The Story and Inception Of The Fair fight Initiative – Episode 9 Featuring David Utter
Linda Franks:
This is the Fair Fight Initiative Podcast brought to you by the Fair Fight Initiative, a nonprofit organization that crowdsources litigation to end mass incarceration. I’m Linda Franks, the executive director of the Fair Fight Initiative in Baton Rouge.
Dave Kartunen:
And I’m Dave Kartunen of the Fair Fight Initiative in Boston.
Linda Franks:
This is the season finale of the Fair Fight Initiative Podcast, but not the end.
Dave Kartunen:
Not the end. Not the end. We’re going to have a summer brew. It’s the summer brew.
Linda Franks:
We will have more on our amazing plans for the summer coming up. But first, Dave stop me if you’ve heard this before, and I know you probably have. Buffalo. Buffalo, New York. So first of all, I just want to start by saying my heart and my thoughts and my prayers are just with the community, specifically with the families of those that were murdered. But with my community. It is triggering and it’s traumatic when you hear of this 18 year old man coming in, driving over 200 miles because he wanted to kill as many Black people as he possibly could. He wanted to make sure that he got into a place that was predominantly Black.
Dave Kartunen:
And for no other reason, right?
Linda Franks:
I mean, this is what we’re hearing from his manifesto. I think some 180 pages, right? And not only that, but he made credible threats against the school. So this is a man, an 18 year old who this is not an outlier for him. This is something that he has been into and delving into, and has made no excuse about his views and his intentions. So I understand he’s undergone a psychiatric evaluation. And I’m not making light of this guys, but that’s the scenario we hear when a white man kills-
Dave Kartunen:
Only when a white person. Yes.
Linda Franks:
Then he’s got to be crazy. Right?
Dave Kartunen:
Otherwise, if they’re brown or Black, they’re a monster.
Linda Franks:
Right. Yes.
Dave Kartunen:
If they’re white, they must be crazy. And as a person who suffers from mental illness, I take deep issue with that.
Linda Franks:
Yeah. I’m right there with you. I’m right there with you. I have issues of my own that I own, that I’m receiving help and counseling with. And I encourage all of my people to do that. But yeah, that’s their first line of defense. I think even going so far as to say that it was because of COVID, that he was isolated and all of these things. But I was listening to a young lady that made a point, and I’m going to highlight this point here. She said that when you talk about privilege, and I’m speaking specifically to white mothers now. Think about the fact that you get a pass when your son is a mass murderer. But for Black women, if our children steal a car, if they steal a cigar, right? If they are walking home with a pack of Skittles yeah.
Dave Kartunen:
Where are the parents?
Linda Franks:
Where are the parents? What kind of mother is this? What kind of programs are helping you not to unfortunately, and I don’t want to demonize and I refuse to, but I had to make that point of helping you to raise men who are not going out and shooting, and falling victim to these racist ideologies, and acting out on it in domestic terrorism.
Dave Kartunen:
And let’s talk about these ideologies for a second. Because this is something, not only is this a problem that does not happen in any other civilized nation, which of course is the access that an 18 year old can get to an assault rifle and body armor, even after making credible threats against his school and detailing mutilating cats, and posting a 180 page manifesto online. But that he was fed this great replacement theory. Right? That he was fed this great replacement theory by seriously mainstream sources. I mean, of course he was on 4chan and all that stuff, but you don’t need to go to 4chan to find great replacement theory. You just need to tune into Fox News channel at 9:00 at night, or at 8:00 at night, or at 7:00 at night, or at 10:00 at night to listen to replacement theory regarding immigrants, and brown people, and Black people. To buy into this ideology and to act upon it is not a consequence of one person’s mental illness or mental health. It is a phenomenon that only happens on the extreme right. There is no left wing violent terror, domestic terrorism. There is not.
Dave Kartunen:
And we tolerate it. This society has tolerated it. And one side has weaponized it as a political force for votes and perhaps for the unraveling of our democracy to say nothing of the countless Black and brown lives in El Paso and Buffalo. Jewish lives in Pittsburgh, and Sikh lives in Milwaukee. And count them. They’re everywhere. They’re all over this country. And in no other civilized country in the world does this happen. And to the journalists who do not appear on Fox News channel during prime time, but who show up in Buffalo for 48 to 72 hours to exploit Black grief and then leave, I would ask you to ask the difficult questions of the politicians who are propagating this theory. Ask yourselves what it is that you’re doing, because I’ve covered these mass shootings. I was at Virginia Tech, and got cheap grief for 48 to 72 hours, and then went back to my comfortable life in Miami. And I just refuse to do that after a certain amount of time.
Dave Kartunen:
But when mainstream journalists aren’t challenging these so-called journalists and what it is they do, these politicians who are fundraising off of these great replacement theories. I think a lot of these questions that not only mainstream journalists, but people who are asking how can this happen if they truly asked themselves and found the answers to, would make them very uncomfortable.
Dave Kartunen:
Well Linda, to go from that topic to another, these are two stories. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. That on first blush, may not appear to someone to be the consequences of a stacked system of mass incarceration and criminal injustice in our country. And yet, both are so clearly tied to it. We can go to a mass shooting in Buffalo, which is clearly based on systemic racism. But the hypocrisy and the inequities between what happens to white people when they slaughter large groups of people and Black people who walk down the street with Skittles in their pocket should be clear enough at this point.
Dave Kartunen:
But the leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that appears to be prepared to unravel Roe V. Wade in this country might also not appear like an issue of systemic racism or criminal injustice in this country, but just you wait, I think Linda. Because here we have something that has been the law of the land for 50 years, has been a right wing crusade to overthrow. That I would say two things about. One, will instantly present another lever for this system of criminal injustice to I like to say, and it’s a frankly insensitive pun, but capture the female market in mass incarceration in ways that they’ve never been able to do.
Dave Kartunen:
And secondly, that if you read Britney Cooper, who is a brilliant Princeton academic and has the fantastic Twitter handle of @ProfessorCrunk, she will tell you that Roe V. Wade was not the initial white whale of the religious right. It was re-segregating schools. And that that was so un-palatable, that they decided to start with Roe. But you can already see where it’s going.
Dave Kartunen:
So I think I’ll stop at that point, because your perspective is so important for me to hear in this story. But that if on first blush, neither of these look like systems of injustice or mass incarceration, look a little closer.
Linda Franks:
Yes, indeed. You’ve just got to find that thread or truth that runs through all of it. Right? Just like you said, probably won’t get far with desegregating the schools. But let’s talk about Roe. If we can unravel Roe and state that this is not a right that is stated in the constitution, then what are those other ones, right? And they’re not stated in the constitution either. So let’s take another look at those.
Linda Franks:
But when we talk about incarcerating women and capturing, and I’ll use your pun the female market, right? When criminal justice reform, when that ball begins to roll, and the majority of our electorate starts to say, “Yeah, it’s not right. This mass incarceration system, this private prison.” But then if you are a capitalist, and I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong … I am a small business owner. And what I do know is that when the market changes, I’ve got to shift my strategies. Right?
Dave Kartunen:
Absolutely.
Linda Franks:
So I’m just juxtaposing that to the fact that if some states have their way, and they’re already gearing up because of this, they see this writing on the wall to begin to start to try and push legislation that will charge women and providers of care with murder, charging them with murder or attempted murder. And even for miscarriages, right? You’re going to have to be able to document and prove that this was a natural miscarriage. And then what are they going to do, ask you what did you do to precipitate this? Maybe it was running or exercising too much. I mean, it’s just really ridiculous.
Linda Franks:
But then, we have to understand that who is going to fill the brunt of that? Who is going to be the poster child to make it palatable and to provide that cognitive dissonance to the masses to say, “Okay, we can do this”?
Dave Kartunen:
It is not going to be a white, suburban woman from New Jersey. Nope, absolutely not.
Linda Franks:
No, it’s not. And I think with this systemic racism, even the fact of this replacement theory, right? So being replaced. So let’s force white women to have babies. Right? Let’s make sure that they can’t at least abort their children so that they can replenish the population. I mean, there’s just so much underneath all of that. Or I was talking about in my community, children have always been an asset to us. It was only during the times where we started being called welfare mothers, and we’re having all these babies to do all of this. So now a child becomes a liability. Right? So then now you capitalize on that, and you juxtapose that with the healthcare that people in my community, our mortality rates, our infant mortality rates, our pregnancy, death and pregnancies are so high. And then our lack of access to healthcare. And this is things that have been embedded into this system. And now you say okay, we’re going to criminalize the very thing that we have told you before could be an option for you. Not one to save your life, but for two, to be able to say okay, I’ve got five children. And I just really can’t take in the next child. And that’s such a heartbreaking decision. But that decision for someone to have to make is none of my business. And that’s where I’m going to land with that.
Dave Kartunen:
And if you want to make it your business, let’s talk about healthcare, and childcare, and job training.
Linda Franks:
Education.
Dave Kartunen:
And education.
Linda Franks:
Yes.
Dave Kartunen:
Otherwise, it’s like Barney Frank once said. Their view is that life begins at conception and ends at birth.
Linda Franks:
Yes, indeed.
Dave Kartunen:
Well Linda, we’re just going to have to keep talking about it. There may not be an obvious thread sometimes through systemic racism and this broken system of mass incarceration, but we’ll find it. And until everybody’s heard it, we’re going to keep-
Linda Franks:
We’ll keep talking about it.
Linda Franks:
You guys, today it is just my, I can’t even tell you what an honor it is to have this guy on with me on our podcast today. To call him a friend would be an understatement. To call him a mentor, I think would be belittling the effect that he’s had in my life and in my family’s life. Sometimes we call people allies, but this guy’s just really family. He is an amazing lawyer. He’s one of the smartest people, if not the smartest people I know. And I say one of because I don’t want to hurt my husband’s feeling.
David Utter:
What about chopped liver?
Linda Franks:
I meant my husband. I said my husband. But during one of the most heinous times, worst times of my life, I can truly say he was a knight in shining armor. And David Utter, you are a men among men. And I am so grateful to be a part of your circle, and that you’ve allowed me to be in your life. And I’m just kind of proud to know you, I’m toping my collar. I know David Utter, you know what I’m saying? And it’s an honor to share space with you today. And I know that you guys are going to absolutely love hearing from him and his insight and wisdom. So welcome to the Fair Fight Initiative Podcast. How about that, David?
Dave Kartunen:
Yeah, it’s a little program we’ve got started here David. Have you heard about it?
David Utter:
I have. I have. And the honor is all mine.
Dave Kartunen:
Well, I want to start and put both of you on the spot and have the origin story of the Fair Fight Initiative. Start with how the two of you met.
Linda Franks:
Should I go first or should you go first there? I think you should go.
David Utter:
I think it’s appropriate for you to go actually Linda, because you were the person that first had the idea that you might need a lawyer.
Linda Franks:
Yeah, guys. If you haven’t heard my story, definitely go back to it happened to me on our podcast episode, very first pilot episode, where I talk about the death of my son Lamar Johnson in 2015 after being pulled over by a traffic ticket. And when I tell you the disrespect that my family just received from the local authorities when we were simply trying to find out answers. I mean, right? You have this well adjusted, amazing young man who gets pulled over for a traffic ticket. He calls you in from all reports. He is levelheaded, he’s optimistic, he’s doing fine. And four days later, someone calls you. “Well excuse me.” Let me correct that. You find out that he is on life support and has apparently injured himself attempting to hang himself is what we were told.
Linda Franks:
So my family was just reeling because it was just so, so disturbing. And we did not know which way to go. And one of the things that I always highlight when I’m talking about Fair Fight is how we were so graced with connections that quite frankly, we didn’t even know we had. So we were put in contact with the Claiborne Law Firm. And we actually chose them sight unseen. We had a list of lawyers given to us that we could choose from to simply do the investigation. We knew that we did not want someone from Louisiana. We felt that they were going to be compromised. We did not trust anyone. And Dave may laugh about this. David may laugh about this, but I know God sent me to him. And I know the selection of that law firm to represent us, we didn’t know them from Adam. We just didn’t. We didn’t. And once we were able to meet him and Will, the one thing that struck me, and I tell this story, is the fact that they asked us what would be a win for us. Right?
Linda Franks:
And my husband and I, we have this saying of outside of resurrection, there was really nothing that you can do. We just wanted to spare other families. And to see these lawyers, right? Go about the business of assisting us in how to do that. “Let me show you. And I have the experience to show you how to get social justice going in this community. How to really do something substantive, and make a difference, and turn this anger into something positive.”
Linda Franks:
So that’s how I met David. And in the course of him helping me to get my son’s story out, I met the amazing Dave Kartunen. And I remember Dave, when you interviewed me and I just felt so comfortable with you and the way that you handled the stories of the family members that were there. You were just so respectful, and you knew what to ask, and you gave us time to really express ourselves. And I just felt so empowered and so important being in that room with you. And like I said, it was just God. It just was really my faith. And I knew that you guys had been sent to me by a being, a force that really, really cared and loved me. Because how else could I have been so blessed or my family have been so blessed for you guys to really champion this cause?
Dave Kartunen:
And David, this is your chance to set the record straight and tell Linda that we’re the lucky ones.
David Utter:
Actually, I certainly am the luckiest of the ones. We agreed to investigate what happened to Lamar in the Baton Rouge jail. I remember clearly talking to Linda and Carl about, “Look, it’s unlikely we could file a lawsuit, much less file a lawsuit and be successful. But what we will do is try our very hardest to find out what happened.” And the interesting thing to me and this so often happens in prison and jail cases. If you remember Linda, the story from the jail was that Lamar was booked into the jail under procedures. He was disciplined after wanting to leave one dorm for not obeying orders and staying in that dorm, even though he felt unsafe. And then he just was found hanging. They did nothing wrong. They certainly had no culpability. I remember you relaying the fact that the warden told you and Carl, “Sometimes it just is what it is,” right?
David Utter:
So that was what the jail said to the parents of this beautiful young man. What we found out when we went to the jail and talked to about 30 people who were with Lamar during the four days he was there, what we found was rampant violence, a jail awash in drugs. We found guards completely neglecting the people in the jail that they’re supposed to protect. We found not just a broken medical or mental healthcare system. A non-existent system. When Lamar was supposed to get screened, they had him checked as released when in fact he was deep, deep in the bowels of that jail. So about seven or eight of the people that we spoke with remembered Lamar and remembered what happened to him. And what they remembered was seemingly random violence. They remembered him getting maced. They remember him crying out for help. And they remember guards just leaving him and not caring at all about him or the other people in that jail.
David Utter:
So based on those investigations, based on those interviews, we were able to file a lawsuit. And that lawsuit was successful first with the sheriffs who settled relatively early on. But then the city refused to offer any meaningful settlement. I think their first offer was less than $10,000. And after I don’t know how many depositions, hiring an expert, getting an expert report, editing it, going through motions for summary judgment. Just hundreds of lawyer hours in addition to just out of pocket expenses. I mean, we had over $135,000 in expenses just from the moment the sheriff settled to litigate against the city.
David Utter:
And I just remember Linda after once the city settled for 135 or $130,000, I forget the precise number. And we crunched all the data, called you to say, “Look, it just so happens that every single penny that we put out to litigate that case, that it’s equal to what the city’s paying.” So what that meant was that Lamar’s daughter ended up getting $0 from the city after killing him. And it was that unfairness, that glaring sort of miscarriage of justice.
David Utter:
Now remember, these aren’t attorneys fees. These are just expenses, money that the firm put out. So it repaid the firm so that we could go on to litigate more cases, but that was the genesis. That was the seed of Fair Fight would be if we could crowdsource, if 135,000 people gave a dollar, then your granddaughter, Lamar’s daughter would have the beginnings of a college fund. Not enough to compensate her for her loss, but it’s better than zero for sure.
Dave Kartunen:
You know Linda, when David describes that, I think about what your mindset was in that period between when the Sheriff’s office settled the case over Lamar’s death and when the city settled it. Because that wasn’t just cruel, which we know it was. Everything about this was cruel. But that was a strategy.
Linda Franks:
Yeah.
Dave Kartunen:
And in most cases, it works. Where families don’t step up. Families may not have the connections to hire an attorney in the first place. Plaintiff’s attorneys know what the city’s going to do, and they’re not going to pony up their own money for those depositions, and for all of that research, and all that investigation. And that strategy probably despite being more familiar to David was probably entirely new to you. What were you thinking at the time?
Linda Franks:
What struck me was just the unrighteousness of it, right? There’s a difference to me between just being unfair and being unrighteous. You can be unfair to somebody. But when you deliberately use the power that you have been given to in essence really break or harm someone in that way, it’s almost like taunting in my face. “You’re not going to get anything. Your son’s life didn’t mean anything. The pain that you’ve gone through is so insignificant to us. And we’re going to do this because we can,” you understand what I’m saying? I mean, you know what you have done. In, by even agreeing, and I can’t get into the legalities of it. But for my family, we just thought just do the damn right thing. Why is it so hard for this legal system to simply just do the right thing by families?
Linda Franks:
And like you said, that strategy is so insidious because it knows who it can do this to. Right? It knows who it can do this to. So if we target and we maintain that clutch on that particular population, then we can always use this strategy and win. Right? We can always kill people’s children and get away with it. We can always be negligent. We can always be derelict in our duties. We’re never going to be held accountable for it, because we can do this right here.
Dave Kartunen:
So if your strategy was to make sure that this didn’t happen to another family again, theirs was in effect when this happens again, there won’t be consequences for it. Right, David?
David Utter:
Yeah. And I would like to add that in a lot of these cases, and this was certainly true against the sheriff. And it’s certainly true against the for-profit healthcare provider that we also had to sue. Not on Lamar’s case, but a later case. The defense lawyers in those cases are getting paid by insurance companies. Every hour that they bill up to a certain amount. So they have every incentive to file frivolous motions, take depositions that aren’t needed. Because they’re getting paid by the hour. And they know that the plaintiff’s side is not getting paid at the same time. Right? That was another idea of Fair Fight was to level the playing field, make it a Fair Fight so that when plaintiff’s lawyers took on these cases that are very, very difficult, they lose more than they win because of the protections that the courts have set up that the plaintiff’s lawyers are able to take cases that they wouldn’t normally take.
David Utter:
I think a classic example is the class action that Fair Fight lawyers were able to file in Baton Rouge to protect people from COVID who were stuck in that jail. 1,500 people on any given day, constantly new people coming out of the jail, people leaving the jail. A lawsuit that impacted thousands of people, all because crowdfunding was able to pay the plaintiff’s lawyers hourly so they could litigate without fear of not being able to feed their families or bankrupting the law firm. So there’s been so much good that has come from the idea. And this whole notion of crowdfunding justice really has in many cases made it a Fair Fight.
Dave Kartunen:
Well, I haven’t heard the first conversation you two had about doing something after the resolution of Lamar’s case. So share with me and us that first conversation, or how that conversation evolved. Because I can tell the story about meeting David and our own conversation, flying to go meet Linda for the first time and talking about how interesting this case was and what a problem this whole dynamic was. But I haven’t heard yours.
David Utter:
I would like to take this one first only because I don’t think Linda is going to do it justice. Because it’s a reflection of her and Carl, right? And the kind of people that they are. There was never at any point in our multiple conversations in meetings where Linda and Carl said, “You know what? I want these people to pay as much money as you can get.” I never heard the word money out of their mouth. What I heard was, “I want it to change. I don’t want another family to suffer from this.” And what happened once we filed a lawsuit and we started moving along in the discovery process, Linda and I, we weren’t talking much because you and Carl were still grieving. Right? I knew better than to give you, “Hey, I’ve got an idea here.” Or, “What about if we try this?”
David Utter:
It was only after you and Carl started talking more about what was happening in that jail that we sort of joined forces to try to establish a community coalition to try to shut that jail down and fight for other families. And that you became the spokesperson of the work. It’s sad that this has to happen at all. But I can’t even count the number of families that I have put Linda in touch with, and she’s reached out because they lost somebody, or they got abused, or the police abused them. And since that end of the grieving period, Linda’s become a force of nature in the Baton Rouge community for people impacted by mass incarceration, starting with that awful jail in Baton Rouge.
Linda Franks:
Oh, thank you. And I think this is one of the things that highlights good advocacy, right? Because David was not only a legal advocate for me. But he was a justice advocate. Right? He knew the system, he knew how it worked. He’d had experience in going up against these type of systems before. And he didn’t see that it was robbery to share that with me and my family. He told us the truth all the time about where the case was and what the expectations were. And like he said, we were not preoccupied with a settlement, right? Our granddaughter was going to be taken care of regardless. We’ve been I won’t say overly blessed, but we meet our obligations. So we knew that was always our premise. So to have someone … and that’s another thing about what this organization is doing is because when David is looking for these attorneys that are going to take on these cases and areas, he is familiarizing himself with who’s doing good work in the area. You know what I’m saying? Who can be trusted in the area? What can we do to make this just more about the case itself, but make the case about the system, and changing it, and making it better for the people involved?
Linda Franks:
So that’s what I got from him. The wealth of his connections with people in Louisiana and in the Baton Rouge area. Their willingness to want to see change, to know that it was time for change. And when he calls me the spokesperson for that, what that meant was I had to be and my family had to be comfortable with bearing that grief in front of people.
Linda Franks:
Unfortunately, people want the glory story. And they want the crying, grieving mother. And they respond to that. And I thank God that I didn’t get someone who wanted to exploit that, but that wanted to use it to make sure that it was going to be used to better the situation for other people. And then look what has come from it.
Linda Franks:
I tell my grandchildren this all the time. Because this is now our family’s story, right? So when you pass down from generation to generation, I need for them to understand exactly how this, and who David was, and who you are Dave, and what Fair Fight is. This is a legacy, but not only that for our community. For the people that David are talking about with the COVID class action suit.
Linda Franks:
There was relief that was found there. There were people who were released because of it and brought out of harm’s way. There were families who were comforted knowing that. And I hope he goes into more of the cases, because that’s exactly what’s happening. And this legal system, it garners so much pain so that when you have someone who can level that playing field, when I tell you guys it is just absolutely life affirming. It’s life changing. It really does renew your belief in society and civilization, and that this democracy can definitely work. This justice for all thing can actually be accomplished.
Dave Kartunen:
Well David, before I ask you to go into some of those cases, because I think there’s an interesting model here that I hope people are beginning to understand where if plaintiff’s attorneys aren’t worried about bankrupting their firm to take these cases and have some crowdsourced inducement to take them, that real systemic change can be made when dollars aren’t being chased.
Dave Kartunen:
I need a point of personal privilege to insert myself into this story. And that is that and in some strange way on a parallel track, I came to meet David Utter around the same time during one of the most intense periods of my life, covering deaths in the jail in Savannah as a reporter. And for that story, you can go back to episode two and listen that it happened to me. But Linda, I say that point of personal privilege to sort of reflect back to you not just that this is your family’s legacy, but the gratitude that I have that you have allowed me to serve that legacy with you.
Dave Kartunen:
Because after my journalism career ended, mostly under the stress and the trauma of the experience I had covering those deaths and not being able to muster the energy to do it anymore, David asked me to come to Baton Rouge and meet you. And instantly, even though our podcast and our day-to-day work didn’t take off the moment I met you in 2017, you provided an avenue for me to serve that legacy. And we got to sit down and tell that story I hope in not a trauma reaffirming way, that honored the experience you had and allowed the room to tell the story that the world needed to hear. And I’m so grateful for what’s come from that.
Linda Franks:
Yeah. Dave, when we discussed it and you opened up and told me your story, I think I made the comment that I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. But I’m so grateful that it brought you into this work that we are all in together. And I think it highlights that no matter your race or no matter your background, that this system can affect you in ways that are so common. The trauma can be so galvanizing. And it has been healing for me to be working with you guys, to be working with you while we’re working on this together, while we’re doing this work. Your contribution to just really highlighting the stories and what you bring the clarity of how to present this content is so important to families. It’s important to the community. It’s important to the work. Because if we don’t educate the people on what’s going on and we don’t do it in a way that really brings it home for them, then we don’t get the involvement. We don’t get that buy-in. So you are by no means having to interject yourself in any way. You are bedrock, foundational part of all of this.
Dave Kartunen:
Well, thank you Linda. Thank you. That word clarity means more to me than you’ll ever know. David, we have this model, right? And it comes out of this experience. And crowdsourcing starts to work. And immediately, this model gets put to the test in Baton Rouge and starts showing immediate difference. Not just in the COVID case, but here’s the chance to start in Baton Rouge where this first takes hold, and the crowdsource money comes in. And you’re able to incentivize good attorneys to take cases that will make social change and not monetary judgment. So take us through them. Start a little bit with COVID, but take us from there.
David Utter:
Well look, there’s no question that for good reason, Baton Rouge is one of the targets partially because of the leadership of Linda with Fair Fight and the good work that she’s doing on the ground. But just the opportunities. You’ve got this huge, deadly, decrepit jail. And I think we’re up to now two class action lawsuits we filed all designed to depopulate and shut it down. So that’s Baton Rouge. We’ve got a number of individual cases that we’ve taken in Baton Rouge. We’ve got lawyers that we’ve hired from New Orleans, as well as Baton Rouge to represent individuals in the jail who have been sucked into the system as a means of exposing the corruption of the system. Including one of the most corrupt cops that I know of, a guy named Jason Acree. He used to be with the Baton Rouge Police Narcotics Division. He was arrested after he was found stealing drugs from the evidence room to give to his friends and sell to prostitutes, and to turn people into informants.
David Utter:
So the DA ended up doing the right thing in Jason’s case. Sorry, in Acree’s cases and dismissed hundreds of cases that were pending in Baton Rouge that Acree had been involved in. But nobody was going backwards and looking at all of the people that had been convicted in the decade-long period of his career. So we hired lawyers in Baton Rouge, and they had law clerks. And we went through literally 7,500 convictions that Acree had been involved in. Acree and the narcotics division in Baton Rouge. And working months going through those files, uncovered about 30 to 35 people there were still incarcerated, and therefore they were entitled to some legal relief. And then we filed the lawyers that we hired, including myself, filed petitions for relief. We’re currently in negotiations with the DA. They’ve agreed to release three people with long prison sentences. That’s going to happen next month in June. Can’t tell you how exciting that is to go tell somebody in prison that, “Hey, you’re getting out in 30 days.” But that would’ve never happened without crowdfunding, right? There’s no law firm that’s going to take up that case and that cause at the expense of tens of thousands of dollars both in lawyer hours and then the expenses. So that’s the real blessing of crowdfunding.
David Utter:
And when I say crowdfunding, I mean literally I just opened a check from somebody from Cleveland, Ohio last week for $5, right? I mean, that’s amazing that this person is giving $5. And well, certainly others give more. The goal here is to have thousands of people give $5 so that we can continue to hire lawyers all over the Deep South, all over the country if possible to represent as many people as possible, take on the system of mass incarceration.
David Utter:
And one last thing on that. We do put some resources into the community development of organizing against the jail at Baton Rouge, because we’re not going to tear this system down without the people that are most impacted. It’s not going to happen. If you leave it up to the politicians or the foundations, we’re going to be ticking around the edges. It’s people like Linda that know the system, that have been impacted by the system know that there’s really only one thing to do to that jail in Baton Rouge. And that’s tear it down. So that’s the power of what we’ve done.
David Utter:
Other states. We’ve got lawyers in Georgia, Florida. We’ve had a guy in Tennessee that we got out from a warrant. Just found a lawyer and hired him for him. We’ve got lawyers in Mississippi fighting against young people being pushed into the adult system. There was a young man that was charged with, I guess he plead to second degree homicide. It was a horrible accident, car accident. He’s facing 30 years in the Mississippi prison system, and he’s still a minor. So we’ve got one of the best legal minds in Mississippi working on that case. But the impact has been enormous. And we’re just so grateful for all the support that we’ve gotten.
Linda Franks:
Yeah. When I think about the crowdsourcing aspect of it, I say it was a novel idea. But I know you guys had this conversation, I think, on your way back to Savannah. So what was that nebulous like? Was it an immediate thing that crowdfunding came to your mind? Or was it something like how could we possibly fund this thing? Right? Because that’s part that I don’t know.
Linda Franks:
I know we kind of always shrink back when we see some of these young white supremacists that are killing people. And then you hear that, “They raised $2 million in three days for their legal defense.” So what was that conversation like between you two guys on a plane flying back to Savannah?
David Utter:
I urge everybody, the start of this was Dave Kartunen’s video mastery making the I am Patrick. My name is Patrick. We will post it on the Fair Fight Initiative’s website if it’s not already there. But young man named Patrick Mumford was sitting in his car, minding his own business at his house or a friend’s house. And three Savannah Police officers approached him. And said, “Hey, what’s your name? Get out of the car. We got a warrant for you.” And Patrick says, “My name is Patrick.” And the cop said, “Get out of the car. We got a warrant for you.” I don’t want to spoil what an amazing job Dave did with the video, but it’s all police body cam.
David Utter:
And it got over 25 million, I’m sure it’s even more now views on YouTube because it showed so clearly the both implicit bias. There’s three white cops who walked up to a young Black man and said, “You look like a young Black man that we’re looking for.” And Dave did a great job of pointing that out. But then there was also the explicit racism, right? The way that the Savannah Police have been going after Black men since time and memorial. We got the personnel files of these cops, and they were all part of this cabal of cops that were using the word ninja when they couldn’t use the N word, right? When they’re on the radio. They had a complaint filed against them by a Black female supervisor who was getting harassed and discriminated against.
David Utter:
So Savannah had all the information they needed to fire every one of these people for being racist, but they didn’t. And instead, Patrick Mumford gets illegally arrested, wrongfully tased. And we put together a video, Dave put together a video from the body cam that just exploded. It went viral. And the discussion on the plane back from New Orleans was, “Man, what if every one of those 25 million people just gave $1? What sort of litigation could we start fomenting around the country against prisons and jails and for poor people who were being poorly represented by public defenders and really start fighting for justice? What kind of help could we fund, could we see?” And that was a start. I don’t know if Dave has a different memory of it, but it’s this I am Patrick, my name is Patrick video that I encourage everybody to go see. Because it is brilliant filmmaking by Dave.
Linda Franks:
Well, we are definitely going to include a link to that video. I don’t think I’ve seen that video, Dave. I’ve got to make sure I watch it when-
Dave Kartunen:
My regret from that experience is that we didn’t ask anybody to do anything. And so there was this huge outcry, and Savannah Police rightfully bore the brunt of that and was overwhelmed within days of phone calls, social media posts, comments. They had to hold a news conference. I think they briefly shut down the commenting on their Facebook page because of it, David. But my regret after that experience and watching that take off was that we didn’t ask anybody to do anything other than be outraged. And to piggyback on David’s description of that conversation that we had on the plane coming home from Baton Rouge, that conversation was coupled inside of me of having just lost my own court battle on the Georgia Court of Appeals over records that I had fought for in a violent death in the Chatham County Jail. And seeing how unjust not only the decision was, but having uncovered untruthful statements that were made in depositions in that case and not being backed up to pursue that any further, which really led to my resignation. But that knowing and seeing intimately how stacked the system was and knowing that David and will after learning the details of your case were probably going to be lawyering for free to do this. That my wish for Patrick’s case was that we had asked people to do something more. And even if it had been a dollar, what we could have done with that.
Dave Kartunen:
And I am not motivated by money. I’m motivated by change. So that thought did not immediately come to me. And I’m just so grateful that from the founding of this organization and the work that has been done on behalf of people with COVID in the Baton Rouge Parish Prison, people who have had unclear bail terms that have now been clarified because of work that the Fair Fight Initiative did in that judicial circuit. And now, moving to five other states to do the same thing that we now have something to ask of people. And I don’t ever want to be shy about asking again.
Linda Franks:
Amen. Amen. I will tell you that I’m just so godly proud of the work that Fair Fight does. And I say that because I say put some respect on my name. There is respect due on the work that Fair Fight has been doing. We want everyone to know that this is a place that you can feel comfortable. Being a part of making change.
Linda Franks:
I mean, it’s not just about … and I don’t want to minimize getting somebody out of jail or having them come home. That is so huge. But then also the precedent setting and the trailblazing that can come from some of these cases that quite frankly cannot be litigated unless there is the resources to be able to do it. And that’s one of the things that has blown my mind.
Linda Franks:
When you talk about those three men that are going to be released, I’m overwhelmed for their families, for the gratitude. I can imagine, I know what it is like to be in a position where you are screaming at the top of your lungs that I need help. That I need rescuing. And I mean that in the clearest sense of the word. I need somebody to help me out of this. Hear this help comes, and it’s effective, and I’m getting out of this hell. So it’s just great being a part of it. It really is.
Dave Kartunen:
Well David, the micro level of that is so impactful. And if someone listening to this can’t identify with that feeling of what those three people are going to experience, I would also challenge them and ask you to describe what that does for next time. Because for so long, no one was watching, right? And if someone cannot connect on an individual level to what that means to three people that were facing long sentences because of a corrupt cop, what that means for next time in these places because you’re there.
David Utter:
There’s a couple of examples that I can give that if the funding comes, we do have big plans that we would love to execute. One of them involves CorrectHealth, which is a private, for-profit medical provider that has contracts throughout Louisiana and Georgia to provide … they’re supposed to be providing medical care to people in jails. We’ve got a lawsuit against them here in Savannah. We just finished one in the Baton Rouge Jail against CorrectHealth. And this is an example of there are so many people in scores of jails throughout Georgia and Louisiana that are being mistreated and not provided adequate medical care, while somebody profits. Right? And what we would love to do is be able to file lawsuits in every single one of those jails defending people. Aggressively going after this business model, which literally is every dollar that CorrectHealth does not spend on healthcare is profit. It goes to the company. So think about what that incentivizes there in terms of healthcare.
David Utter:
The second one involves the Baton Rouge Police, quite frankly. And these are just right off the top of my head. Anybody that knows this criminal legal system knows that there’s hundreds of these around the country. But the narcotics division of the police had six officers when Jason Acree got arrested. The division has since been disbanded, but we keep on uncovering cases where those cops, not Acree, but other cops have done horrific things to people. Including shooting a man named Wayne Heard, who is currently sitting in prison serving a 15 to 20 year sentence for aggravated assault. These same cops, the Baton Rouge Narcotics Division were patrolling a neighborhood. They said they saw a hand-to-hand transaction on the front porch. They go rushing into the house. Some of them go in the back. They claim they saw Wayne with a gun in his hand, and they shoot him through the door.
David Utter:
Now, how do you see a gun in somebody’s hand with the door shut? That’s news to me. But what we uncovered when I went to see Wayne in prison and I said, “Hey man, what happened with your case here?” He goes, “Man. We were sitting around home watching ESPN and playing chess. And all of a sudden, these cops bust in the door, no uniforms, they’re all white. I thought we were getting robbed. So I went to the back door,” and he ends up getting shot.
David Utter:
Luckily there was a witness. His brother was there. He was the guy on the front porch. No drugs were found, because guess what? They weren’t dealing drugs. These are just four or five white cops bursting into a house that’s owned and inhabited by Black people. And Wayne gets shot four times. They charge him with assaulting them, and he’s sitting in prison. This is a guy that had never thought he was going to get any relief or never have a lawyer look at his case. And because of Fair Fight, we are. And what we’d like to do is to go into all of those cases that those cops are involved in. And I can only imagine how many more Wayne Heards there are that have been filed bullshit charges, made up to cover for an illegal shooting and excessive use of force. And just really, really go after that police department.
Linda Franks:
That’s huge. I mean, when I think about in my community the number of people whose lives have been just totally decimated because in this country, we always take the word of a police officer over the person who’s being arrested, right? The witnesses, all of this credibility. And one of the things that it just strikes me is that as we are uncovering more of this corruption, it really does give a Fair Fight to people who say, you actually have the argument to make now. Look at how many times they’ve been caught lying. Look at all of this work that we’ve done to show you the corruption. And it gives people an opportunity to be able to have credibility when they’re saying, “I didn’t do this,” or, “This is how it went down your take.” You’re always going to take what the cops say or what this law enforcement person says.
Linda Franks:
So I think that the effects of being able to really have an opportunity to look at these cases and to really have the resources for these law firms to be able to go in and really dissect, and to get the depositions, and to get the information that is needed is I think even more far reaching than just putting people on notice that we’re watching. It’s actually giving the public an opportunity to say, “You know what? We may not always be able to take the word of the cop. Let’s look into this and demand that these cases be looked into a little bit more deeper.” And that’s definitely leveling the playing field and making it a Fair Fight for people who are targeted and set up.
Dave Kartunen:
Linda, I want David to make his summation about what Fair Fight means to him, and what this model could do for not only systemic racism and mass incarceration, but perhaps a coming fight over abortion rights and any other place where the system of justice is stacked against people.
Dave Kartunen:
But before I ask David to make that summation about what this model means for balancing the scales of justice, I want you to use the analogy that you did about a person with a terminal illness, and what Fair Fight does in those cases.
Linda Franks:
So I equated it to, because when you think about life, when you think about this pursuit of happiness that we have in our lives, right? There are two things that can really stop you in your mortal tracks. And one is getting entangled in this injustice system, right? Just a bad decision. Being literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it starts a system of circumstances that can really deplete your finances. You can lose your freedom. You can lose your livelihood. There are so many different ways that this can negatively affect you.
Linda Franks:
And the other is medical. It’s your life, because this is your life. Right? So when I thought about this, I was given the analogy of someone who has been told that they’re terminally ill, right? And so now, you’re trying to find a way to live. You’re trying to find a cure. You’re trying to find some help. But then you’re not only met with the fact that your person is in danger. But what about the resources? How much were the treatments cost? What kind of doctors would I need to go to? Do I even have the money to be able to afford the insurance?
Linda Franks:
And I think I put it in terms of St. Jude. When a parent walks into St. Jude, and they say to them, “Not only are we going to help to take care of your baby and to help find a cure for your child, but we’re going to take care of the expense of it too.” And that’s really what Fair Fight and having this type of organization, that’s what it equates. I know for me and my family.
Linda Franks:
Because trying to find the answers with Lamar and trying to hire people to do that could have very well wiped us out completely. We would not have been able to do it. And the death that occurred would’ve been so more far reaching because there would not have been any closure. My family, our mental stability was absolutely on a shoestring. So basically, what having this entity in our lives was able to do was to give us a lifeline. And then to say, “Don’t worry about the cost of it.” I mean, that right there is life-changing.
David Utter:
Yeah. I mean, the whole sort of premise of the American legal system is based on the notion that there are lawyers available for anybody that needs them. And that’s true on the criminal side. And that’s true on the civil side. When the reality is, now Lamar’s case was pre Fair Fight, right? When I tallied the hours that Will and I, and our co-counsel in New Orleans put into Lamar’s case, at the end of the day, the only attorney’s fees we saw was from the portion from the Sheriff’s settlement. When I look at all the hours we put in, I guarantee you we were making less than minimum wage. And right now in the United States, law firms just aren’t willing to do that, right? They’re not willing to take those risky cases that are important and really, really vital to make sure that people’s rights are actually respected and that change can happen. But lawyers don’t take those cases because it’s not a level playing field. Right?
David Utter:
And on the criminal defense side, people think oh well, they can have a public defender. We all know, anybody that’s been involved in the system that’s poor knows that the public defender system is broken. And this is all by design, right? I mean, this system was constructed by mainly white folks to target Black folks. And as Michelle Alexander says, mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. And that happens because lawyers are complicit when they don’t stand up and really investigate their client’s cases, really fight for them, and do everything they can. As Linda said, move heaven and earth to keep them out of jail, to keep them out of prison. So the system does not work like people think it does. By small donations and crowdfunding, we’re able to hire lawyers all over the deep south. We’d love to do it all over the country. But by crowdfunding these cases, we can level the playing field. We can make it a Fair Fight.
Dave Kartunen:
Everyone needed to hear how this came to be. Everyone needs to know how it works. And everyone needs to see and hear how it’s been successful so we can keep it going. So thank you both.
Dave Kartunen:
So Linda, we got to tell our origin story, right? It’s like the Marvel Universe. It’s got Desmond Meade in it, and we’ve got all of these people that are doing the work in this broken system of mass incarceration. But like the Marvel Universe, we’ve got to go back to the prequel and tell the story about how we came to be. And I have to emphasize again, the lesson that I’ve learned from doing this is that you have to ask people. And I want to ask everybody who’s listening to this, that any contribution, no matter how small can make systemic change in this system. And we humbly ask you to give. With that, this is our season finale so to speak. We’re not taking any time off. Right? What we’re doing is we’re moving the winter ale off of the shelves and we’re coming in with the new summer ale. It’s the new summer brew that we’re going to have. This is a demanding schedule that we’ve put ourselves under to book high profile guests every two weeks. And to deliver that in timely ways, in not only a timely fashion, but in timely topics.
Dave Kartunen:
So what we’ve decided to do for the summertime while we do a little rest in recovery, spend some time with our families, regroup a little bit is to do, and this is going to sound crazy, weekly podcasts. More podcasts all the time, but we’re going to keep it timely by checking in on, stop me if you’ve heard this before, letting you see Linda’s beautiful face, being involved in the conversation, continuing this mission. And, at least through Labor Day, give ourselves a little bit of a production break by just joining you to discuss these topics and keep the updates coming.
Linda Franks:
Exactly David. I’m excited. I’m excited about what we’re going to be offering this summer. These timely commentary on what’s going on, and letting you guys know what’s happening with the Fair Fight cases as they’re coming. And how we’re doing.
Linda Franks:
And I’m going to echo what Dave said. Look, guys. We need your help. We need you. This is a group effort, right? This is something that we can all do. We rail against systemic racism. We rail against the injustices. And we always are asking ourselves, what can we do? Well, this is something that you can do. You can donate to the Fair Fight Initiative. We are transparent. Go on our website. Look at the information that’s there. We’re always going to be giving updates on things that are going on around the country and how we can help. But this is something that you can do and feel good about. And we’re going to feel good about talking to you guys every week about what’s going on in the news. And we want you to get excited about us coming back in the fall. And while you’re laying on that beach and relaxing, please go back.
Dave Kartunen:
What beach?
Linda Franks:
Or laying on that couch and relaxing, or laying on that backyard and relaxing, or that lounge, or whatever it is you’re doing.
Dave Kartunen:
Or punching the podcast into the audio display in the family Truckster as you drive your two kids across Canada to look at national parks.
Linda Franks:
Exactly what I was going to say, honey. Plug in, tune in, and listen to our past episodes so that you can get yourself ready for this next season. I’m looking forward to it. How about you Dave?
Dave Kartunen:
Look for the summer brew to drop sometime after this episode after Memorial Day, the unofficial start for us.
Linda Franks:
All right.
Dave Kartunen:
The Fair Fight Initiative Podcast is a production of the Fair Fight Initiative.
Linda Franks:
Founded in 2017, the Fair Fight Initiative is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to crowdsourcing litigation, which advocates for equal treatment under the law, confronts systemic injustice, and helps victims challenge abusers of power in court.
Dave Kartunen:
We believe justice crowdsourced is justice delivered.
Linda Franks:
By crowdsourcing resources from our contributors, we’re able to finance the litigations no attorneys will take because of the overwhelming upfront cost to seek justice in our legal system.
Dave Kartunen:
And you can learn more about our mission and how to contribute by going to fairfightinitiative.org.
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