Judge Napolitano - What if Freedom is Suspended?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
John and I Firms. One of Wetherbe casts tells us
today be mostly cloudy with scattered storms possible later this afternoon.
They should be leaving the area around sixty m though
seventy seven on high Today. It's going to be dry
every night, down of sixty two, Partly cloudy tomorrow with
a high of eighty four Thursday night, some storms are
possible low of sixty eight and a high of eighty
five on Friday, with another chance of rain sixty two degrees.
Right now, let's hear from hereby traffic conditions from Chuck

(00:23):
Ingram Chuck.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
From the UC Health Traffic Center u See Health heyos
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Northbound seventy five continues to run close to an extra
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above seventy four to an accident at Town Street. Right

(00:46):
hand side southbound seventy one breakwlights continue between Fieldsirdle and
Red Bank. Northbound four seventy one is getting better into
town coming up next the gang who's probably too humbled
to admit it, but rumor has it. Our next guest
gave MLB come Miss Manfred, a stern talking to which
convinced him to take Pete Rose off the ineligible blist

(01:10):
from the Hall of Faith.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Thank you to the judge.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Cincinnati loves you, Chuck Ingram on fifty five krc the
talk station.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Hey, thirty one five KRCD talk station on the heels
of Congress of MESSI making this my favorite hour of
radio whenever we get him. Back to back Judge Eddenapolitan
and welcome back. And I guess most of Cincinnati is
appreciative of your efforts to get Pete Rose.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
No, yeah, you know it's it's very funny. And Ingram
couldn't possibly meil on this. And by the way, good morning,
Brian's a pleasure to be here. I have been a
fan of Pete Rose since I was a kid. I
met him many times at Fox and I did talk
to Rob Manfred real name MANFREDI to Rob Manfred about this.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
This is about five or six years ago, and he
looked at me.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
He said, Ah, the time might come, Judge, the time
might come, but I can't do anything about it now.
Pete was still alive. I don't take any credit for it,
but I take great joy.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
In it that the.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Sport fans, not only in Cincinnati but everywhere and history
will recognize his unparalleled achievements in baseball unparalleled. You know,
it's interesting, greater than Demaggio. Now that my father in
Heaven book will send a lightning bolt at me for
saying this. But the greatest achievement in baseball Pete Rose

(02:34):
and his number of.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Hits unquestionable point. You cannot say he wasn't the greatest.
It wasn't one of the absolute all time greats of
baseball period in the story. The stats prove it out.
I guess I struggle with this one. I always have
because as a believer in the rules and in law,
as you do, the cardinal rule of baseball is you
don't bet on baseball. And he lied through his teeth

(02:56):
for years and years insisting that he did not do it.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
When he did.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
I used to work for the defense attorney criminal defense
attorney who represented the guy that ultimately blew the whistle
on him, a guy that was placing bets on behalf
of Pete Rose, who, as a law clerk, I knew
advance of everybody that he was doing it, and he
kept flying, and this whole concept of him lying year
after year year, and then finally, man, yeah, I bet
on baseball, but I didn't bet on the Reds. And finally, yeah,
I bet on the Reds, but I never bet against him.

(03:20):
That moving position in an effort to try to get
himself off the permanently band list so he could get
into the Baseball Hall of Fame, which isn't guaranteed even
though he's been removed. But that to me was the
sticking point. You knew the rule going in, you knew
what happened to the Black Sox and what happened to
those players, and yet you did it anyway.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
So I don't know.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
It's the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's not the College
of Cardinals. We're not saying that only Mother Teresa can enter.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
The Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
I know. Should they have taken the heavyweight championship away
from Muhammad Ali because he dives the draft?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
In my opinion, of course not.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, that isn't a cardinal rule of box though. I
mean again, this was a this is a baseball rule.
Since the Black Sox events back in the early nineteen
hundreds when they threw the series. So you know, you knew.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
That's pretty that's pretty serious. But if crime is harmed,
nobody was harmed by what Pete did.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
That I do not have an argument with. And I
know I'm probably a minority in this town, most notably,
but I've been on record year after year and I've
gotten engaged with debates with people over it, So we
don't need to dwell on it. You're happy. I'm many
people in Cincinnati are extraordinarily happy, and that's aokay with me.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yes, I mean I was.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
I was at Yankee Stadium when the Reds played the
Yankees in the World Series.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
I don't remember what year this was.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Pete Rose was playing third base Mickey Rivers, who was
so fast he could get to first before anybody could
throw the ball from third. Pete Rose picks up a
little dribbler and shakes the ball at Mickey's face like,
I'm so good, Mickey, I'm not even going to throw
the ball until you're halfway to first from and he
caught him out.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, there's some great stories and everybody. I remember the
Big Red Machine like it was yesterday because that was
the heyday of baseball here in the city of Cincinnati.
But I must note they also removed from the permanently
banned list all of the Black Sox players too, including
Shoeless Jackson or whatever his name was.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
So I saw the Shoeless Joe from Hannibal.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
No, you know it, You know.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
All right?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Pivoting over. As I always point out, I'm a lucky
man for getting a copy of your column ahead of time.
It comes out tonight at midnight. What if freedom is suspended?
A lot of rhetorical questions built into the column, But
I appreciate it because suspension of the riot of habeas
corpus is an amazingly serious, serious thing. If you remove
habeas corpus, we're all thrown to Franz Kafka's the trial.

(05:49):
We could be held without even knowing why we are
being held. And that is a profound injustice.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Correct, It's a profound injustice.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
It's a violation of your natural right to fairness from
the government, and it's an express violation of the Constitution.
So habeas corpus, for those dwelling on the Latin, is
the principle by which anyone detained by the government whether
it's for spitting on the sidewalk or a mass murder,

(06:18):
can require the party doing the detaining to bring you
to court and justify the detention, so you know the
charges against you, and so a judge is satisfied that
there is it's a real charge, it's not fanciful, and
there's serious evidence against you. Without the right to habeas corpus,
we're back to the divine right of kings, who would

(06:39):
lock up whoever they want, although even these British monarchs
are recognized hadeus corpus because it's in Magna Carta which
was signed in twelve fifteen. But without habeas corpus, we
have that Franz Kafka situation where people can be arrested
without trial and just sitting in a jail cell, not

(06:59):
knowing what the charges are against them, no independent judge
reviewing it. Who and under what circumstances can suspend.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
A price corpus well has.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
Been suspended three times by American presidents, and all three
times the court said, wait a minute, only Congress can
do it, and only Congress can do it when there's
invasion or rebellion.

Speaker 3 (07:24):
That's in the Constitution itself.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
So When Lincoln did it, he was forced to have
Congress authorize it. Then he tried to employ it in
the North, where there was no invasion or rebellion.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Then he was assassinated.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Then the case made its way to the Supreme Court
and they invalidated FDR used it to incarcerate Japanese Americans,
in one of the lowest points in Supreme Court history.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
The court went along with it. Subsequent courts have reversed
that ruling.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
A subsequent Congress condemned it and compensated all the Japanese
America Muricans who were detained.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
George W. Bush attempted to do.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
It right after nine to eleven, saying we were invaded.
Whereupon the lawyer's challenging this said, your honor, I was
in Federal Court in Lower Manhattan on nine to twelve,
the day after nine to eleven, so the courts are
able to sit Therefore, there was no invasion or rebellion,
and the Supreme Court invalidated it. This is very very

(08:29):
dangerous talk in a very very dangerous area. If the
White House thinks it can do this just to facilitate
the removal of unlawfully present persons in the United.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
States, well, this will spread like wildfire.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
This will to transform the country from a democracy to
a monarchy if the White House can pick and choose.
Because they're saying they can pick and choose, they're saying
that they're not going to suspend it for everybody, and
they're saying they're only going to suspend it if they
don't like the way judges rule. I mean, that is
simply a reprehensible attitude which defies, defies the president's obligation

(09:07):
to preserve, protect, and defund the Constitution.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Well, it flies in the face of the purpose of
being able to suspend Habeas corpus in the first instance.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
So, but I guess when you.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Know, Okay, So Congress has defined invasion or rebellion as
a state of affairs so calamitous that the courts can't sit.
Which is why being in court the day after nine
to eleven defeated George W.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Bush's use of it.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
When FDR suspended Habeas corpus just for Japanese Americans just
on the West coast there obviously it was.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
No invasion or rebellion.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
He said he feared an invasion or rebellion, and the
court bought that nonsense.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
It was a very low point in America's history. And
you know, if they can do it to the Japanese Americans.
My father had a dear friend, a golfing buddy his
who was a very small child, and he was put
in an internment camp because he was of Japanese descent.
He was born in America.

Speaker 4 (10:07):
These people were as American as Fdr, as American as
apple Pie. Their ancestors came from Japan. It was one
of the greatest acts of racism outside of slavery, in
American history, and it was done by the hero of
the Liberal Democrats, Franklin Donna Roosevelt.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Well, and I think it boils down to this. If
the person is is incarcerated, they have the habeas corpus
right they go into court. The government should be able
to present evidence on exactly why they got arrested. He's
a criminal. We have the evidence. This is why we
picked him up and locked him up.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's a very simple proceeding. It's taken so seriously. You know,
we have this in New Jersey. If you're in the
middle of.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
A trial, you stop the trial to review the habeas
proceeding because you don't want a person to spend one
minute more in jail, then it's.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Justified under the law.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
You immediately address the habeast proceeding. Now not all judges
do that, but most do, and nearly all will do
it on the same day that.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
They receive the application.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
If the government knows that there's no habeas corpus, then
it knows it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Need evidence in order to arrest. That can arrest whoever the.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Hell it want was right, and that comes down to
the There but for the grace of God go I,
which is why I'm one hundred percent on your side
on this one, no wavering whatsoever, you got evidence, show it.
There's a reason for me to be picked up and
locked up. Tell the judge exactly why. And if you
can't do that, I shouldn't be in a cell, judge,
Editor Politano, appreciate what you do.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Man.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Thanks for the column in advance. I always enjoy reading it,
and I always enjoy your conversations each and every week.
Oh and by the way, right.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
Back at you, Brian go Pete rose into.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
The Hall of Fame, and I forgot to tell you,
Congressman Thomas, And as he did tell me to tell you,
he said, hello, So I'm want to get that out.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Thank you. I love him.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
He is such a defender of the Constitution and very
very few others in the Congress are is opposite number
also from Kentucky, Senator Ranpaul comes to mind.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, he's going to be on the show later this week,
so I'll look forward to having him on as well.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
To give you my best home time family.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Friend, Judge Ennena Palatino until next Wednesday. Have a wonderful week,
my friend. Back at you, Brian, Thank you, Thank you.
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