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Gotham
In The News
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0:00[Music] 0:06 welcome back to the freedom file once 0:08 again I'm here with former Federal 0:09 prosecutor Doug Burns and civil and 0:11 criminal defense attorney David Schwarz 0:13 I want to get right back to the 0:15 conversation we're having about bribery 0:17 in the case against mayor Adams Doug uh 0:19 to you first uh this time why is it that 0:23 prosecutors can offer something of value 0:26 to a witness to tailor the witness's 0:29 test testimony and if anybody else did 0:32 that like defense counsel he'd be 0:34
indicted for witness tampering well it's 0:36 the word tailor which has a little bit 0:38 of room to argue in but you've been 0:41 through this you know it's tailoring 0:43 course of course but the fact of the 0:44 matter is um they make the lame argument 0:48 oh no no no all we're doing is offering 0:50 you some leniency in return for the 0:52 truth and of course I'm smiling because 0:55 who determines what the truth is when 0:57
you're sitting in that conference room 0:59 so you're right 1:00 I mean of course I mean the prosecutor 1:02
wants to hear what they want to hear 1:04 they want to hear inculpatory 1:06 information against the bigger player in 1:08 the case if they don't hear that all of 1:10 a sudden they're not going to be lenient 1:12 if they start hearing that then they're 1:14 happy and they will be lenient so I 1:16 don't disagree with your scholarship 1:18 your writing about this bribery concept 1:20 but at the same time the criminal 1:22 justice system would just completely 1:23 fall on its face David this is another 1:25 sort of damle situation is it not where 1:29 the prose utor holds the sort of dles 1:32 over the witness's head if you testify 1:35 the way we want we don't prosecute you 1:37 or we enter into a a lame plea agreement 1:40 but if the words don't come out of your 1:42 mouth that we like we go back to 1:45 Prosecuting You full boore if you made a 1:48 threat like that or an offer like that 1:50 to a witness the government would come 1:52 after you right right so as a former 1:54 prosecutor that the the scenario you 1:56 laid out judge is a bad prosecutor you 1:59 know sometimes there are meritorious 2:01 situations where you need a cooperating 2:04 witness when you have a felony murder 2:07 and you you you you take the driver of 2:09 that murder and you you get them to 2:11
testify truthfully truthfully as to what 2:14 they saw what they heard in that in that 2:16 sitation but truthfully means whatever 2:18 the prosecutor wants to hear in in in a 2:21 lot of cases but I know when I was a 2:23
prosecutor when Doug was a prosecutor 2:25 you you're interviewing a defendant and 2:27 they tell you their whole story and then 2:29 you say okay we're going to make you 2:31 into a cooperating witness to take down 2:33 the other two defendants that's a 2:35 meritorious situation and that happens 2:37 most of the time what you laid out is is 2:41 a a situation in reality that does 2:44 happen and that's unfortunate judge yeah 2:47 um Doug let's get back to Mayor Adams is 2:50 there a sort of damle hanging over his 2:52 head right now as we speak there is 2:55 because of this language in the memo 2:58 that I held up saying we're going to 3:00 re-evaluate this case after the mayor 3:02 election that was never should have been 3:04 put in that memo if you take that out 3:07 and it's just oh it's without prejudice 3:10 To The World At Large yeah it seems that 3:13 way but honestly all cases are dismissed 3:15 that way so it's really not this is why 3:17 politics and law don't mix judge I've 3:19 said that a million times right right uh 3:22 David how bad does it look when seven 3:25 prosecutors ordered to do something by 3:28 Washington each refused to do it and
3:31 resign and in the case of several of 3:33 them I only know them by reputation 3:35 their reputations are extraordinary and 3:38 excellent one of them so good Danielle 3:40 Sassoon she was just made the temporary 3:43 head of the office by none other than 3:44 Donald Trump himself well first of all 3:47 It's Not Unusual that prosecutors resign 3:49 but in this particular case these 3:52 prosecutors were Prosecuting a case 3:54 which I believe they were forced to 3:56 prosecute in the first place because no 3:58 prosecutor in their right mind would 4:01 would prosecute a case like this against 4:04 mayor Adams for the allegations that 4:06 were contained in that indictment so 4:08 what was trying to be done is to really 4:10 using the wrong way to undo a wrong in 4:13 the first place obviously it's a blow to 4:15 the justice department where you have 4:17 good line prosecutors resigning from 4:19 their job but you know what there's a 4:21 lot of lawyers out there there'll be new 4:23 lawyers to take their jobs Doug should 4:25 the court go along with this or should 4:27 the court say I'm not going to have 4:28 anything to do with these a political 4:30 Shenanigans I'm going to dismiss it with 4:32 Pro with prejudice yeah well that you 4:34 know there's a huge conundrum which is 4:36 the judge has the right legally to 4:38 inquire into whether he or she thinks 4:41
that the deal was improper but it leaves 4:43 them nowhere they can't force the 4:45 government to do the case so to your 4:48 point the judge is going to say because 4:50 technically uh be a little bit of a nerd 4:53
in the weeds I don't think technically 4:54 the judge can direct the dismissal that 4:57 way it's up to the prosecutors judge 4:58 should say guys 5:00 you should seriously consider dismissing 5:02 this with prejudice let's take a 5:04 10-minute break we'll come back you tell 5:05 me what you want to do we're going to 5:07 take a two-minute break and when when we 5:09 come back we will delve even more deeply 5:13 uh into all of this when the freedom 5:15 file returns 5:19 [Music]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1b6091_2278ebd6c08d439ab07a62d0ba8b5bfc~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_276,h_201,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Image-empty-state.png)