Welcome to episode six of the Olasky interview. I'm Jill Nelson. Today you'll hear Marvin

Olasky's 2019 interview with Judge Stefano's Bebos. Judge Bebos was a Trump appointee to the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before his appointment, he was a professor of law and criminology at the

University of Pennsylvania Law School. Here now to set up this interview is Marvin Olasky.

Hi, Marvin. Hey, Jill. Well, criminal justice reform is a hot topic these days. Bebas wrote a book in

2012 about the American criminal justice system called The Machinery of Criminal

Justice. And you asked him about some of his conclusions in this book, how criminal justice

was administered in the past compared to the system we have now, where it's often just kind of rushed

along. What stood out to you in your conversation about criminal justice reform?

Well, if any of our listeners have seen TV dramas about law, I grew up sometimes watching

Perry Mason dramas on television where there's a courtroom battle and there are dramatic

revelations, that's not the way it

works in real life. Plea bargaining is every day. Trials are rare. And this is particularly in the

public defender system with lots of poor clients. Bebas noted in the book, and then we talked

about this, that public defenders have hundreds of cases.

So imagine if you're a client, and the first time you meet your lawyer, he says,

oh, good to meet you. I recommend that you plead guilty. Doesn't matter what the actual facts are,

but plead guilty, and that way you'll only get two years rather than

four years. I actually saw something like this with a person or church poverty program trying

to help, saw in the courtroom, except his lawyers, public defender didn't even show up. So it's not

entirely their fault. They have all huge caseloads, but it is really an unjust system. It's not entirely their fault. They have all huge caseloads, but it is really an unjust system.

And so he proposes changes. Well, he does. He says that you need to find ways to throw more

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