Crimes of the Present

Thiru Vignarajah, former deputy attorney general of Maryland, joins Sarah to talk about all things ...

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Thiru Vignarajah, former deputy attorney general of Maryland, joins Sarah to talk about all things Baltimore: violent crime, reforming police practices, and the Baltimore City state’s attorney race. Plus: What might help bring down gun violence in major cities?

Show Notes:

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  1. Avatar photo
    Anne W (Raw5254)

    Very good! But, I have to add that I’m someone who listened to Serial, along with a couple of more excellent podcasts about Adnan Syed. I wasn’t obsessed, but I’ve always felt there was a very strong case that he didn’t kill Hae Min Lee. After listening to Mr. Vignarajah say we just needed to read the court case against Adnan (I think that’s what he said) because it definitely shows that Adnan is guilty.

    I searched, and could only find papers that denied him a retrial. However, I came across another podcast that is highly rated, and they did an excellent job of going through several things that make me still believe Adnan got railroaded.

    In case anyone is interested, it’s the April 8, 2018 episode of Crime Junkies. It really is a fascinating and sad case.

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    Ben Connelly

    Good luck to Thiru! Hope his optimism proves persuasive to the Baltimore public.

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  3. Nicholasfpalma

    Potentially the best pod yet. Great stuff.

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    Psmangelsdorf

    This was a fantastic episode! Thank you to Sarah for bringing on Thiru, and thank you to Thiru for making the strongest case for his positions I have heard. I'm still not completely convinced on bail reform, but he certainly moved the needle a long ways. This is why I'm a member, and is just an excellent example of what The Dispatch is all about.

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  5. Ingenero.lux

    Great podcast, the type of thing I subscribe to the Dispatch for!

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  6. Seth

    This was a great conversation! Thanks for bringing folks like this onto the show.
    I listen to the podcasts via a podcast player, so I usually don't come here to the page, but I went to specific effort to come and comment on this one.

    I hope you interview more people from the classical liberal faction of the Democrat party. Expanding dialog and building a coalition with folks like that is our best hope for salvaging our government from the wing-nuts.

    Lastly, I couldn't help but chuckle at Sarah's "body of the plane" quip.

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    Young Riprock

    Great conversation, enjoyed it immensely. I have a couple of critiques of Thiru's positions, but the one I want to focus on is cash bail and how his position is skewed by coming from a very privileged place of working for the feds and using the federal system is the example. The federal courts have enormous resources including pretrial services to make sure people are maintaining their conditions of release.

    The place where cash bail is properly used (which I agree that it is often misused) is in the case of the perennial petty screw ups which make up a substantial amount of our state court prosecutions. Legitimate flight risks should be detained. People who pose a serious safety threat to the community should be detained. But on in-custody/personal recognizance on-off switch is lousy for the petty criminal who can't seem to make his court dates or keeps getting popped for stupid crap. They aren't really a flight risk. They aren't really a danger to the community. So cash bail when properly used can be the middle option to say "hey dumbass, quit missing your court dates or we're going to forfeit $500 from you."

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      Seth Higgins

      I was thinking this during the conversation. I worked in rural county government (Elk County, PA with 30,000 residents). I asked our sole public defender if we should get rid of the bail system. He was strongly opposed for the reasons you gave. He was free public counsel and I'm pretty sure he had issues with people keeping their appointments with him, let alone making court dates. We would have had to substantially expand our little County government to implement a federal style system. The kinds of people who end up in a local criminal justice system are often much different from those facing federal crimes.

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      1. Alan

        Why not just make it: you go free but if you miss your court date you now owe $500 and we will throw you in jail for failure to pay?

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  8. Paddler

    I think it’s interesting we can ask killers why they use the methods they do, and find useful information that leads to improvements. Do you think it would be possible to find out why some institutions, such as the City of Baltimore, are stuck in such terrible cycles of failure and yet even people who were voting for the previous administrations are now choosing to leave while the institutions are not getting fixed? Some of the perpetrators are in jail also, maybe it’s an opportunity.

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  9. Michael York

    Listening to Sarah Isgur and her friends talk is like experiencing real Maine lobster fresh out of the trap for the first time. "Oh! So *this* is lobster!" "Oh! So *this* is how real conversation sounds!"

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      Seth Higgins

      Yeah, it is like, "Wait, we can elect politicians who don't just produce talking points and hold unique views?! We, as Americans, can elect people who disagree with their own party and engage with the other party in good faith?! This has been an option the whole time?!"

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    Brian Jennings

    This is The Dispatch at its best. Vignarajah's willingness to challenge his own party is a breath of fresh air. Thanks.

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