In part 2 of dad's biography, he discusses his law school years and being a prosecutor straight out of law school. There are a lot of stories of dad getting laughed at in this one- he got laughed at when people heard he had applied to Harvard, he got laughed at while at Harvard when people found out that his pedigree was working class St. Louis, he got rejected at his first job application with the Federal Defenders office, and he got laughed at by the entire jury at one of his earliest trials. He learned a lot through all this. 

In part 1 of dad's biography, we go back to his childhood in St. Louis and some very formative events in his life including a stint in a Catholic orphanage, a bicycle accident, subordination in the ROTC that may have saved his life, but came at the cost of caring for a goat, and the time he defied his athletic director in college and instead of spending the athletic department's budget on new blazers for the athletes, he spent it all to hire Ike and Tina Turner to play a concert. 

The Local 89 case is a complex fraud case that dad prosecuted. He talks about how the investigation was run, what the rules are that he came up with for bringing a defendant to the grand jury for indictment, and what he learned conducting the three-month trial. Also, hear which novel Dad thinks should be required reading in law school for all future trial attorneys. 

Dad discusses this 2010 case in which an insurance company denied coverage for a successful treatment of a patient with a rare type of brain cancer. Dad decided that their process for denying coverage was unreasonable. The insurance company appealed and the ninth circuit overturned his ruling in an unpublished opinion.This informative episode explains what ERISA is, what the processes are under ERISA plans, what "de novo review" means, what the "arbitrary and capricious" standard is, why dad ruled that the Phase 3 trial status wasn't relevant to this particular drug being experimental, and what an unpublished opinion is and why it disappointed him that the Ninth Circuit wouldn't explain themselves. 

Dad talks about an interesting case he had where a landfill had been sued for leeching pollutants into the groundwater. Environmental groups sued it and wanted it to be fined. Dad not only found that groundwater is covered under the clean water act (which was often interpreted to only cover surface water), but he had a creative solution to the problem rather than the fines. This solution became a success story. 

This is part 2 of the episode about what a trial against Trump would look like, where Dad explains generally why creating a trial record is important, and the most notorious decisions that have been handed down recently by the Supreme Court are unencumbered by trial records that the justices would have to take into consideration. Which is why trials are important. 

This is a two-parter. In part one, Dad essentially breaks down what a trial against Donald Trump might look like, the most difficult aspects of one, and how he would go about prosecuting the case if he were the prosecutor. 

Dad covers a lot of ground in this episode. We begin by talking about the FBI search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and in general what is involved in issuing a search warrant. Then dad goes into part 2 about the problem with the Supreme Court and how the historically excluded can get their rights back that the majority on the Supreme Court is determined to keep people excluded from accessing. At the end of the episode, dad points out one of the major glaring problems that many people overlook when they wave off the rulings of the Supreme Court as "the final say in what the law is": Where is the trial record? The people need to go to trial to create a record of fact. Otherwise, the Supreme Court can (and has) make up any facts they want to support their rulings. We need to go to trial to get the facts out there.  

Dad gives his report card on the Supreme Court. Next episode will discuss remedies.

Episode 7, Part 1: Dad discusses a  particularly challenging rape and murder case he had as a prosecutor in San Diego.