve yourself for a couple of weeks?
Eliza Orlins
Yeah, you know, it’s not that dissimilar. I made a decision that I was going to be a public defender. And then every step I took from that point forward was to get this job. And similarly, I decided when I saw the first season of Survivor that I was going to be on it. I had on my AOL Instant Messenger bio, I don’t know if you remember AIM, I had, you know, future Survivor Nine contestant and that was the season that I would first be eligible to apply when I turned 21. And amazingly, I sent in my application video, on a VHS tape mind you, and I was lucky enough to get cast the first time I applied and, you know, the challenge of it, the physical, emotional, mental challenge. Everything about it appealed to me. And so I went on, and then I was lucky enough to get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity a second time. And CBS called and asked if I’d be on Fans versus favorites. And then they called again and asked me to participate in The Amazing Race.
Joshua Hoe
Did you have any background in survival stuff? Or like being out in the wild and stuff like that? Or was it just straight-up diving in for the first time?
Eliza Orlins
I’m a City Mouse, have you ever read that book? As I always said, I am a city mouse, I grew up in Manhattan, lived in Beijing and Hong Kong, Washington, DC for middle school through high school, and, and then was on a college campus in Syracuse, New York. So I had never really spent any material time outdoors but I think the fight that I had in me, the producers saw that they pushed me, they challenged me they were like, Eliza, how do we know you’re not going to get out there and want to quit and want to go home on day one and be miserable? And I’m like, I have never quit anything in my life. You will carry me off that island in a body bag before I quit the game of Survivor so they believed me, and it was true and they cast me.
Joshua Hoe
You bring up something I think is kind of interesting about the show. There’s kind of this juxtaposition between unbelievable deprivation, material deprivation. But then all this technology is recording you, you’ve got all these people around. I mean, it’s got to be kind of a surreal experience … what is it like being in, like you’re steps away from, it’s like the old joke where they’d say give the starving people water because the cameraman <sic person>has to have water. I mean, you’re in this situation, but the cameras and the producers and all that stuff are all around you. So what’s that like?
Eliza Orlins
It’s such a weird thing to say. And I think people struggle to even believe that this is true because they think if you have cameras on you, 24/7, you must constantly be noticing the cameras, aware of their prevalence, just like all around you at all times. But the reality is that after the first day or two, maybe even only the first few hours, you realize that the cameras were there, and then you’re so concerned about actually surviving and not getting voted off, and who’s plotting against you and all these things, that the camera has become so secondary to everything else.
Joshua Hoe
And did you, in your two times on the show, are there big takeaways from your experience, or things that you’ve thought through and maybe learned from, or apply in life, or any of those kinds of things?
Eliza Orlins
You know, there’s so many things that really, you can draw the parallels between reality TV, where you’re thrust into this situation with, you may not agree with, and you have to figure out a way to, make alliances with people who maybe share your ultimate goals, but are not on the same side as you or maybe who you don’t like, personally, but you realize that they’re your best chance of moving forward. So I think a lot of that applies in life, in public defending, in running for office; always assume everyone is talking badly about you behind your back. But also, I think it was such a test of my toughness, that I was like, Oh, I can get through anything. This was, it was such a challenge, a massive challenge, physically, mentally, and I was like, I made it through that, nothing else will seem hard in comparison, because no matter, my hardest day public defending, I can at least grab a granola bar from the vending machine, you know? And so, I think it was a great experience.
Joshua Hoe
Over the years, there’s been a lot of reflection and maybe navel-gazing even about what reality television means in our larger life, etc. Any takes on the social impact of reality television, and maybe even since we’re both social media people, any parallels between?
Eliza Orlins
I think that there is often a very negative connotation to having appeared on a reality show, especially because Donald Trump was considered the reality TV President. And so many people said, oh, you know, do you feel like that carries over? Do you think of yourself in that way? You know, and it’s such a bizarre experience to have and say, you know when I went on reality television at 21 years old, I truly, genuinely believed that that was [preventing] me from ever running for office, that that was something I would never be able to do, and that I was making a decision between these two things, essentially at 21. And could never have predicted 17 years later that I’d be running for office, especially not such a serious office as Manhattan District Attorney. But I think that reality TV represents this kind of escapism, people love it. There’s something about it. And it’s such a bizarre thing that’s uniquely human because you’re watching other humans, recreate these fictional but real scenarios and interact with each other. And, you know, as someone who does a tough job on a day to day basis, I don’t want to come home and watch some drama, I don’t want to cry when I watch TV, I want to watch reality TV, I want to watch garbage, I want to turn my brain off and not have to think. How [does] reality TV contribute to society? Yeah, there are positives and negatives, to everything. So can’t make one overarching conclusion, but I do think that some people who’ve been on reality TV, and I hope you agree that I am in this category of people, who uses the platform that I have from having appeared on reality TV, in a responsible way, that I use it to push forward the issues that matter deeply. And I think there are other people who fall on the very far other end of the spectrum and use their platforms to perpetuate, you know, QAnon conspiracy theories or, or to, you know, be racist or transphobic. I strongly disagree with The Times editorial that says free speech is at stake. No, there are repercussions for the things you say and I think we deplatform people who have dangerous views and that’s that.
Joshua Hoe
Before we move off to more serious topics, I have to ask one other question. I know you’re a fan, you watch the show a lot; over all the seasons, is there anyone you would put forth as being one of the most strategic best players that you personally feel like . . . That’s someone you’d really be like . . . I’m impressed with that?
Eliza Orlins
Oh my gosh, well, I think that the nature of Survivor, where physical strength is so valued over strategy a lot of times, and in a lot of circumstances, a lot of seasons where people are like, Oh, we got to keep this person, they’re physically strong. And so it has kind of caused and forced the people who maybe are less physically strong to be the most strategic. So I would put both Cirie Fields and Sandra Diaz-Twine in that category of who are, just by far, the most brilliant strategists to have ever been on.
Joshua Hoe
Well, thanks for indulging me. I’m sure everyone who listens to the podcast is like, why are we talking about this? Well, it’s because I’m a fan. Alright, so I wanted to have you on for two reasons. The first one is to talk about you running for office. And the second is to talk about you being a public defender. So first, what made you decide to run to be District Attorney in Manhattan?
Eliza Orlins
Um, gosh, it’s so funny. Now I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve answered these types of questions, and given my stump speech and whatnot, talking about why I was running. But the reality is, I’ve been a public defender for the last dozen-plus years and have represented 3000 people charged with crimes, and I’ve really seen the way in which their lives have been destroyed by prosecutions brought by the Manhattan district office. Because I’ve worked exclusively in Manhattan, I’ve seen how [they] have routinely asked for bail that someone couldn’t afford to make, and thereby couldn’t buy their freedom to fight their case while at liberty, and it has coerced them into taking terrible pleas; then when they’re released, they’ve lost their home, their jobs, their families, everything they’ve ever worked for. And so just seeing that the power of prosecution, the destructive way that the prosecutors have just operated with impunity for so long, it made me want to run to try to change the system, to truly change it, not just tinkering on the edges, I’m not going to prosecute marijuana cases, before it was legal in New York, that’s, excuse my language, that’s bullshit. Like, that’s barely scratching the surface of … this whole system needs to be torn down. It’s just so, so devastating and damaging. And, you know, I experienced the painful and acute ways in which, had I taken office, 78 days ago or whatever, you know, people’s lives would be materially different.
Joshua Hoe
You know, obviously, there’s a difference between, I think, when anyone says, I’m going to run for office, and then the reality of when they start seeing the nuts and bolts of how electoral sausage is made. So one of the things I want to ask you is, what were some of the surprises or things that you learned through the process that were either shocking, or disturbing, or upsetting? Or challenging as you were starting to run?
Eliza Orlins
How many hours do you have? Truly, there were so many things that when you go into running for office, if you’ve never done it before, you just can’t possibly, when people tell me they want to run I say, Are you sure? Let’s talk about what this really looks like. Because it’s so hard; it is, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s absolute. It’s brutal. And it’s really, the ways in which it could upend your life, it’s almost, you can’t possibly even comprehend it, going into it, how bad it could possibly [be] that there are people who are so deeply entrenched in and ingrained, you know, in and invested in the status quo, especially when you’re talking about things like ending mass incarceration, and not prosecuting people, and allowing people not to face prison sentences, and instead, be able to participate in programs and do things like that. People are so invested in those things that they are willing to go to great lengths, whether it be to destroy, not just your campaign, but your reputation, your personal life, you know, will dig up anything. You have to be really sure that you are comfortable having all of that, everything you’ve ever said in your entire life, every picture you’ve ever taken, anything public could be put on the cover of The New York Post theoretically. And so you know, the things that were surprising are just like how, how tough it was, being really so unbelievably difficult in so many ways. And I was running in a Democratic primary. So there are a lot of things that people say, that Democrats especially say, about Republicans. And I think that a lot of Democrats need to take a very long, hard look in the mirror as to how these things occur within the Democratic party, the powers of these massive campaign finance failings that allow for these billionaires to try to buy an election, the ways in which PACs come into play and external funding sources. You know, there’s so much of this dark money that people talk about on the Republican side, [it’s] on the Democratic side, too. And so I think that there’s a real, Well, I live in a blue state and a blue city … the lack of engagement, I think, was really surprising. Hey, this is, this couldn’t be more important. And people are like, Yeah, you know, we like Democrats, it’s okay, I don’t need to participate in this. And not all Democrats are created equal. And so I think some of it was demoralizing. And then some of it was incredible, really seeing the ways in which to build not just locally, but now a national movement. And that, very recently, for example, one of the issues that I took up, which you mentioned in the intro is sex work, and sex work decriminalization. John Oliver did a 25-minute piece on it on Last Week Tonight a couple weeks ago, and that was just extraordinary, the fact that this has become a mainstream thing that, you know, 11 years ago, or whenever, when I first started tweeting about it, people were like, This is not a popular opinion, not even remotely.
Joshua Hoe
And he got a lot of backlash for that, unfortunately.
Eliza Orlins
Because shifting the conversation, you know, really, really shifting it in a big way, like, felt incredible, felt like I was like, Oh, my God, like, we’re getting national press on this. I’m just running this little campaign out of my little apartment, you know, and so some of it was great.
Joshua Hoe
So you’ve talked about the people coming for you sense of it. You’ve talked about the traditional Democratic Party politics part of it. But you know, it seems like there’s also the constant, get up in the early morning to the middle of the night, just neverending campaign. And then there’s also, you mentioned a little bit, about the money aspect of it. I had two friends, you and another friend running for that office. And I was noticing even from you all who I know this had to have been hard for, you know, pushing out fundraising requests at a really high clip. And that’s not because I think you want to bilk people, it’s because those are the pressures of the job, of trying to get that job. Can you talk a little bit about how much of that money pressure and how much of the time pressure is on anyone who’s a serious candidate?
Eliza Orlins
Well, you want to spend your days talking about the issues and why you’re running, talking about the things that matter, you know, seeking local support from voters, doing voter contact, but the reality is, the majority of your day, every day, is spent asking for money. And it’s such a brutal part of running for office, you have to just spend hours on the phones, calling people, you know, calling everyone you’ve ever met in your entire life, calling strangers and saying I need you to contribute to my campaign. And here’s why. Because these are the reasons why this matters, etc. But, the fundraising aspect is brutal.
Joshua Hoe
And why is that? You know, what is it about doing a campaign that requires so much money? For people who are listening who haven’t done this work, I just want people to get a picture of what our system is.
Eliza Orlins
Everything costs money; it costs money to pay staff and to pay them fairly. It costs money to get voter lists, it costs money to get lit, it costs money to put out advertisements to reach voters. I mean, everything costs money, to have a lawyer to make sure that you’re even going to get on the ballot during petitioning and everything. I mean, it’s never-ending, all the different things that, stressors that are put on the . . . . and it’s like, if you don’t have X amount of money, you simply can’t compete. And especially running in a place like Manhattan, against a literal billionaire, was uniquely challenging.
Joshua Hoe
Someone might be wondering, this is a decarceration show, why are we talking about this? Well, we’ve had several legislators who are directly impacted by the justice system, both run and win elections at the state level. One of the things as a movement that I think we often hope for is that more directly-impacted people start to run for office. What would be your advice to someone who’s kind of gone through this sausage factory? To anyone who might be thinking about running, what would you tell them to do if they were starting?
Eliza Orlins
Definitely don’t do it. Unless you’re prepared to lose every friend you’ve ever had. But I think that building institutional support unfortunately matters a lot. And we were running this very upstart, insurgent campaign with very little institutional support. And that made it incredibly challenging. It’s so tough to do it anyhow. But when you’re really going up against the institutions, whether it be, you know, leftist institutions or just traditional democratic institutions, or if you’re running in an R versus D race, I mean, going up against the Republican institution, it’s extremely hard to do without institutional support. So I would say, get involved locally, get involved, get to know your electeds, show up to things, because all you have to do is be in the room with someone like that; electeds are very good at, now that especially now that we’re back in person, like, you know, going up and saying hello to people and taking photos, and you say, you know, I’d like to have an opportunity to work on your campaign, can I send you a resume, try to get involved, do a little bit of volunteering, even if you only have a few hours a week, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved and get to know people, and showing up is half the battle.
Joshua Hoe
And you know, and part of the things I think everybody faces, is this constant drumbeat from police, prosecutors, institutional actors, the press, pushing for tough on crime policies against anyone who’s trying to change anything. Did you have any takeaways about . . . I know you just told people, well get involved with those folks and try to build institutional support. But, you know, if we’re, if our goal is fundamental change, how are we going to finally at least start to get past that divide, that institutional opposition taking us down every time.
Eliza Orlins
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are institutions that support decarceral objectives. There are, you know, there are left-wing organizations that get involved in electoral politics, that support candidates who stand for these things, they are out there shouting about the police all the time. You know, there are some, there are some very wonderful progressive elected officials who I think have done remarkable work on issues, who have institutional support. Institutions are not just the folks who support police and prosecutors and everybody, you know, there’s institutional support on the left also.
Joshua Hoe
We’ve had a tough couple of years. And despite hundreds of 1000s of people in the street, kneeling legislators, lots of election problems, we ended up with even more police spending, less voting, and even less police accountability. I think we’ve heard some of the NYPD coming through your window. How cynical does this make you? And should this make us? about the promise of American democracy?
Eliza Orlins
God, I guess this is a bad week for me to come. I feel like I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be so dark and leave people with . . . I don’t want people to be depressed.
Joshua Hoe
Well I kind of hope that in talking through these depressing things that we get to a place where we think of some bridges out . . .
Eliza Orlins
I mean, listen, I have been called a relentless optimist. And I carry that mantle proudly, I think optimism, or as Mariame Kaba says, hope is a discipline, you know, you have to work for it. And every day take it on and listen, I wouldn’t get up every day and be a public defender if I didn’t have hope that something might go my way at some point, and I certainly wouldn’t have run for office, especially . . . . DA if I wasn’t relentlessly optimistic. I think there are things to feel good about, you know, the things like I said, like sex work decriminalization was not even remotely on people’s minds. It was not on the table. It was not a thing people were willing to talk about, until very recently; this has been building over the last couple years. But to the point where it is a national topic of conversation now and a fairly, I would call mainstream view, to say we should decriminalize consensual sex work period. There are people saying this, there are people who we’ve dragged, the Overton Window, shifted people to really believing this and understanding why it’s so important, which is huge. And then, of course, just even the shift in how people look at public defenders. I mean, if you think about the ways, the first time Hillary ran, she was eviscerated for having ever done any public defense work, oh, you represented horrible people, etc, etc. And there wasn’t that big of a pushback on that. People were just kind of like, that was only a little part of her career, they didn’t really say no, no, not only is that an outrageous attack on her, but in fact, this is something that is a positive, that we should be looking at as an asset in bringing about people not just to elected office, but to judgeships, and now we have a public defender nominated for the highest court in our nation and it’s so exciting that people who have that background of having done public defense work [are] respected and given this opportunity in a really meaningful way.
Joshua Hoe
So you didn’t win, unfortunately. The person who did win immediately came out with a fairly good memo that suggested a lot of things that we probably agree with. Not maybe as much as we’d like. But he got eviscerated for it. Do you have any thoughts about how we can bridge this press and media narrative thing that happens, mostly led by police, and prosecutors, a lot of other things that happen every time someone tries to make substantive change?
Eliza Orlins
This was so unbelievably predictable, that it’s just I mean, it’s – what an embarrassment that office is for having had any hope, you know, that they were going to accomplish any progressive goals without a strong PR strategy in place. You know, it was one of the first things I said to my opponent, you know after I lost to him after the primary, this is as much a PR battle, as it is a legal one, you need a very strong, calm strategy in place months before you take office so that when they come for you, you are ready for it, and you have the ability to push back and to say, actually, that’s not what the data shows. The data shows that when we don’t incarcerate people, we are keeping our city safer. And I have a backbone and a spine and I am not a coward. And this is what I’m going to do and I’m gonna stick to my campaign promises. And unfortunately, you know, even the first month and a half in office, he didn’t even have a comms director. And so of course, he got eviscerated by the press. You know, the day one memo, I think there was some miscalculations, and why he needed to put that out and the way that he did, and the fact of the matter is, so many of the things he said in there were things that aren’t revolutionary, that Vance was already doing, he just never really made an announcement about it. I haven’t had, you know, I’ve had as many [fair beat] cases since Alvin’s been in office as I did, you know, in the couple years leading up to Vance’s departure, he wasn’t prosecuting these things already. So to put them in a list like that, and make it seem, you know, there’s a different strategy for getting elected and being a seasoned politician and understanding what actually takes place in the courtroom. And clearly, the Bragg administration had a massive failing, was just, it’s been so disappointing to see him backtrack on so many promises that I’ve been basically despondent at work these last couple months, just representing clients every day, seeing the ways in which the things he said, in terms of, you know, not seeking, I mean, forget not seeking above the minimum, it’s like, you know, seeking decades-long sentences, seeking incarceration, indicting cases, overcharging, you know, bump ups, just so many things that he had said throughout the campaign that then have just fallen by the wayside because of what? a few political attacks. I mean, just it shows such a, I don’t know, it’s just been extremely disappointing. And, you know, just really devastating. I mean, the Rikers Monitor Report just came out, and it’s, it really genuinely is as bad as ever there. It is so, so horrible. And they just continue to ask for bail on cases, any case they possibly can, as though nothing has changed.
Joshua Hoe
So as we wrap this part up, let’s say, magically, you could start over again, at this thing again, is there anything you would – you just talked about what would happen if you got elected, you’d have a better, really strong PR strategy, which I totally agree with and think was a great suggestion, but what might you have done differently in the campaign?
Eliza Orlins
What a complicated time that I ran, I launched my campaign on March 5. So one week later, we were fully shut down due to COVID. And, you know, it was so hard, to every day and week and month adapt to and figure out how to run a campaign, virtually remotely, you know, doing all these things that had never been done. Had it been an in-person campaign, I think things could have been very different. Had there not been, you know, a pandemic and, and the murder of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor and all, it was just such a unique situation that I don’t think I can look back and really any one thing I would have done different. Are there different ways you can spend money in terms of advertising this? I mean, sure, but I don’t think that I lost something that was winnable.
Joshua Hoe
Okay. The second thing I want to talk to you about is the work of being a public defender. We currently have a new potential Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and she will be the first to come from a public defense background. Why do you think it’s so important to have someone with a – obviously preaching to the choir on this one – to have someone who is up with the public defense background on the bench of the highest court.
Eliza Orlins
Well, it’s not just the professional diversity. It’s not just oh, all these people have come from being prosecutors, corporate lawyers, it’s that, the work of a public defender, it’s someone who has represented poor people, indigent clients who could not afford representation, really has fought on behalf of people, has sat across from them, has listened to their stories, has worked in that way to fight against all of these powerful interests. The same interests that were opposing me in my candidacy are the interests that oppose me every single day in my work as a public defender. It’s the prosecute . . . and, and the press. And it’s just understanding the ways in which that really shapes your views on the law. And it’s so extraordinary. I think both her values, her intellect, everything about, hopefully, Justice Jackson is just so incredible. And I think, you know, understanding the racial injustices in which poverty . . . . . they’re just civil rights violations. It’s just such a unique position. And having her on the Supreme Court will be just incredible.
Joshua Hoe
And the first backlash we heard against her nomination was that she was being chosen because of her race, which was obviously offensive and ridiculous. But did you have anything you want to say about that?
Eliza Orlins
No, it’s outrageous. It’s absolutely outrageous. I mean, it’s like, I feel like some of these, some of the attacks are things like we can’t even validate with responses because it’s just so stupid. And I don’t know, we just have to stop putting white men in positions.
Joshua Hoe
And you talked a little bit about the next of Jackson, which was that she had had the temerity to defend criminals. Do you want to talk about why maybe our entire system is founded on the idea of a robust and active defense? Since you do that for a living?
Eliza Orlins
Well, it’s so appropriate. It’s like you know, it’s Public Defender Week, it’s Public Defense Day. Today’s the anniversary of Gideon versus Wainwright, which was decided March 18, 1963, and said that people have the right to an attorney, even if they’re too poor to afford one. And Clarence Gideon wrote that appeal to the Supreme Court in pencil from his jail cell. So you know, this was someone who was just completely railroaded by the system. And, having public defenders is absolutely critical. I mean, there is a Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. It’s like all of these things if you think about about how, how deeply important it is to have that representation and to fight back against the powers that be, that have all the power, by the way, they still have all the power, even with a public defender standing next to a client representing them, the power is still all on the side of the prosecution. And, and it’s just, it’s so critically important to represent folks who are vulnerable and to fight back against these…
Joshua Hoe
I think people don’t know this necessarily, but it’s something like 96% of cases plea, which is more or less a prosecutor . . . and then for the ones that go to trial, it’s well over 90%, the prosecution wins. And a lot of that’s because all the resources and everything are loaded on one side of the ledger, is that correct?
Eliza Orlins
Always. And it’s just, so you know, it’s so deeply, the chips are so deeply stacked against people accused of crimes. And I mentioned briefly earlier, in terms of bail and plea bargaining, and just how coercive the entire nature of the system is, and how people, you know, end up pleading guilty for a whole variety of reasons, some of which include just getting out of jail. So, you know, it’s just so; it’s just I mean . . .
Joshua Hoe
I can feel your frustration.
Eliza Orlins
And we have to get ready for these dishonest, intellectually dishonest attacks on her that we know are going to come from the likes of Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton. And Ted Cruz and he’s like absolute pieces of . . . whatever I’m going to say . ..
Joshua Hoe
Yeah, that was definitely a terrible thread from Hawley yesterday. Just a pretty good example of how there’s just no bottom to it. Speaking of terrible, terrible attacks, a particular version of the objection was that she had had the, again the temerity to defend people who were incarcerated at Gitmo. And given how many people we put at Guantanamo Bay, who were later released without charge, and given how objectionable the whole place is from like, just human rights. It’s just shocking to me that this is an objection. Like, you know, a lot of the people at Guantanamo were literally innocent of nothing. We swept them up, took them from their country and put them in a prison in the middle of Cuba, and just left them there with no legal representation and that she had the temerity to actually try to help them, is supposed to be a black mark on her character somehow.
Eliza Orlins
People who barely care about innocent until proven guilty when it comes to people in their own backyard, let alone when it comes to people who are Muslim and maybe, you know accused of something like terrorism, it’s like they can barely wrap their minds around how innocent people, on how lawyers have to be fighting for innocent people. I mean, it’s just mind-numbing.
Joshua Hoe
I read a story, there was a guy who was a cab driver, I think in Egypt, they picked him up, moved him there, he had nothing, there was no reason, it was just someone who accused him of something. And so his whole life is destroyed. He’s moved to a country he has never been to, he has no idea of the language. He doesn’t want to talk to anybody. He’s stuck in this terrible place. And ultimately, he gets freed. But I mean, come on, that’s like years of your life. You’re just we’ve just gone for what did he do? He did nothing!
Eliza Orlins
Oh, what they’re doing is an attack on our Constitution. It’s like basic legal principles, like so many things and, you know, it’s just staggering to think about these right-wing extremists who can’t bear the thought of a black woman, let alone a black woman public defender, on the Supreme Court [so] they’ll just say anything. So the attacks will continue. And I assume they’ll ramp up on Monday when the hearings start.
Joshua Hoe
Yeah. And one of the things that Mr. Hawley said in his rant yesterday, and I only mention one of them, because there were like five, and he was wrong about all of them. They were all terrible. But one of them was about, like, one of my personal things that I get very fired up about when we’re talking about a constitutional violation, is civil commitment law. And he was very fired up about that. And for those who don’t know, that’s where you can be put in prison, essentially indefinitely, simply because someone decides that you’re dangerous, not because you’ve committed a crime. And there’s a person in Illinois, for instance, who has been there for 30 years under civil commitment law, in a prison, even though they say it’s treatment, not prison. He’s literally in a prison for over 30 years and was never tried for a crime in his whole life, he’s never been accused of, he’s been in this prison for 30 years. So that’s one of the things Hawley’s saying: we should try to preserve and Dr. Jackson’s is bad for actually saying, hey, that law is an abomination, which it is. You know, I don’t know if you have anything to say about that. But that’s one that I get very fired up about.
Eliza Orlins
Absolutely. It’s just it’s a genuinely nauseating and outrageous attack, let alone the fact that like, that our country is actually doing it, that this is even happening. You know, it’s just despicable.
Joshua Hoe
I do think everybody would think, hey, it’s probably not a really good idea to have the government have the power to just decide you’re dangerous, and then detain you indefinitely without actual charges, without an actual crime, on quasi-scientific at best grounds, you know? So let’s go to the other end of this. I saw a really good video from Partners for Justice a couple days ago, speaking of the Gideon Day thing, detailing all the amazing interventions of a group of public defenders just during one day, it’s just like, story, story, story story. And I think people don’t always know all the things public defenders do aside from just go to court, all the interventions they do, all the ways they help people. I don’t know if you saw the video or not, but, you know, I’m sure you personally have been involved in a lot of things that you do. Can you explain to people all the ways in which you interact with people’s lives, and how much difference you can make in someone’s life from that position? being the only person that they get to work with in this terrible part of their . . .
Eliza Orlins
Yeah, I mean, they’re public defenders. And, you know, the people who work in our office, social workers, admins, paralegals, we are present, like representing a person as a whole person. And so I’m trying to address all issues that that person is facing: psychological crises, you know, whether they’re experiencing food insecurity or homelessness, you know, housing or family issues. It’s such a holistic practice there are many things that public defenders are relied upon to do. And, and then not only that, but also, I’m so grateful for the folks who are telling these stories and speaking out to try to change the narrative on how important the work that public defenders do is, and how vastly underrepresented public defenders are on the courts and how, when you do have a public defender on a court, they’re less likely to send someone to jail or prison, less likely to impose a harsher sentence. And it’s just so critically important that we have public defenders who are standing up in so many elements, so many different facets of life to protect everyone.
Joshua Hoe
And I think when we talk about the system being stacked whenever, first of all, you got the prosecutor, then you got the police working for the prosecutor, then you’ve got the way that the rules of evidence are set up, then you got the fact that they don’t have to disclose it, all the things and all the times and all that, the different little things that can . . . but then you add to the fact that every judge is a former prosecutor. It’s no surprise that a lot of times judges just kind of rubber stamp prosecution stuff. So I think it would be great, you know, I think this would be a really strong signal, it’s sent, you know, we need to have a more balanced court and more balanced courts in general. Another area where I think this happens is in the media. If you watch the major shows, on almost every show, on every news channel, they have a lot of criminal justice, people who work with them, but they’re almost all prosecutors, police, or former law enforcement of some kind. Why do you think it’s so hard for us to get different voices onto those panels as someone who’s done a lot of interviews as a candidate?
Eliza Orlins
Well, it’s not just getting actual people onto the panels. I mean, every time we hear from someone on MSNBC, or any network, really, it’s just like, oh, former prosecutor, so and so former, you know, police commissioner, so and so. And that’s who they go to, for these views. So it really is difficult. And we have to say, hey, public defenders provide a very necessary point of view. But it’s also in every fictional television show. It’s straight-up copaganda. And so this, the way in which the police are portrayed and depicted, the way in which prosecutors are portrayed, and then, of course, the way in which defense attorneys are portrayed, which is typically negative, you know, if it’s a private defense attorney, they’re sleazy. If it’s a public defender, they’re incompetent. And then the prosecutors are like, the good guys always, you know, you’re always rooting for them to lock up the bad guy, and the police are getting them to confess and blah, blah, blah. And it’s just the whole narrative on any show, even if it’s not just Law and Order or CSI, or some of those law enforcement shows, but everything all the way to, you know, people are like, oh, like, I don’t really watch cop shows. But like Brooklyn Nine-Nine is super funny. And it’s like, every time you laugh along with someone who’s being a fake cop, you’re literally reinforcing that cops are good, you know, and oh, but they’re so likable. Oh, they’re just, they’re just all shucks, nice guys, just trying to do their jobs. And it’s not that we dislike the individuals necessarily, it’s that the institution [of] policing is such that even if someone goes in intending to be a good cop, they’re unable to do so, given the structures and the mechanism that are set up.
Joshua Hoe
The thing I don’t get is people’s self-interest. You know, it seems to me at the very least, the very, very least people would say, if we’re going to give people the power over life and death, the power to use deadly force, we’re gonna hold those people to the highest possible standard. Even if you don’t believe anything else, if we believe like, 98% of the cops are good people. Even if you believe every other narrative, you would still think that you’d want to ensure that when they make a decision to use deadly force, that that would be held to the highest possible standard, because that could be you. You know, I mean, you may not think it could be you. But trust me, it could be you, but we don’t see that. And, we don’t see it reflected, like you’re saying, in the media, we don’t see it reflected. It’s just bizarre to me that we think that way. I honestly don’t get it.
Eliza Orlins
I think the police exist to protect the interests of the extremely wealthy, to protect corporate interests. And the media also props it up. And it just, you know, perpetuates this system where poverty can be criminalized, where people can “other” those who are merely accused of crimes. Well, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. And I’m like, you realize that most of the people locked up at Rikers are innocent, innocent until proven guilty, they have not been convicted of anything. They’re just sitting there. You know, the man who died this week was there on $1,000 that he couldn’t afford to pay. And now he’s dead. And people are like, well, you know, he shouldn’t have committed a crime. He was arraigned on March 9, he was in jail. Yeah, it’s not like this is someone who, he was accused of a crime and then got locked up in this hellhole and couldn’t afford to pay because of, you know, his poverty and then now has ended up dead and it’s like, I don’t understand how to convince people to have empathy for other people. That’s the kind of you know, you say you want to build bridges and it’s like, yes, we should build bridges. A friend called me recently and said, How do I convince my newly- elected,I won’t even mention the position because that’s a giveaway who it is, and said, How do I convince my elected to be against solitary confinement? And I said, you know, I don’t have an argument for you. I don’t have anything laying out the point as to why we shouldn’t put people in solitary confinement, because I don’t know how to tell someone that they should give a shit about another human’s life. I don’t know how to tell someone to have empathy. And to see that this is torture under the Geneva Conventions, that this is a human rights violation, that every client I’ve ever seen put in solitary has de-compensated, physically and mentally, and you know, broken down; people like Kalief Browder, and Layleen Polanco, and so many others have ended up dead because of it. And it’s like, how do you tell, how do you convince someone to care about human life? I don’t know. Maybe that’s what made me a bad politician? I don’t know.
Joshua Hoe
I didn’t do very much time in solitary, but I did a few days. And, you know, what I tell people to do is to go, literally, if they’ve got the willpower to even try it, to just, you know, take away every piece of tech you have and basically lock yourself in the bathroom for a couple hours and see how you feel. You know, it’d be like . . .
Eliza Orlins
Most people’s bathrooms are much bigger than solitary cells.
Joshua Hoe
It’s the closest thing I could think of, I mean because you just don’t understand until you’ve been sitting in a room for 10 hours by yourself, repeating the alphabet backwards in your head. And you have nothing, I mean, that’s all you got. until you’ve done that for a while, you just don’t understand. And some people I know who’ve done, you know, six, eight years in solitary and then you have people you know, I have a book behind me about a guy who did over 40 years in solitary. And then luckily – Albert Woodfox, he came out and, somehow is still sane. But yeah, it’s a terrible . . . . So I saw a tweet from you yesterday about Kathy Hochul and the bail reform backsliding. I didn’t want to make bail a big thing because I talk about it all the time. But do you want to talk about what’s happening around bail reform in New York?
Eliza Orlins
So it’s about more than just bail reform, what Kathy Hochul is trying to do, it’s really about the, it’s about just an attack on so many elements of fighting back against mass incarceration. And I think that what we know is that the safest communities are those that have the most resources, not the highest jail populations. And so we need to protect bail reform at all costs and make investments into the communities. You know, making sure people have housing and jobs and education and health services. And, that this pretrial detention, this idea that people should be kept in jail, leading up to their trial, someone who’s never been convicted of anything, it’s racist, it’s destabilizing, it separates families, it cost people their jobs and their homes, it doesn’t even address the root causes. In fact, it does make it more likely that a person is going to re-offend or get re-arrested afterward. And so, you know, the fact that Hochul is doing this is, is just, it’s devastating. It’s just seeing the political pressure, and it makes it seem like you know, she’s no different from Andrew Cuomo. So she does not have my vote.
Joshua Hoe
So that’s tough to do; you don’t want to be, you don’t want to be the same as Andrew Cuomo. That’s for sure. So we talked about hope, what are some, you say you’re the eternal optimist. I think I’ve been called pretty optimistic in the past myself, what’s something hopeful? What’s something you feel hopeful about? You know, I mean, we’ve had a lot of dark times lately, we’ve had a lot of disappointments, we’ve had a lot of upset, what is something we can all kind of rally around and kind of build off if there is anything.
Eliza Orlins
We all have to be very focused on pushing back on any outrageous attacks on KBJ during her hearings next week. That’s, I think, incredibly important, because getting a public defender on the Supreme Court that should give people hope that we’re at a place where that is even feasible is really exciting, and then keep fighting for local issues. And as bad as our Governor is on these things now, and our mayor, who’s a former police officer himself, who’s done a lot of terrible things. I mean, if you think about the fact that they’re talking about issuing, you know, the legalization of marijuana, which I mentioned briefly, in New York, that the licenses that they’re going to be giving to commercial sellers, are going to be the social equity licenses, that it’s people who have been harmed by marijuana prosecutions that are going to be the first in line to get these licenses, which is, you know, is a good thing. So pushing on these small issues makes a huge difference in people’s lives, not to say that it can ever undo the harms of having been prosecuted and jailed, arrested and convicted, and having a criminal record but it’s a start. It’s something that we’re focused on in terms of repairing the harms of these prosecutions. There are now two safe injection sites, overdose prevention centers, right here in New York City, which are a huge . . . if you think about it.
Joshua Hoe
That is huge, that sends, that sends a signal to the rest of the country too, that’s really important.
Eliza Orlins
And by the way, it’s not like they turned into these crime havens, these are, these are places where people can go to not die, and we’re seeing overdoses, it’s not just happening among one community of people, there are people dying from opioid overdoses across the racial, socio-economic, across all spectrums. And so making sure that people can safely use drugs, which should be legal, to begin with, but until they are, making sure people can safely use drugs is so, so, so important. And, you know, going and figuring out, you know, if friends of yours are gonna be using drugs, or if you know people, to carry Narcan, I carry my Narcan all the time. And, ideally, you know, go find FentCheck, because there’s fentanyl in so many drugs these days. And so, trying to keep people safe, keep them from overdosing. The fact that there’s a proliferation of things that are addressing the opioid, this crisis, I think, is helpful.
Joshua Hoe
Yeah, it’s huge, we had, I think, over 100,000 overdoses last year, and the idea that criminalization is the solution to that is just so ridiculous. It’s so great that there’s finally at least a couple of cities in the United States where you at least can get your drugs tested.
Last year, the last couple of years, people have really liked that I started asking about books. So do you have any favorite criminal justice-related books that you’d like to share?
Eliza Orlins
Oh my gosh, what’s right behind me? And I see, I have Rachel’s book there.
Joshua Hoe
Feel free to grab it and put it up there if you want. Yeah, that’s good.
Eliza Orlins
The amazing Rachel, Rachel Barkow, who moderated one of our debates during the campaign, she’s phenomenal. Love her. And then of course, any Bryan Stevenson. I think that reading books about criminal justice is obviously extraordinary. And also one’s about racial justice, and, you know, educated on the history of on terms of the way in which our criminal legal system and incarceration really did stem from the racial injustice is in this column slavery and beyond. And
Joshua Hoe
So did you get a chance to read Clint Smith’s book last year? How The Word is Passed?
Eliza Orlins
Yes. Great. I think that’s on my bookshelf, too.
Joshua Hoe
He was one of my favorite interviews from last year. He’s been rolling up the awards too, he just got several more. And then the Book of the Year Award.
Eliza Orlins
Yeah, that’s extraordinary. Amazing. And then, I think that a conversation that is always extremely difficult, because so many people, and I think you and I have talked about this, people have, I think, come around on criminal justice reform when it comes to low-level nonviolent offenses. And so having conversations about violent crime, I think is incredibly important. And one of the most extraordinary books on the topic is certainly Danielle Sered’s Until We Reckon. And I think the way that she addresses restorative justice, and how, right now the way the criminal legal system works, people are like, oh, you want to decarcerate, so you don’t care about victims. And I’m like, it’s actually quite the opposite. In fact, in most cases, I’m the only person who cares about the victim. I’m the only person who goes to the victim’s home, who sits across a table from them and actually listens to them, hears their story, talks to them about how they are going to move past this, the ways in which this has impacted their lives. And that’s not, I mean, no one’s representing them in a criminal proceeding, but they think or sometimes people think that the prosecutors are the lawyers for the victim, but they’re not, you know, they’re not. And they’re like, oh, we have the interests of the State, but they don’t actually care, and most victims when . . .
Joshua Hoe
And most victims, when push comes to shove, if the victims decide they don’t want prosecution, the prosecutors ignore them. They just blow them off.
Eliza Orlins
Exactly. So, you know, the conversations and what Danielle’s organization does, in terms of restorative justice, Common Justice is extraordinary and most people who have been the victims of violent crimes, when given the opportunity, would opt in to restorative justice and having conversations and figuring out how to make them whole you know, I think she describes it as like, if someone burns down your house all the criminal legal system can do for you, is go burn down that person’s house too. But you’re still standing there in front of the ashes where your house used to be, but what? Now you burn their house down too? but how does this help me? Or someone’s pushed you down a hill and you’re laying, bloody and broken at the bottom and someone’s like, Oh, don’t worry, let me go beat the crap out of them too. And you’re like, Well wait, but I’m hurt, no one is helping, you have to help. And so the system is not designed to help people, so I think that addressing violence and really having those conversations is so, so important. Danielle’s book I think is great.
Joshua Hoe
Great, you’ll be happy to know that the number one, all-time episode of this podcast was with Danielle Sered.
Eliza Orlins
She’s so extraordinary. Everyone should read Until We Reckon.
Joshua Hoe
Absolutely an incredible book. I always ask the same last question. What did I mess up? What questions should I have asked but did not?
Eliza Orlins
I think you’re amazing. And I’m so grateful for the fight that you’re always waging. And it’s so challenging. And I think, especially when we’re thinking about how we can break these cycles, you know, the thing that people say, which is, “hurt people hurt people ” is so true. It’s so true. And I think that having a place where we really think about healing and rehabilitation and empathy is something that could go a long way.
Joshua Hoe
Well, I want to thank you so much for doing this and for all you do. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me,
Eliza Orlins
Of course, anytime. Thanks so much.
Joshua Hoe
And now my take.
I usually have a long rant here, but I just want to read this today. This is from the New York City Comptroller’s Office and was published this week. Data released by the New York City Criminal Justice Agency in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice show that the share of released people awaiting trial who are rearrested remained roughly the same before and after implementation of bail reforms. In January 2019, 95% of the roughly 57,000 people awaiting trial were not rearrested that month. In January 2020, 96% of the roughly 45,000 people with a pending case were not rearrested. In December 2021, 96% were not rearrested. In each of those months, 99% of the people, regardless of bail, or other pretrial conditions, were not rearrested on a violent felony charge. For the rollbacks, the bail reforms passed in 2019, would primarily serve to extract more money from vulnerable communities and increase the number of people held in city jails awaiting trial. And as you probably know – this is my insertion – someone died in Rikers just last week, pretrial. There is no evidence – and this is back to the Comptroller – there is no evidence that they would lead to a reduction in crime. In other words, rolling back bail reform would not lead to a reduction in crime. This might come as a surprise to people who’ve listened to the news or read the papers. But as I’ve been saying, for years now, the test of bail reform is how much new crime happens before bail reform, compared to how much happens after bail reform. And in New York, which is where we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of anecdotal stories talking about the incredible link between the increase in homicides and the increase in shoplifting and the increase in violence and the increase in crime and bail reform, it turns out, it is exactly the same as it was before bail reform. Now, I don’t know what to say here, except that it is frustrating to see not just a narrative in New York, but a national narrative that turns on what is largely a bunch of nonsense, but that is what has happened. And that’s what the press in New York has done to the criminal justice reform dialogue across the country. And it’s time for it to stop, and it’s about time all of those people who’ve been printing those terrible stories for the last two years, either apologize or write the story the way it should be written. There are people’s lives that are on the line. There are people right now in Rikers Island who could die tonight. Let’s stop this nonsense. Bail reform does not cause increased crime; rolling back bail reform will not reduce crime. All bail reform does is ensure that poor people do not have to spend as much time in pretrial incarceration as rich people who committed the exact same crime.
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