Consequences | “Prosecution” with Susan Bradley & Bob Norman

Show Notes:

In the final episode of our series on consequences, Eddie and Chris welcome Susan Bradley and Bob Norman, two members of Oxford University United Methodist Church who have extensive experience in the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Mississippi--the opposite side from our previous guest, Merrill Nordstrom.

Susan grew up in Meridian, Mississippi, and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1993 and her law degree from the University of Mississippi in 1996.  Upon graduating from law school, she moved with her husband Patrick to Yuma, Arizona, where he was stationed with the United States Marine Corps. Susan worked as a Deputy County Attorney in Yuma, Arizona before joining the United States Attorney's Office in the District of Arizona in 1998. During her career as a prosecutor, she has worked in Yuma and Phoenix, Arizona and in the U.S. Attorneys' Office for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, Texas. In 2004, she and her family had the opportunity to return to Mississippi where she joined the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Mississippi. She currently serves as the First Assistant United States Attorney and lives in Oxford, where she and Patrick are members of OUUMC. Susan and Patrick have two children: Connor who is a freshman in college and TK, who is a sophomore in high school.

Bob Norman grew up in Oxford and graduated from the University of Mississippi with a B.A. in philosophy. Eleven years in the Marine Corps and a law degree followed. After working in the offices of two district attorneys, Bob settled into the United States Attorney's Office in 1989, where he serves currently as Criminal Chief. Bob, Brenda and their two sons, Neal and Rob are members of O.U. Methodist Church. 

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:01

And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight. Today we're finishing out our consequences series. We're talking with two folks who work in the US Attorney's office here in the Northern District of Mississippi. We're talking with Susan Bradley. She is the First Assistant US Attorney in the criminal division. And then we're talking with her boss, Bob Norman, who is, his title is the Criminal Chief. And he's worked in the US Attorney's office now for 33 years. So these are two folks who really know the work of the US Attorney's Office.

Chris McAlilly 00:33

Yeah, and so we talk about kind of the justice system broadly, and then we get pretty narrow and specific cases, without kind of divulging information about them. We talk about kind of the difficulties and some of the joys of the work and kind of what motivates them to stay in the criminal justice system as the prosecutorial side of it, but also some of the respect that they have for folks that work across across the table on the on the defender side.

Eddie Rester 01:08

I think what these episodes have done for me, and a lot of times we do series, and the different episodes tie together, and sometimes they're kind of spread out. But the three for this one have really helped me begin to see more broadly. It's easy sometimes to take aside or to think, "oh, this has to be this way," or "this has to be that way." And in our system, there's a broad conversation that's happening about all sorts of things. And there's a lot of conversation and give and take between the sides. I think at times, you know, I think, as they talk about, they don't get to offer forgiveness. They have to apply the law. They have to deal with consequences.

Chris McAlilly 01:51

Yeah, I mean, Bob mentioned that he, you know, from their seat, they get to see some of the worst of humanity. And he talks about some of the crimes that they will prosecute. But I think it was Susan, who might have said, or it may have been Bob, that they also get to see victims recover and healing. And they talked about reintegration programs and some different, you know, some things that they see as, you know, what would really be needed if we were going to do the work comprehensively and well. We talked about the lack of a comprehensive mental health system in the state of Mississippi, that would be a huge, huge help to us. And then some other ways in which, you know, there might be ways to kind of continue to round out what we think of as justice.

Eddie Rester 02:42

And I think one of the things we run into at the end is that there's this larger intersection of our lives, sometimes, with the role of the justice system. You're going to hear a little bit about Chris and Bob and their intersection in that as well in a pretty unexpected and unknown way, a couple of years ago when an incident happened. And they got to do what Christians do sometimes, which is sit down, talk about hard things, and discover how much in common their lives really have.

Chris McAlilly 03:14

Yeah, it's a good conversation. And I've, you know, I think there are areas of life that I've thought a whole lot about. And then there are areas I really have never read in or never thought about all that much. And the criminal justice system, just one of those. I didn't go to law school, never wanted to go to law school. But it's important. It's important for understanding how the United States of America functions, and in a lot of ways, like what makes this country really, profoundly good.

Eddie Rester 03:41
And it's faithful people like Bob and Susan who are really helping that happen.

Chris McAlilly 03:48
There's a lot of work that needs to be done. The system is broken a lot of ways but I do think that the humanity of the people in the process, I think is part of what you'll hear today.

Eddie Rester 03:59

[INTRO] Life can be heavy. We carry around with us the weight of our doubt, our pain, our suffering, our mental health, our family system, our politics. This is a podcast that creates space for all of that.

Chris McAlilly 04:10

We want to talk about these things with humility, charity, and intellectual honesty. But more than that, we want to listen. It's time to open up our echo chamber. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Eddie Rester 04:25

We're here today with Bob Norman and Susan Bradley. They work in the US Attorney's office here in Oxford, but also are church members here and friends of ours. And we're just thankful that y'all are spending some time with us today.

Susan Bradley 04:42 We're excited to be here.

Chris McAlilly 04:44
I like doing these in person. This is so much better than on the Zoom. I don't like the Zoom as much. This, just having people in the room is better.

Eddie Rester 04:51

Yeah, it's been good the last couple of times to have some folks who were local to talk to us. So this is part of a series that we're doing about consequences. We talked with someone who's a theologian that got to befriend someone on death row in Georgia, the only female on death row in Georgia and talked with her about that experience. And then we talked with a Federal Public Defender on our previous episode. Y'all have a different role in the system. So explain just for those of us who may not be familiar. People hear the word "US attorney "or "US Attorney's Office," and it's kind of this thing that just you hear, but you may not know what it means. So what is it that you do? What's your role in the justice system in the US?

Susan Bradley 05:32

Well, just to start off with a few basics. There are 93 US Attorneys Offices across the country. Usually there's one or two in each state. In Mississippi, we have one for the Northern District, one for the Southern District. Our office basically has two sides. We have a civil side. And those attorneys handle suits involving federal agencies, bankruptcies, those type things, social security matters. And then we have a criminal division. And Bob and I both work in the criminal division. And we are tasked with prosecuting violations of federal crimes.

Eddie Rester 06:10

So sometimes people don't, and I know for me, sometimes I don't get the division, but there are federal crimes and there are state crimes. So give us some examples of things that you would prosecute as a federal crime.

Bob Norman 06:24

Well, Eddie, I made a list of them because otherwise I would forget. Probably the thing we see most are drug crimes. We don't prosecute possession, but we do prosecute drug distribution, drug conspiracies, possession with intent to distribute large quantities of drugs. We prosecute firearms violations. And by that, I mean possession of firearms by prior convicted felons, use of firearms and violent crimes, explosives and arson. Exploitation of children, unfortunately, is a big part of what we do, that involves perhaps the production of child pornography, but also interstate travel, to have sex with a child, human trafficking where a minor is forced into prostitution.

Bob Norman 07:19

Unfortunately, there's a lot more of that than most people would think. Violent crimes that occur on federal property, interstate kidnapping, robberies of places that are involved in interstate commerce, not just any armed robbery, there needs to be an interstate aspect. Unless the statute specifically exempts us from that, like, for example, in drugs. Program fraud, right now we're seeing a lot of Paycheck Protection Program fraud, literally thousands of cases in the Northern District involving billions of dollars.

Chris McAlilly 08:00 Wow.

Bob Norman 08:02

RICO cases. We've had a couple of those. We've got one going on right now involving racketeering. Sam Stringfellow is prosecuting a case involving the Simon City Royals gang. Scott Leary just finished a year or so ago dismantling the Aryan Brotherhood in Mississippi. We do civil rights cases. Like, for example, the desecration of the Meredith statue on campus a few years ago, which didn't seem like that big a deal to me until I talked to some of the African American students at Ole Miss who were scared to go to class, who were scared to walk home to the dorm at night after that. We prosecute under the civil rights umbrella police officers that sexually abused people or steal money from people in custody or unnecessarily assault people.

Bob Norman 08:58

Threats that come in by some means of interstate, some instrumentality of interstate commerce. Unfortunately, school threats are a big part of that. Terrorism, we don't do a lot of that in the Northern District of Mississippi, but we have had several cases of material aid to terrorist organizations. And finally, a miscellaneous group of cases. Most notable right now, I guess, is being the crash of the Marine C-130 over Sunflower County several years ago, that's being investigated as to whether there was criminal negligence involved in the maintenance of the aircraft. That's just a thumbnail sketch.

Susan Bradley 09:44 That's a good list.

Eddie Rester 09:44
That's a good, that's a pretty wide list.

Bob Norman 09:47 It's a wide variety.

Eddie Rester 09:48 Wide variety of things, so.

Chris McAlilly 09:51

I wonder if y'all could go back and just talk about--I mean, so that kind of gives you a sketch of the current state of your work--I wonder if you could go back and maybe just talk about how you got into it. Like, why did you, when you were younger say, "You know what I think? I think I want to be an attorney." And and then ultimately how what led your career path in this direction.

Susan Bradley 10:15

For me, I think that it was probably due to a defining event in my adolescence. We had a family friend and neighbor that was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. And the individual responsible for that was ultimately convicted of another person's murder and served time for that. They were initially convicted of her murder, but the verdict was overturned. And on a retrial, he was acquitted. That had a big impact on me. I felt like the criminal justice system did not work there. And it really shaped me into my adolescence and how I looked at things. So I think always thought I wanted to go to law school and be a prosecutor.

Susan Bradley 10:55

And going into law school and even coming out of law school, I had very black-and-white ideas about justice and crime. I guess it wasn't until I started actually doing the job that I realized it's not nearly as black and white as I thought. There's all shades of black, white, and gray and everything in between. So the job is very different than what I expected when I decided I want to be prosecutor.

Chris McAlilly 11:23
Sounds like ministry. It's a lot different than I thought it would be.

Eddie Rester 11:27

I want to come back to that in just a minute, talk a little bit about the shades of black, gray, and white. And I think that as we move to the conversation as well, but, Bob, what about you? What led you into this work?

Bob Norman 11:36

My story is not as good as that. I never wanted to be a lawyer. The truth is, I was in the Marine Corps. I was sitting in the rain overseas with a laminated map over my head when I got a letter from my ex-wife, saying if you don't change the way you make a living, I'm leaving. And I thought, well, I don't know what else I can do with a philosophy degree. So I applied for law school. Barely made it in. But that's my sad story.

Eddie Rester 12:09
That's your sad story. But you've done this now for 33 years, so there's something that's kept you in this.

Bob Norman 12:16

There is something that keeps, I think those of us who do it, keep us in it. On the downside, I think we see the worst of humanity. On the upside, you do have the benefit of trying to help victims recover something of their lives. And there are very few really victimless crimes. We talk about drugs being victimless. It's not victimless. Anybody who's had a family member addicted knows that that's not a victimless crime. And just very recently, we've had to deal with parents who've lost children to the current epidemic. But being able to try to help victims through the criminal justice system is rewarding. So I guess for me it comes down to if I have to practice law, this is the only way I know how to do it.

Eddie Rester 13:06
This is the only way you want to do it.

Chris McAlilly 13:08

Talk a little bit, because you're both also people of faith and practicing Christians, so it's not just a job that you do as a profession, but it's also, how do you think about the intersection of your life, your faith and your work?

Susan Bradley 13:29

You know, there's a number of ways to look at it. I think, as a Christian, and as a prosecutor, it's not my job to forgive criminal conduct. But being a Christian does impact how I do the job. And one thing is, it's always my goal to treat everybody fairly and with dignity. And I think the golden rule that we use all the time, do unto others as you would have done to you, is very much at play in our job as prosecutors. I want to approach each case and treat that offender as I would want to be treated if I were on that side of the courtroom.

Bob Norman 14:11

I tell the younger prosecutors that I supervise, "You're going to make mistakes. I know that because I've made most of them." And that's okay. As long as your heart's in the right place, as long as you're trying to do the right thing, I don't have a problem with you making mistakes. When we make mistakes, we need to acknowledge them. But I think going back to what Susan said, we have an obligation to treat people fairly, to treat them with dignity. Forgiveness, as I see it, is... I think, to me, forgiveness is between the defendant, the victim, and God. I think my obligation, Susan's obligation is to be fair as we impose man's law. And I go back to--and I certainly don't want to get into biblical discussion with two ministers, I'd lose that one in a heartbeat--but I think it goes back to Christ saying, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God, what is God's."

Eddie Rester 15:19

You know, I think one of the things I think about along those lines is there's forgiveness for the act, but that doesn't sometimes free someone from the consequences of the act. And that sometimes is, in our world, is hard for people. That's the hard wrestling match, I think sometimes. Does forgiveness always release people from all consequences or not? And I think that in y'all's world, I think you said it correctly, Bob, that there's this matter of forgiveness is between the victim, the person who committed the crime, God, but there are consequences involved.

Eddie Rester 16:00

Susan earlier, and I know you said you've realized that there's black and different shades of black and white, shades of white, and different shades of grey. How has that mentality, the black and white, shades of white, and different shades of grey. How has that mentality, the conversation around consequences, how has that begun to change over time, as you've realized, it's not just black and white?

Susan Bradley 16:20

I think it's changed for me, both as a prosecutor and then as a parent and how I approach cases, because, you know, people commit crimes, and it's my job to hold them accountable, I guess, for the law that's been violated. But there's rarely just a single story, a black-and-white answer. Yes, the law may have been violated. But when you look at people, you look at their backgrounds. You look at the whole of the person. There's so many factors and so many things that come into play, you know, that we're looking at that are in front of us in any prosecution.

Susan Bradley 17:03
I used to think, I guess, maybe people were good, maybe they were bad. And there's all in between. Good people do bad things all the time. We all do.

Eddie Rester 17:13 Right.

Susan Bradley 17:13
And so, you know, over the years, I guess my understanding of that has developed more.

Eddie Rester 17:21 Yeah.

Susan Bradley 17:21 I don't know. Bob?

Bob Norman 17:24

Well, I think, I don't know, I think this is related to your question, Eddie, I don't think a prosecutor has total discretion. I can't decide to just disregard a criminal statute because I don't agree with it. On the other hand, we do, every day, decide whether or not a particular offense falls within that statutory prohibition, and whether it's appropriate to prosecute. And I'll give you a quick example: one of the things we see quite often is possession of fire arms by prior convicted felons. If we get a case--and our agents are good enough, I don't think we would--but if we get a case in looking at a 60-year-old man who's bird hunting on the back 40 acres of his farm with a 20-gauge shotgun, and he has a non-violent conviction 40 years ago, we're not going to prosecute him.

Eddie Rester 18:19 Right.

Bob Norman 18:20

On the other hand, if it's a young man tearing up a bar, and shooting up a bar, yes, we're gonna prosectue him. And so that kind of discretion, I think, requires some thought. We're not God. We can't decide not to prosecute a whole... Let's say, I don't agree with a particular statute. I don't think anybody has given us the right to just say we're not prosecuting that.

Eddie Rester 18:47 Right.

Bob Norman 18:48
But we do have the ability and the obligation to decide when it's appropriate under a given statute and when it's not.

Eddie Rester 18:55 You use wisdom.

Susan Bradley 18:56

Yeah. And, you know, as prosecutors, principles of fairness and ethical concerns always come into play. So sometimes, you know, we may see that a particular statute has been violated or a law has been broken. But if there's something in the investigation that calls into question fairness, ethics, you know, sometimes we may not charge that case. And there was an incident recently where an individual clearly had committed an offence, but we watched a video of the officer and that individual and while the officer's interactions maybe didn't rise to the level of criminal conduct, they were so appalling that we didn't feel like we could prosecute that offense or that person for that offense.

Susan Bradley 19:40

And I'm not saying that we don't sometimes charge things and then find out later that there were problems with the investigation, and sometimes Merrill is great at finding those and bringing them out in court, and, you know, that certainly happens. But we try to spot those on the front end and that would certainly play a part in our charging decision, you know, if there's something that we were aware of ahead of time.

Chris McAlilly 20:05 You referenced. Oh, sorry.

Bob Norman 20:06 No, go ahead.

Chris McAlilly 20:07

Yeah, you referenced Merrill, who if you're just kind of dropping into this episode, and you haven't been listening to the last couple ones, you might not know who Merrill is. Merrill Nordstrom, we had a conversation with her. She's a public defender here in the northern part of Mississippi, and is often on the other side of cases and of the conversation in a kind of adversarial system that we have. And I wonder, you know, how you guys think about that? We talked a little bit about this before we got started recording. How do you think about public defenders? How do you think about kind of the adversarial system that we have in a democracy and the justice system as it's set up?

Susan Bradley 20:48

That's another thing that's really changed for me once I started doing the job, because before I was a prosecutor, I thought, "Those defense attorneys," you know, they were the evil beings in my mind. And then I started working as an assistant district attorney out in Arizona. And, you know, those were the individuals that I would meet after work to hang out with on Friday afternoon. But in the courtroom, Merrill has a job to do, you know. And we have a job to do. Her job is different than our job, but the interests are not always different. Often our interests are the same. I mean, we're all interested in seeing that justice is done. We may disagree on the law. And we often do, but, you know, at times, as I said, Merrill will bring up things we didn't know about an investigation. Sometimes we agree completely on the facts.

Bob Norman 21:37
I think we're really lucky in the Northern District. We have a... The defense bar is easy to work with, easy to get along with. We fight in the courtroom, but there's a degree of collegiality.

Susan Bradley 21:52 And respect.

Bob Norman 21:53

And it has accrued to the benefit of defendants in several cases. I remember Dave Bell, who was a defense attorney, calling me one day and saying, "Bob, I know you hear this all the time. But my client didn't do this." And I said, "Well, okay, David, tell me what do you what do you mean?" And he said, "Well, he was at work at a factory in West Point when this happened. And if you'll go talk to them, they'll tell you he was at work. And by the way, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I think you might ought to look at his twin brother."

Bob Norman 22:30

So, I go to the factory, and sure enough, this defendant that was working that day. And we'd already arrested him. He was in jail. He'd been in jail for two or three days. But we went immediately before the magistrate, asked to dismiss charges, and did the only thing I can do at that point, and that is apologize to the defendant for the mistake. And his brother ended up pleading guilty to it. But, you know, along those lines, we do make mistakes. We try not to, but we do make mistakes and I've twice dismissed cases in the middle of trial with the jury in the box, when I realized that, hey, this is not what I thought it was. And I think that's kind of what makes the job satisfying.

Chris McAlilly 23:12

I wonder, you've mentioned several, the two of you both have mentioned several things I would think of as core values or a set of, I guess, virtues that you need to do the work that you're doing well. One of them is fairness, you know, fairness, equity in the process. One is discretion. I think learning how to have the wisdom to practice discretion well is really hard. That's interesting. You mentioned collegiality as being an important value or virtue within the bar. What are some of the other core values or some of the other virtues that you think are necessary to do the work that you do well?

Susan Bradley 23:53

Let me just speak to those two, because when you're talking about collegiality and discretion, you know, when we say we have discretion in our charging decisions, but that's a decision that I'm almost never going to make by myself.

Eddie Rester 24:09 Right.

Susan Bradley 24:10

I'm going to consult with Bob, I'm going to consult with the other prosecutors in the office. So I think it's important having that atmosphere--people you work with and that you trust, you trust their judgment, so that you're not making decisions on your own. You can get opinions from other people because you know, sometimes, even among people doing the same job, opinions can differ. Bob and I disagree all the time on things, and it's helpful for me to be able to bat things back and forth with him as we're getting ready to charge a case about what's fair, what's not, what's right, what's not.

Bob Norman 24:46
She's not at all bashful about telling me when I'm wrong.

Eddie Rester 24:48 Is that so?

Bob Norman 24:49
Yep. And that's helpful. It really is.

Eddie Rester 24:53

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I think about, I'm thinking back about the adversarial system a little bit more, is that often we tend to, you know, Susan, you said you always, the prosecutorial side is how you've always seen it, and learning to appreciate the other side. And often we get lodged in one side of that or the other I think as humans. As humans, it's just what we d. We feel more akin to maybe the defendant's side or the prosecutor's side. But when I think about our system, I think about the importance of the balance of that. And I think in these conversations these last few weeks, that's really been one of the things that's really, for me, come to the fore, about how our system works. As you think about other aspects of our system that you say, "I hope people understand how important this is to our system of justice in the United States," what are some other pieces of it that you think are just significant?

Bob Norman 26:00

Let me mention one thing. I've been hearing a lot lately criticism of the judicial system regarding mass incarceration, principally among minorities. And at first I was, I didn't understand what that meant. And I was a little offended by it, because it sounded like we would round up 50 people and send them all to the penitentiary. It doesn't work that way. They all get a lawyer, they all get a trial if they want it. But then in discussing that with one of our African American prosecutors, the light came on for me. It's not so much the charging decisions or the the trial, it's sentencing.

Bob Norman 26:37

And I hearken back to my days as a state DA. The state does not have sentencing guidelines. And so sentencing was completely up to the whims of the particular judge that you happen to be in front of. And I remember distinctly seeing defendants sentenced very differently for the same crime dependent upon whether they're white or African American, whether or not they come from a quote unquote, good family.

Bob Norman 27:08

And that, I think, is what we're talking about, really, when we talk about mass incarceration. That's always going to be a problem, because any judge is going to be human. And people tend to sympathize with people that look like themselves or think like themselves. But there are guidelines that are put in place to try to lessen the impact of that. The federal sentencing guidelines, many find it objectionable, because it's a mathematical formula. But having seen the system that doesn't have guidelines, I think it's a really good idea. Because nowhere in the guidelines does it factor in race, or whether you come from a good family, or from a single mom, or from whatever your background is. Now, it does create a range within which the judge is supposed to sentence. So there's still some room for...

Eddie Rester 28:03 Wisdom and discretion.

Bob Norman 28:04
Yes, or bias, as the case may be. But it helps.

Susan Bradley 28:10

So it looks at a person's criminal history on one side, and then it looks at the particular offense. And each offense is given what we call an offense level. So if your crime is, you know, I don't know, possession of a firearm by a felon, you've got a particular offense level, and then based on your criminal history, the judge is given a range with which to sentence you. So I'm with Bob. I think that makes a huge difference.

Bob Norman 28:36

And that's a 30 or 40 page document. It also goes into the defendant's employment status, his relationships with family members. All of that's available to the judge when the judge sentences.

Chris McAlilly 28:49

It seems like, I mean, I think it's interesting that one of the things that kind of changed the calculus for you was when you had a conversation with an African American colleague here. I do think there is some, you know, there's some logic to having representation in positions of power and authority. And that that does kind of, you know, it gives you a different angle based on your background and your particular life story and your history.

Chris McAlilly 29:21

I wonder, you know, you've mentioned a couple times just mistakes, you know, things that have been difficult in the job. What are some other--and I'm not talking about things that you feel like you got wrong or right--but I know it's also painful. There's a lot of... Because there's a painful and difficult dimension, I think of, every job. Everybody carries the weight and responsibility and the stress and suffering of their part of society. What are some of the other things that have been difficult, painful within the work and then what are some of the things that brought you the most joy?

Susan Bradley 29:53

As for painful things, I mean, it's always painful to see victims and the pain of victims, because most of them didn't ask to be in the situation they're in. They couldn't have imagined it before it happened. And so that's an obvious painful part of the job. But for me, it's also very painful to watch the pain of offenders' families. We had a public service announcement years ago that said, "when you're sentenced to prison, your family does the time with you." And I think that's very true. In most cases, if you've got a family member going to prison, that's life-changing for everybody in the family, especially the immediate family.

Susan Bradley 30:31

And so, you know, day in and day out, we see the pain from the offender's family. I've sat down with many parents of offenders. And once I became a parent, that became harder, you know, for a parent who, suddenly their child has found themselves in a situation where they've done something, they're charged with a federal crime, the parent could have never imagined that their child would do this, or that this would happen. You know, those are very painful times.

Susan Bradley 31:01

We have had prosecutions involving members of our church. You know, Bob, and I would not work on a prosecution if it was an individual that we had a close association with. That would be a conflict of interest. But, you know, oftentimes, we have prosecuted individuals in the community or a church that we see, and we see their families everyday. That's very painful, because you see what's happening to the family and how that's impacted them.

Chris McAlilly 31:26
Part of where we are, it's a small town.

Susan Bradley 31:28 It is.

Bob Norman 31:34

I think ewhat's painful to me is watching the lack of a mental health system. I don't want... There are mental health professionals out there who are working hard, doing the best they can. But the state as a whole does not really have a comprehensive system to address mental health issues. And so they end up in our court.

Eddie Rester 31:55 Right.

Bob Norman 31:56

And we're not trained in that regard. So we apply the criminal law, because that's all we have. Right now, and I guess we ought not to get into ongoing cases. So I'll talk in general terms, but we have a murder, the murder of a federal employee. The family, of course is, as you would expect, completely devastated by it. The defendant in that case, was acting in a bizarre way for a couple of days. The investigation showed that for several days, what he'd been doing made no sense at all. And so along with the defense, we requested a mental health examination. Our own experts at the Bureau of Prisons, who are board-certified forensic psychologists, have rendered an opinion that he was not mentally responsible on the day he murdered this federal employee. And so we can't really prove otherwise. So explaining to the family who lost a loved one, that we can't convict this man of murder, because he was insane, legally insane at the time of the offense, that's painful. And they'll never accept that. There's no way you can explain that to them that satisfactory.

Susan Bradley 33:16

And there are so many shortfalls in the mental health system--again, I'm not casting shade, because there are a lot of people that work in that system that do a phenomenal job--but there are so many shortfalls in both law and in the system itself, you know, where we've missed whole segments of society.

Eddie Rester 33:33

Occasionally, in fact, I was reading, I think this past week, someone sitting in a Mississippi prison, state, maybe a county jail, been there for several years, awaiting a bed at the state mental health hospital, because we just don't have the state resources to help that person in there. Yeah, I know, y'all.

And Mississippi is really just a small town. I mean, the whole state is so interconnected.

Bob Norman 33:56

And if I'm committed to the state hospital, at Whitfield, because I'm schizophrenic, they take me for two weeks, they pump me full of antipsychotic medications, and they send me home and say, "remember to take your medication." And then I quickly realize that the medication keeps me awake at night. It makes me impotent. It makes me hard to get along with. I quit taking it.

Chris McAlilly 34:19 Right.

Bob Norman 34:20
I'm right back where I was.

Chris McAlilly 34:21

And I feel like that's where, you know, where you get into a conversation, talking to someone like Merrill or somebody who's on the public defender side. And so then you start talking about what are the broad political or policy decisions that can be made at the state or the federal level that would help? And then you get into all these questions about that. I mean, it all comes down to brass tacks and how are we spending money.

Chris McAlilly 34:44

And I feel like, you know, I think that's where I hear in the conversation, that kind of mass incarceration question comes up. We're spending a ton of money incarcerating people, and I think Merrill actually said while we were on the conversation that you know, "What if we put that money over here?" And it's just, it is so complex. The problems are so wicked. And I guess the thing that I just lament in the whole thing is the lack of trust across the board that would allow us to come to the table for a real conversation that would lead to any kind of constructive policy decisions on the state level. It just, it seems fundamentally impossible.

Bob Norman 35:20

And Chris, we can't get to the real conversations in many cases. And I'll give you an example. And this is going to be a little bit controversial. But when we start looking at the percentages of Caucasian and African Americans incarcerated, the figures don't add up. It doesn't match the demography of the country. And so we immediately are told to assume that the system is racist. That shouldn't have happened that way. We don't get to the next possible question. And that is, well, what if African American citizens do commit more crimes per capita? Then we could ask, why is that? But we can't get there, because we have to cut the conversation off at the first juncture, because it appears to be racist. But the real question in my mind is, why would that be true? And you end up looking at socio-economic factors, lack of availability of jobs, educational differences. But we've gotten to the point in the country where we can't have a real conversation. Everything is a little more superficial than it should be.

Chris McAlilly 36:32

Yeah, I think that that's absolutely the case. I just, you know, I remember, Amy Coney Barrett's supreme--I mean, so we're in the midst of a Supreme Court culture war. It's basically the supreme culture wars happening once again. And I feel like every time there's a Supreme Court justice that comes up, President Trump put forward a couple and then we have one that President Biden's put put up, and I don't know, I turn on those hearings and then I turned them off. You know, and as a young person, a young person who's grown up in America, I love being a part of this country. I love every... You know, we took our family to St. Louis to the National Park and got a passport and my kids are so excited to get every single national park in the entire country. So that's what we're headed for, God willing, but I just, I don't know. I just... The brokenness is so, so complex, and the layers that would lead to something like the kind of constructive conversation that would allow us to get into a solution frame of mind, it just doesn't seem possible. And I just lament it.

Eddie Rester 37:44 I think...

Chris McAlilly 37:45 Fun times.

Eddie Rester 37:46

Fun times. But I think that leads me to one of the questions that I want us to think about is that in the midst of a system that is imperfect--it's got humans in it. It's going to be imperfect. Where do you see grace in it? Where do you see that thread that begins to say, "there is goodness working even in a broken system, even a system that we don't have all the answers to?"

Bob Norman 38:14

Susan, I gotta jump in front of you on that one. I have a burning response. One of my favorite stories. A previous United States Attorney was Felicia Adams. Felicia is African American. We were looking at the civil rights violation that occurred on campus with the Meredith statue. Three young men, white, Caucasian males, were implicated in that crime. One asked for leniency in the sense that instead of being charged with a felony, he asked would we consider charging him with a misdemeanor? And my response was, "No, I'm not gonna do that. But you can talk to the US Attorney about it."

Bob Norman 38:59

So through his counsel, he did, he asked for a meeting with the US Attorney. The defendant, his counsel show up. The FBI agent is there, Felicia Adams, US Attorney, and Felicia said to defense attorney, "I want to talk to your client." And defense counsel was not used to that. Really, he wanted to answer the questions. And she said, "No, if we're going to meet, I really want to talk, not to you, but to your client." And he finally said, okay.

Bob Norman 39:28

And she said, "Mr. So-and-so, I want you to think about something. You've asked for leniency. You've asked for a misdemeanor, because a felony will ruin your future. And so I'm considering that. But I want you to consider something. The President of the United States right now is African American. The Attorney General is African American. As you can see, sitting across the table from me, I'm African American. The FBI agent sitting across the table is African American. You apparently showed, at least one night in your life, showed a hatred for African Americans. And now you're asking those same people for leniency. And I want you to think about that, because I'm going to grant you that leniency. I'm going to let the prosecutors charge with a misdemeanor, not a felony so it won't ruin your life. Now, get up off your butt and come give me a hug."

Bob Norman 40:20
And I thought, Wow, that's pretty impressive. And that's my best story of grace. Grace doesn't

figure into our job a whole lot, because judges sentence. We don't.

Eddie Rester 40:31 Right.

Bob Norman 40:33
But I thought Felicia exercised a lot of grace that day.

Eddie Rester 40:37
Absolutely. Absolutely. Susan, what about you? Where do you see?

Susan Bradley 40:40

I see grace at work all the time when we see victims forgive offenders for crimes. You know, one of the best examples that comes to my mind was not a local, but the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston. You know, you look at those family members of those victims who went to court and offered forgiveness to the young man who committed that heinous crime and I'm thinking if my mother or father or sister had been gunned down while they were at their place of worship by someone that they had welcomed into that building, could I go into court and...

Susan Bradley 41:14 Offer that publicly.

Susan Bradley 41:15

offer that forgiveness? I don't know if I could. So we see that, I think, a lot as prosecutors, but you know, I also see it at work. Our office is fortunate to be a part of some re-entry programs where we're trying to help reintegrate offenders into the community, and that's a team of individuals. That's Merrill's office, the Federal Public Defender's Office. That's the US Attorney's Office. That's the court and it's probation. But it also relies on community members and church leaders and social service providers. So when I see community members and people coming out to work with those programs, and to try to help those offenders, you know, that's a great example of grace at work in my mind: people that are volunteering their time to come in, just with the hope of being able to help somebody reintegrate and get their life back on track.

Bob Norman 41:45
And being a Neanderthal, I said that that wouldn't work, but it has.

Eddie Rester 42:13

You know, I think that there, as we think about the work of the justice system, extending beyond just the crime, and then the court trial, and then the sentencing. If justice can continue to spread outward from that into reentry programs, I think we talked a little bit with Merrill about drug courts, and their impact. Also something that a lot of people said never gonna work. That's not gonna work. And yet, it does have a higher rate of success. And so, you know, I wonder if maybe that's part of the grace that begins to spread. How do we continue to grow the work, maybe into areas that we haven't thought of before? So that as we think about disparities in sentencing sometimes, or we think about, you know, even mistakes along the way, that grace begins to grow a little bit.

Chris McAlilly 43:11

I remember a time where I experienced grace from you, Bob, you know. There was a particular time where I preached a sermon, it was early in my ministry, and I don't even remember what it was. But this is what I remember.

Bob Norman 43:26
And I'm still sorry about the way I reacted to that.

Chris McAlilly 43:28
Well, here's the thing. What happened, this is what happened, is it opened up a conversation

where we were able to... I'm sorry.

Bob Norman 43:41

I developed a lot of respect for Chris, after that. I reacted emotionally. The sermon had to do with the FBI, and I'm going to exaggerate a little, bursting into the church, in I believe Boston to arrest an undocumented alien. And I basically said, "Chris, it doesn't work that way." I wasn't that nice, but I said, "Chris, it doesn't work that way."

Chris McAlilly 44:05
But I was exposing my ignorance, too, right. I didn't fully understand. And it was a story that I

was picking up secondhand. It wasn't a story that I knew, but it did open up a conversation.

Bob Norman 44:15 It did.

Chris McAlilly 44:16
Yeah. And so, but here's what happened in that. What I found out in that was something I didn't know... I'm sorry.

Eddie Rester 44:28 It's okay. It's okay.

Chris McAlilly 44:31 I'm sorry.

Bob Norman 44:40
Well, let me fill in a little bit. Well, what I should have explained more nicely to Chris is it if the FBI went into a church to arrest an undocumented alien, he had committed...

Susan Bradley 44:56 He was a terrorist.

Bob Norman 44:57 He was a terrorist.

Chris McAlilly 44:58 Yep.

Bob Norman 44:59
Or he had committed some offense much more egregious than just coming across the border without the proper paperwork.

Bob Norman 45:05 Right.

Bob Norman 45:05
I wasn't as nice as I should have been.

Chris McAlilly 45:07

But here's the thing, and you were gracious in that. But the reason I'm crying is because my first cousin was shot and killed in Tupelo. He was a police officer. And what I didn't know, I just didn't know you were a part of investigating that. I didn't, you know, I didn't even have that lens. And, um...

Bob Norman 45:32

It's okay.

Bob Norman 45:32

What I remember about that, Chris, is that was a completely unnecessary murder of a police officer, a gratuitous murder of a police officer.

Susan Bradley 45:41 On Christmas Eve,

Bob Norman 45:42

I spent Christmas Eve in the command center in Tupelo that year, and I remember thinking, how could this possibly be worse than to have the officer gratuitously murdered, right here at Christmas time? But yeah, so I had...

Susan Bradley 46:00
And when you talk about the hard part of this job, and we're talking about the pain of victims' families, I mean, that pain, you know, lasts.

Susan Bradley 46:08 For years.

Eddie Rester 46:08 Lingers.

Eddie Rester 46:08 It lingers.

Bob Norman 46:09 It does.

Susan Bradley 46:10

You know, for some people, that's never going to go away. I mean, that's always a defining event for you. It's something that's going to be painful for you and your family, now, and years to come.

Chris McAlilly 46:21

I guess the thing that I became aware of through that is, you know, what I saw in that, in that moment, when that happened to our family, is the way in which just the community, the entire community in north Mississippi, and across the state, came out in support, and you were part of that. And I didn't see that. And, you know, we have gotten to know one another on a different level. And I think, you know, that your willingness to have a conversation with me, it really, you know, it just gave me a different perspective. I saw saw a complex... There's a whole system that works behind the scenes to provide order, safety, security, and to be there when something egregious does happen. And you guys are part of that. And I don't know, I grew in my respect for both of you in the way that you handled that. And it continued to just... I'm just grateful for the work that you do.

Susan Bradley 47:36

No one wants to live in a lawless society, you know, that wouldn't work. And so sometimes we may take issues with different laws, different prosecutions, prosecutions of different people, we may have issues with those particular prosecutions or how they're conducted. But I feel like that the feeling is uniform, that there have to be laws, and they have to be enforced. Otherwise, no one would want to live in this society.

Eddie Rester 48:04
We'll keep getting better. We'll keep talking about mistakes. And we'll keep getting better.

Bob Norman 48:07
I think talking's important.

Chris McAlilly 48:09

Well, we ought to do--you were talking about getting into a conversation about the Bible. We ought to do that sometime. And we should read the book of Exodus. The reason is, because you have liberation, you know, you have a group of people who were enslaved.

Eddie Rester 48:23 They get freedom.

Chris McAlilly 48:24

They get freedom. But if you read through the book, God provides them with law and order. And so anyway. The conversation could go on.

Eddie Rester 48:35
We appreciate y'all so, so much, taking time. I know y'all are incredibly busy and had stuff to do today. But thank you all for coming and being with us today. Appreciate y'all.

Susan Bradley 48:43 Thanks for inviting us.

Bob Norman 48:43 Thanks for the invitation.

Chris McAlilly 48:44 Thank y'all.

Eddie Rester 48:45
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 48:53

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]