This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Batchel.

I welcome Paul Larkin of the Heritage Foundation,

the John and Barbara and Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow,

to comment on two points, two points that are revelations to me.

One, a Supreme Court case from 1978, and the other, a book that

Paul highly recommends from a professor at NYU, Rachel Barkow, the Charles Selekson

Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. The title of the book, Give Something

Away, Justice Abandoned, 2025. Paul, a very good evening to you.

Your essay at Civitas Outlook for Civitas Institute, the University of Texas at Austin, is all news

to me. And so I go immediately to a Supreme Court case. I've learned to talk Supreme Court cases.

It slows everything down and I'll get to smile. Bordenkir versus Hayes, 1978. It strikes me, the facts are

affixed, that Bordenkker was a man, I believe, who had offended more than once, twice, in fact, previously. And the third

time he was detained for passing a bad check for less than $100. However, because that is the

third time felony, he was vulnerable to being sent to jail, or at least condemned to jail

for life, whether he served it or not was another matter.

And that takes us to the prosecutor's decision-making to use that severe penalty in order to win the case without a trial.

Have I summarized correctly of Bordenkker?

Good evening to you, Paul. Good evening to you, Paul.

Good evening to you, John. You have summarized it correctly, and let me say I'm honored to be on your show. Thank you. What is Professor Barkow's opinion of that case is that it is disproportionate to the felony and that life imprisonment,

which followed because Mr. Bordenkirker chose to ask for a trial and he lost it, being guilty

according to the courts, that the punishment is so severe and Professor Barcold links this to mass incarceration. How so, Paul?

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