Hi, I'm Anna Marie Cox and this is with friends like these.

We're going to end our trilogy on law and forgiveness, focusing a little more on the actual

nuts and bolts of what forgiveness by the state or by government would look like.

Or as the book by this week's guest puts it, when should the law forgive?

Our guest is Martha Minow, a professor at Harvard Law School and a TED Talk Speaker and

an Obama administration appointee.

She's written on a lot of topics of interest to this audience, how technology can exacerbate

inequality, for instance, and the law and mental health.

But I wanted to talk to her about forgiveness because of the legal approach that she suggests.

What if we treated those who break the law with the same generosity we treat the bad behavior

of corporations?

More specifically, what if we took our approach to financial fresh starts after bankruptcy

and applied it to those who need a fresh start after our criminal offense?

On the way to discussing that idea, she engages with the problem of child soldiers.

It all works together.

Talking about child soldiers gives us a chance to think through our biases against other

kinds of bad actors, those who aren't children.

And that discussion also challenges us to rethink the ambiguous gift of blanket forgiveness.

This is important, hard stuff, and Martha Minow is coming right up.

Martha, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Great to be here.

...