Welcome to Brief Recess.

I'm Michael Foot Melissa Alburt.

Today we're going to be talking about the Enron meltdown of the early two thousands, nineties talk shows, gay panic defenses, and all the times that we both cried on the f train.

And I want to tell you something funny.

So, as you know, I have a ton of cousins, way too many, and one of them.

Have you ever done account?

Yeah?

Thirty on my mom's side, and.

Like that is okay, sorry, that's like a lot, but there are a.

Lot of the I mean they had my grandparents had a lot of kids.

Like they had ten kids.

So all you need is to have each person have at least two one or two have four and then the next thing, you know.

You have to do you have to like blow out Thanksgiving to like a swing of the house or something, or an extension this like on the White House ballroom.

Not quite so this side of the family, well, they were mostly in Haiti, so there is no Thanksgiving, okay, But my other side of the family, they're about eighteen of us and yes, we've I've we have never had a traditional sit down Thanksgiving.

People just like grab the mill about grab plate.

We're the same.

Yeah, yeah, sit on the floor, the same.

Come.

My mom doesn't like to cook, so it's very like usually pretty casual.

And the house isn't like we usually invite a lot of people over.

The house isn't like big enough to do like a big full like sit down, silverware work from the outside end kind of situation.

We have had full sit downs when my cousin who does Thanksgiving rents a tent.

Oh that's fun.

Wait in New York in Jersey and it's not too cold.

Thanksgiving is my actually favorite holiday.

Thanksgiving is yes, not mine.

Because there's there's no stress around, like getting people's ship, and I love to cook, so it's like it's the super Bowl.

For people to Thanksgiving is very stressful.

No, I disagree because because cooking is cathartic, it is like an exercise in like working through something, but having to like shop and figure out what someone likes.

The stress of the holidays will actually it does me in I have a mentipe every time.

No Easter is my stress free holiday.

Itetta I do not always, but porchetta.

I know I've been trying to get an inature fucking Easter for years.

Well, she still says she keeps me around each year.

I'm like this, this is it.

Well, remember you were you were mistaken for a Haitian, so this might be your year.

Yeah, that could that could be.

That could be.

Did I tell you what happened this weekend?

No?

My friend texted me and I wasn't going to go out, and he was like, it's final fantasy drag night with Magami, who's like a famous drag queen from her Pels Drag Race.

So it's like, I can't miss this.

Okay, that was the text that you.

He didn't understand that mcgommy list.

It's okay, apologies to mcgommy, but anyway, So I went.

Twenty minutes later, I'm there.

I hop in the lift.

We don't take ubers, they've been canceled, right, and so I hop in the lift.

Get there.

Everyone's naked, every every everyone.

I said, wait, did you get naked?

No, there are no pictures.

No I didn't get naked, but I asked my friend.

I was like, where's the drag show?

Like I came here to give a dollar bill to a drag queen and like see a show, have a drink and goal.

Well that is the show the nakedness, he said.

Oh, drag show ended fifteen minutes ago.

It's a jockstrap party.

Now I'm in jeans and a sweatshirt, no jacks, which is it's wearing like a full garb and like a full flannel.

Yeah sure, yeah.

So I'm like, okay, you guys have fun, Like I'll be up here at the bar with like the clothed people.

So they were so you weren't the only clothes.

Yeah, but there's like a main space and there's like the bar, so like where you sort of like mill in an.

Out and naked, like naked naked.

It was a lot of jocks well.

Like full on frank and means like.

It's never the person you want to see, like it's always It's like the Newton's Lost law of physics is like for every person you want to see in a jockstrap, there's an equal and opposite person you don't want to see, and.

They are a strip there they are.

So it's late.

Brad and I have had a couple drinks because we were like, we're the only people in clothing here and.

You didn't have to be that choice that you made, yes, And we.

End up a Taco Bell again, and Taco Bell if they want to sponsor this show, they should because it keeps happening and keep ending up there.

But this girl walks.

All I hear is excuse me, Do I recognize you from somewhere?

Yes?

I was like, uh oh, Now it's like three or four in the morning, so I'm like, where is there?

Really, We're like in deep Brooklyn, and I'm in no position to be like interacting with the public.

I've got well, now you're a public person.

Yeah, I'm like standing on Wednesday.

I've got one eye on last week and one eye on next weekend.

Like they're they're going and they each have their own sort of trajectory.

So she sits down and she tells me this whole legal issue she has where her landlord's snuck into her apartment.

It's three in the morning, and I'm bombed, snuck into her apartment, pissed on her bed, and then set the building on fire.

He's now being tried criminal charges.

She has to testify.

I literally I had to say to her.

I was like, I can't help you right now.

I am too intoxicated to giving Wait, you can remember, I honestly can't remember.

I was like, if you DM me, I'm happy to chat more.

Well, the young woman who met Michael while he was intoxicated in the taco bell, please reach out to him over his dad with the guy.

Who does diva girly pop.

You were unwell and you didn't listen to my story about my cousin.

Oh yeah, tell me about your cousins.

Well, now I don't want, no, I want, I do want to hear.

We talked about Thanksgiving.

So my cousin reaches out to me and she wants to interview me.

She and her friend have their own podcast and it's about sort of like parenthood and whatever whatever else.

Right, So it's perfect for the two of us who have no children.

Well, it's that's just parents.

It's about childless by choice, childless by choice, choices, the choice choices were made.

But she and her friend they do this thing where they talk about living outside the country of origin all this other stuff.

Right, So she says to me, our next topic is going to be about interracial marriages.

And I would love to talk to you.

But interracial marriage.

You've already done a round off backhandspring.

You're there and you've got the glasses on.

I text her back and I was just like, I'm happy to talk to you, except not.

And she writes back and she was like, not what I was like in an interracial marriage, special marriage.

My husband is not Haitian, but he's African American, he's not white.

So I'm waiting to hear back from her because I am a couple of hours.

I am waiting, get the waiting for her because what's been happening?

Right?

What does think is happening?

You know there's a separate text chain about how you're you married a white guy?

Well?

Or is there and were corrected her?

Or did she think she was texting someone else?

No, she knew she was texting.

Okay, well you actually have to do an update on No.

No, no, I will traumatic reading.

I am yes, Yeah, I'm nervous.

I'm nervous.

I can't person.

I can't wait to tell Andre.

But like you, I would have called at work.

I would have called his office.

No, he's out here cosplaying a white guy apparent unbeknownst to him.

Unbeknownst to him.

Halloween just got a lot easier to get trust for.

He's a lot of things.

Being confused for Haitian and Andre is being confused for White is gone mad.

No, we need better health care so people can get their fucking eyes checked.

This is SIDEBARB.

We're just going to talk about what happened in court this week.

I had a hearing this morning.

Actually it was really early.

They're all early, but this was a quick It was a quick one.

It was in and out, and it was where was it.

It was down in Lower Manhattan.

Okay, Yeah, So thank god I didn't have to go to like family Court in Brooklyn because that is always an I bike everywhere.

So for me to get over the Brooklyn Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge is that early?

Are you all sweaty when you get over there?

You don't sweat?

I mean it's usually there's like the thing about if it's hot in New York.

Yeah, and you're on a bike, Yeah, there's a breeze because you're flying.

You're like going pretty fast, so it actually is kind of nice.

Continue simple assault.

I got there, and I've got quite the docket of cases in war Cam right now.

It's a little bit we're approaching unmanageable, but it's okay.

I'm handling it well.

Are you help?

Yeah?

I've got people supporting me.

You have people team.

No, I don't have a team.

But they brought my client in and I was like, huh, he looks different and this person's incarcerated.

M hm.

I'm looking at the haircut, I'm looking at the tattoos.

I'm like, this is the wrong fucking person.

It took me.

It took me like a minute, and I said something.

I said, I well, I of course said something, but like I said something to the judge, and then I was I said something to the bailiff too.

I was like, did they have the same name.

No.

And also they use like an identifying number for people who are incarcerated, so it's like they call the number, they bring the wrong person.

Where's your person?

And so they had to go like swap them out.

And when this random person shows up and looks at you, what do they say?

Well, they were looking at me like, oh wow, you're my public defender, Like this is like they had never They were just sort of like coming for their calendar, their master calendar.

Hearing uh huh.

Yeah the bailiff, I was like, you brought the wrong person.

Do often mix people up?

Yes, I'm sure they do.

Yeah, he didn't.

I'm sure he didn't.

Doesn't mean that it's not true.

Yeah, it's true.

Do they apologize to you?

No, cops will never apologize to me for anything, No, Matt never.

I've never gotten an apology from a cop I hated here.

Judges have I think I have received an apology from a judge.

They're usually pretty reasonable.

Yeah, I mean I feel like a judge will apologize for something that's not their fault, right, like we're sorry that's the calendar or whatever, but not because they actually made a mistake, right.

Yes, it's usually situational.

Yes, there's usually not like, oh I fucked this up royally.

Yeah, it's usually because they're receiving all the information, documents, people, agencies that are mismanaged and unorganized.

We're sorry this is happening, Not sorry because I did something right, gotcha.

I'll bet you what happens Swap one brown person for another brown person, you know what I mean?

I think that.

Yeah.

I've witnessed like people get kind of like confused or mixed up in court before, like it does happen.

I know that sometimes lawyers who are people of color are mistaken for clients like that is the thing that happens a lot.

There are lawyers who are on social media who talk about that happening all the time.

I still hate it.

Here, moving on, welcome to under Oath.

We're going to do a deep dive into a lawsuit from history, a case, some sort of situation that deals with the law, deals with the court, and we're going to get into it.

So Melissa I brought the people versus Jonathan Schmidt's I think is how it's pronounced.

It's from Michigan, It's from nineteen ninety five, and this is the lawsuit.

Usually, like the name of the lawsuit doesn't really match up with the situation.

But this is infamous as the Jenny Jones Show Murder Lawsuit collab.

So to set the stage, it's nineteen ninety five, and.

You should also say it like in the nineties there were a lot of sort of dueling talk shows, right, So it was Jenny Jones, Winfrey, the Phil Donahue Show.

The only thing that was on when I was homesick from school.

It was Jerry Springer and Jerry.

I forgot it was Ricky Lake.

Go Ricky Go, Ricky.

I remember that, Yeah.

It was it was these It was these talk shows or daytime soaps or the Prices, right is right?

That was on TV.

That was all or the channel you went to to see what shows were on, and that was.

PBS, right right right?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, So the Jenny Jones show maybe you tell us about because I actually didn't watch Jenny Jones.

No.

I feel you would have been a child.

I was too young, but you were too young.

Yeah, this is what I was watching.

Came home after school and I would watch this show.

So, I mean her show.

It was sort of, I would say, a cross between the Oprah Winfrey Show and Jerry Springer, like it never do you know me?

It never got as volatile as Jerry Springer did, but it also didn't always sort of have the same sort of class as.

The Open Show is like a little bit more low brow.

A little bit more low We were not.

We were not.

And I think Jenny Jones's background is that she used to be a stand up comedian and I don't know how she ended up doing this, but this is what she did.

So she used to have these shows where she would it was like a secret crush, right, so she would have somebody on.

And which is like you're the messy, bitch y.

Yeah, it's definitely a sloppy it's a gotcha, it's for sure.

And she would sort of have the person come out and be like, well, there's somebody out here who throw Jane, get.

The headphones off of John, and let's have John come out here and see who has the crush on him.

Here's who has a crush on you and you don't know who it is, and we're going to bring them out and then.

Imagine the casting for that, right, It's like, I've got a huge crush on someone here right now, I'm not going to say anything.

Rather than talk to them, m M, I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna blow it up on TV, ship up on TV TV.

Right, it wasn't cable, it was regular TV.

It was just regular.

It was seven channels.

It was like on Channel nine or something.

Yeah.

Anyway, the victim of this murder was the guy who had a crush on someone, and so he had a crush on what later became the defendant, someone who was straight.

And Scott Amador was the victim and he was openly gay.

So he went on the Jenny Jones Show and was like, I've got a crush on this guy, Jonathan Schmidt, and they had a real gotcha moment on TV.

And if you've seen it, because I do remember, and it's been it's happy, you know, the clips have come up over and over again, you could sort of Jonathan looking very uncomfortable, sort of like laughing nervously.

I'm sure everyone was reacting like that though, right Like I.

Feel like I feel like the audience was more like woo, you know, like oh yeah, and like Jenny Jones is just like no, you know what I mean?

So no, I don't know.

And I wonder if, like people, if they're ever actually like good things that come out of this like crush segment, Like are people know that's a good question, Actually I would that would be interesting.

I met my partner on the Jenny Jones choke the Crush segment.

Anyway, I mean, why not.

So three days later, Jonathan Schmidt's bought a shotgun and murdered Scott Scott they go to trial.

He's charged with first and second degree murder, and well the big difference between like the two different kinds of so he was charged with murder, uh premeditator murder, first degree murder, second degree murder, so first degree murder is really like you plan this out, you thought about it, you mapped it out, how you're going to get away with it.

It's a lot of like you know, your serial killers usually get first of rumder.

The big one you're like trying to avoid is first write well any murder charge right, or killing anyone right?

But also like first agree murder is like that's usually where the capital punishment comes in, right, And so those crimes you're trying to avoid life in prison and possibly the death penalty.

So about second degree murder, it's totally different.

So it's usually without that premeditation piece you and still intend to murder that person.

This wasn't an accident.

We didn't get in a car accident.

There was some sort of intentional piece of like I am going to do this thing.

But it's usually like the exigency is the thing.

The big differentiator, like in my mind is like this person, something happened incited extreme rage violence in this person, and then they acted immediately.

So it's so basically when we hear about a crime of passion perhaps.

Right, and when I'm reading this case, I'm thinking about those three days that would be the first thing for me where I would be like, I probably am not going to when a secondary murderer try.

Because he had time to think about it, he went.

Now days is like a kind of a long time to cool off.

Like when you're learning this in law school, they're talking about like the impulsive no thought, yeah I'm going to kill you, which I don't know.

Have you ever felt like stream range like that?

Yes, And I'm so And I'm actually really glad that anytime I felt like that, I have sort of known that I'm feeling that way.

Yes, and I like stop and you call me.

I call you, or I'm just like raging by myself because when you are, when you're back up against the wall and you are so angry at something that's happening, there is this little part of you that sort of the logical part of you that goes out the window.

Maybe not like killing someone, but for me, I'm like, I'm so angry right now that there's like a physicality to it.

It's like it has to come out of me some way.

Well, Yeah, got a scream into a pillow basically ice water, go for a walk, go for a run, like there are these like I have felt like that level of ridge where it's like it's actually overwhelming my physicality.

Anyway, the big differentiator between those two murders, first degree and second degree is that premeditation piece.

If you don't have that, it has to be second degree murder, so you intend to kill this person.

So those heat of passion crimes usually come from walking in on your spouse.

And then there's like this, really, I mean, they're all super gross and evil defenses, but the gay panic is one of those defenses.

So it's got a really long, sort of like ugly history where it came up through homophobia.

I mean that there were race related ones which were essentially right, like lynchings and Scottsboro Boys, but with this particular defense of the gay panic, it kind of came up in the sixties and seventies when people were really like dl in parks cruising for guys.

Sure, and it was and still is a successful defense that people use, and a gay panic defense are basically arguing that a gay person came on to a straight person, and that straight person I think is most always a man.

I would be curious if there's actually even a lesbian statute on this.

Off the top of my head, there was a case, but she was like helping lure queer people to their death with another murder.

It was different.

That's different anyway.

Gay panic defenses, it's usually it creates such like extreme reaction in the straight person that a defense attorney argues that this person should deceive a reduced sentence because they should get that second green murder charge because what they were feeling was so extreme that they couldn't control their reaction, because being approached and solicited by a gay person was such like an affront to their sexuality.

Right, So here, here's the thing with that.

Right, let's say that I'm going to understand the idea of a gay panic defense.

Wouldn't that be something that happens immediately?

Yes, right, yes, So.

Most of the case all that I've read, I think, I think, Matthew Shepard, I think they also use gay panic defenses in that lawsuit.

It's usually in like a hate crime charge situation, so they're not formally recognized statutes like this is just like a tool that defense attorneys use.

And I've got to be clear who, Like I'm a defense attorney, right, Like I use defenses all the time in court.

I want to like break down like the ethics of it kind of like I think that, you know, every attorney is different.

I'm like privileged enough and have enough money that I get to kind of pick and choose the cases that I've worked on.

But I've been assigned cases by judges and you have to represent that person.

You do you have to?

Yeah?

Oh yeah, if you're in the bar registry, like you can get a sign a lawsuit by a judge.

I don't know if that's what happened with these lawyers.

No, no, no, no, But I'm just curious.

So let's just say, let's just take you, for example, you as a gay man, if you are now assigned this case, could you recuse yourself by saying, you know what, I'm a gay man.

I don't know that I would be able to adequately represent this person the way that they deserve, assuming that we all think that people deserve.

Yeah, I think that's like a very like thoughtful way to put it.

Knowing judges, right and knowing the judges that have assigned madea cases that would never happen or that motion would never be that motion to recuse would never be accepted by the court, because if you're being assigned it's because no one else will take it or the PD's office is overwhelmed or whatever.

Okay, so what if you get assigned this case, and what would I do?

Well, you've already said that you probably would not have a choice, right, Like the judge assigned to do it, You now are charged with doing your best to represent somebody, right.

I wonder though, if the person loses that the person ends up going to deal, could that person now turn around and say, my attorney is a game that yeah, he did not try hard enough.

Sure, yeah, I mean you can bring you know, inadequate a seance of council.

I mean I just feel like that would be the risk that that judge now is taking, right, Like I'm going to assign this person told me to appeal.

Yes, absolutely.

The thing about it for me is like it's so hard to be like, well would I do?

I think about that all the time when I'm when I'm watching the news, when I'm watching the MANGI only try out, Like whenever I'm watching I'm like, what would I do?

The thing that people don't understand, and like it even takes for me to understand.

Sometimes It's not like juries are so subjective.

It's a group of twelve people.

Like when you hear oh the jury, it's just like a morphous blob in your head.

You don't have face is you don't know who they are.

The defense attorney had a chance to interview those people and kind of understand them, and the defense attorneys here in nineteen ninety five interviewed those jurors before they were seated, so for them to kind of use this defense, I'm like, what did they see in these eyes of that jury that they thought this would actually work?

And the tea is that like it did, like he got second degree murder, Like they got it, they got it reduced.

So for me, I'm like, it's so easy for me to sit here and talk about the ethics of a case or what a defense attorney should do or not do.

And I would never use a gay padic defense unless I was literally up against the wall and it was like my license was on the line, and probably even then I'd be like, hmm, I would strongly encourage my client in this situation to take a plea.

And we're speaking in hypotheticals.

I don't know any of these people, right, but today it's twenty twenty five and this is going on.

I would really encourage this person to plea, but like that's the tea.

Clients usually don't want to take a plea.

Right because if they want to hit their chances to see what.

Happened, you need a prosecutor to offer a plea, right, Like, you can't just like take a plea that doesn't exist, right.

So the crazy thing about gay panic defenses is that they still exist.

They are still real defenses that you can use in many states in the US.

Some states, while these are not statutory defenses where it's oh, this is like your menu of options of defenses you can use, some states have gone on the record and actually ban them.

So New York it's banned in New York.

I wonder how often it is used.

There's this like interesting clip I saw it on TikTok of this attorney.

She's a criminal defense lawyer, and she's doubling down.

She's really defending like the use of this as a defense.

She won't say, and she's a queer woman, and she won't say like I don't think I would use that or whatever.

She really just like will know answer the question kind of.

It was really interesting to watch because I mean I was kind of raised by defense attorneys like that in law school, Like I was sort of raised by this like very strict perspective of like you defend no matter what right.

It's nothing to do with your ethics, it's nothing to do with your person.

And I'm like ninety nine percent there, like I really am like a very strong defense attorney advocate of like I'm going to defend, I'm going to help this person.

Yeah, you and do your best.

You go and do your job, But.

Like acknowledging like the extreme privilege I'm in, Like I pick and choose my cases, and there's enough inbound that I'm able to do that and still pay the bills, right right, I don't have to take that.

I don't know what it's like to not be able to put food on the table as a lawyer and have to work on a case that I don't want to work on.

So part of a gay panic defense or any sort of like heat of the moment defense, in order to get that reduced charge you're arguing, there's usually this like exigency piece where it's like this happened immediately you walked in on your spouse, You walked in on your partner having an affair, and in that moment, you murdered the person that they were cheating on you with.

And you know, law school textbooks are like filled with like it's like the same exact situation.

It's like husband and wife.

Wife is having an affair with whomever.

Husband walks in murders the guy.

It's like very or both of them.

And so it's like a very common situation that we see all the time.

So there is this sort of like urgency to that rage.

Right, So the notion that it took this man three days of blind rage, it was, but it wasn't mean it wasn't it.

Really had time.

He had time to go out, find a place to buy a gun, buy the gun, get the bullets a little the gun, go to the place, find the guy, and kill the guy.

He thought about.

It just getting to the studio today, I've gone through like eight different emotions on well, but seriously, like you get no reasonable shit, YEA throughout the day.

If I'm really pissed off about one thing, maybe a couple hours like and I have a terrible memories that happened.

At the end of the day, I'm like, what do you mean so the jury actual only partially bought this, Like they rejected the first degree murder charge, but they convicted him of second degree murder, so there wasn't the panic argument got it reduced, but he wasn't downgraded all the way to manslaughter.

It's usually gay panic is used to get you down to manslaughter new.

Sentences twenty five to fifty years.

Is he still in I don't know.

I wonder where he is now.

I did kind of want to talk about like self internalized homophobia a little bit and like this, I don't know, like reading this case, like usually the fact patterns really interesting just to kind of get a sense of like where we were in time, and we talked about like you know, what it was like in the nineties watching TV and stuff, but like to be a gay person in nineteen ninety five and have a crush on a straight person, Like I don't know, I think any gay person watching this, any queer person, knows what it's like to have a crush on someone that literally, by definition of their sexuality, has no interest in being with you, right, And I don't know, I feel like it really like struck a chord with me reading it and it's where you kind of like see yourself in the eyes of the victim, kind of of like to have a crush on like a straight person is like it's almost like a rite of passage now that you spend time pining for someone that you don't really you know, will never have anything.

Absolutely no chance whatsoever.

And it's like so awful and heartbreaking to see someone like sort of go into that.

And then of course, like anyone getting murdered.

But just like even before the murder, just like thinking about that, I was like, Wow, I spent like a lot of my twenties like either hooking up with guys who were not out.

I was in a long term relationship with someone who wasn't out for a long time who was like is like I think married to a woman now, Like there is this like I don't know for me and like and after doing all that therapy and like ketamine treatments, like I got to a place where I understood like my internalized homophobia, right, Like what self loathing pieces of me were having me seek out not to diagnose this victim of a murder, Like no, no, no, what part of me was like kind of seeking that validation from straight society, right, Like what part of me sought out someone I could never have to kind of like torture myself.

I don't know it, just like it really got me thinking about that moment in my life and how just like fucking awful it was.

I think any time that you are a part of like an other, right, no matter what it is, right, there's because of what the world constantly tells us about being the other, Like there's something wrong with being the other, something less than about being the other.

I think it's really difficult to not have some self loathing, right, And in order to break free of that, you got to do a lot of work.

Either the work is through therapy or just sort of like reading books or like just thinking about, well, there's nothing wrong with me.

It's somebody else or the somebody's else who can't accept me, whether I think you're queer, whether you're you know, a person of color, or I think also this is something that I've come to realize now.

So for the majority of my adolescents and my adult life, I was morbidly obese, right, and I think that there is a lot of self loathing when you walk through the earth as that person and having had weight loss surgery, I wish so badly that I had not walked through life thinking that there was something wrong with me.

It's fine if you want to lose weight, it's fine.

But if you don't want to, that's okay to.

Yeah, it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you because your body is different.

Right, and doesn't mean it's something wrong with you.

And it doesn't mean that you are deserving of less or nothing, oh, or that you deserve for somebody to look at you like a fetish, which is what happens.

And I think that that happens probably a lot too queer people, to people of color, to fat people, to anybody who is other.

Oh yeah, like I get the like straight guys hit on me or come on to me, or because they want like the validation of the queer community, like they want to try and hook up with me, to get like as close as possible to this group, just to know that, like, oh, okay.

If everybody finds you desirable, and if every.

Woman on earth rejects you, you've always got you know someone you can Yeah yeah, no, but it's really real.

No, I know, it's like I used to know this woman.

We used to be friends this white woman who was engaged to a white man, and it was like her dream to hook up with the black guy before she got married.

God is, And and she asked me to introduce her to somebody like I would ever introduce someone like that to somebody that I cared about, either a friend or a cousin or whatever it is, so that you can.

Do that starting a quick group job friends.

Go oh my god, I was so And then she couldn't understand why.

She was just like, well, I just wanted to have this.

It reduces someone down to like the basics.

Yeah, the basis mostly, I.

Mean, and all of that stuff is so it's so seeped in like racism.

I mean, yeah, well it's very much, you.

Know, very but like also just how the world or this country, how the people in this country view people who were not straight, white, attractive, thin, whatever it is.

It's like, yes, absolutely.

As I'm sort of like closing the loop on this case, I'm thinking about, like how many people are still fucking hate crime to this day, how much like race based, queer based, like and sort of violence, especially like black trans women, Like it's like the number one protect the dolls like we're saying it at the.

And we're living in a time I think where our government is sort of sanctioning that.

Right.

There's a lot of dogs.

There's a lot of that, right, like be careful with your kids, like all this stuff is happening in the restroom and all these other things.

And it's like I've seen a lot of sort of like queer community like stepping up for itself because it has to, like I have no choice, people taking care of each other.

And I've gotten a lot more text in my phone, which like I totally love of, like hey, I'm going at this place to hook up with someone, like here's my address, here's their photo.

So I do love to see I mean, queer communities, communities of color have always protected themselves.

I think they've always had.

To and say we have no choice, we have no choice.

Right.

As everything sort of goes on in the world and gets worse and worse and worse, it's like that's happening.

But then I'm also getting like pulled into a closer and closer, close knit unity of people like me.

It's kind of it's awful that it has to happen, but it's also comfortable that's the upshot.

That's the shot.

And I'm noticing that, like I'm behaving differently too.

Like there was this guy when I was out this weekend, sitting by himself at the bar, and he was like, oh, do you guys want these seats?

It was like a group of us, and I was like, yeah, I do, and you're going to stay.

He like got up to leave, and I was like, sit your asspect down.

Where was he?

He was like, oh, I'll get up and you can take the table.

And he was alone.

He was like waiting for he was alone.

I was like, no, no, you're staying.

What's your name?

Like?

Were you waiting for him?

And you stayed with us all night?

Like you are actually really good at at doing that.

I am terrible at that.

I don't like talking to people very much.

I don't.

I don't like talking to people usually if I become friends.

I think you and I are friends because for whatever reason you decided to seek me out.

I wouldn't have, and not because I think I did.

No you would.

It's fine.

I mean it's lovely.

Yeah, but like that's so good of you.

I think the girl whose landlord set her bed on fire, she she's I made her sit down at taco and I was like, she was with her friend and her friend was talking about her boyfriend.

Then I looked at her and I was like, you're gay, right.

She was like, yeah, no, pan of mine is straight.

That's not true, that's not true.

Yeah.

I think that they're, you know, as your sort of queer community.

Maybe you don't have one, maybe you do if you don't reach out to me.

I am.

I do think I'm pretty good at pulling people in.

And he's actually scarily.

I will text, I'll text everyone.

I'm actually a psycho.

And sometimes I'll post on my story.

I'll be like, this is why I it's actually.

It's actually very dangerous.

Please don't do that.

Don't do that.

Don't do what Michael does.

Yeah.

No, criminally insane, Michael.

But I do think that, like, you know, definitely travel with allies.

Let people know where you're going.

If you are hooking up with someone who.

Says, yeah, definitely, I think especially the letting people know where you're going.

I still have friends who were single.

I have lots of younger cousins and I always tell them, like, let me know where you're going to be.

Every now and then I'll tell a friend like, let me track you, even if it's just for this night.

Someone DM me and he was like, I need a Uber ride home.

And I was up.

The dog pissed all over the rogue, so I was awake and I then mowed that pitch you did.

Oh yeah, some random person.

You're also very generous.

I don't know that.

I was like, this is actually kind of fun.

I'm glad this person reached out.

He was all, like a circuit.

Party, don't don't reach out to me.

I won't pay for you.

All financial all financials come through me.

C F.

Yeah, speaking of going bankrupt financially, we should talk a little bit about Melissa's case.

Melissa brought a case today.

So remember when we first started to talk and you asked me if I was a lawyer, and I was like, absolutely positively not.

I don't think what I.

Seemed to be really coming from like this deep place of trauma.

Yeah, and we're going to talk about it.

We're going to talk about it.

And I don't think I don't remember if I had shared that before I started working in nonprofit, I was a paralegal for a really.

Long time, and I think that's how we initially bonded when I met.

You, like probably talked about that right and again.

I wanted to become a paralegal because I thought it was a sort of a natural transition to eventually going to law school.

Paralegals have a really difficult job.

I think it's like the shittiest job in a law of firn.

Yeah, any paralegal that I have worked with, either at a firm or my practice, they are the backbone.

It is like such a thankless job.

People go out of my way to make sure that paralegals and court clerks feel great.

I think it's like really important and that like you'll actually get better results.

Oh for sure.

I guess any employee you want, if you treat them nicely, they're going to do right by you.

But uh, it is one of those jobs where you do all the work and you get none of the glory.

None of the glory, and attorneys don't respect you and they treat you like shit.

I remember one time I had an attorney who threw a file at me, and I remember watching like he threw the file and I kind of like watched it and like all the paper snowball down.

I just kind of looked at him and like walked away and was like, I'm not sure what you want me to do, but you've just thrown this at me and his secretary picks it up.

Yeah, she didn't even pick it up.

No, oh, that's how you know a monster when if she knew to come.

In, Well, I walked out and then she was like, what happened now?

I was just like, he just threw He just threw a file at me, and I can't I was.

Not the ma I know today, because the Melissa I know today, Yeah, I was fucked someone up.

It leaves verbally for sure, for sure?

Whoa And I just.

Sort of worked.

I'm sorry not to like justify his actions what precipitated this though, I'm not trying.

To just no, no, no, no, I can tell you exactly what it was.

He had given the file to me, and you know, you know those binder clippy things, Yeah right, yeah, yeah, so I gave the file back to him, but I had forgotten to put them back in the whole punch, so fucking what right?

No?

No, I mean, and he could have said to me, you know what, Melissa, when you're doing this, you need to give it back to me the way that I gave it back to you or something.

But like throwing it at me was not the way to get me to do anything.

Oh my god, and to go from zero to a thousand life.

Oh and I will say this particular attorney was notorious for doing things like that.

He threw things at people.

He screamed at people.

I will tell you every now and then I google him and he's like, partner.

I hate that.

I really hate when shitty people are successful.

He is.

He's very successful.

He's a very successful.

Evil I mean, it's not evil.

And I'm going to answer my own question, but like my first thought is like, how can we undo success?

I'm like, how can I be a part of his downfall?

It's not even worth it.

I'm going to be actively I mean I was.

Yeah, I would love that for every time.

Yeah, he was a her success, right.

So how can we be more successful?

Anyway, We'll do him.

Later, We'll talk about it all the time.

But anyway, so you were apparently.

Was apparently go for a really long time in New York at a firm in New York.

I worked at a few firms in New York.

One of the things I kept on doing, was kept on moving around because I thought that the problem was the firm where I was, when actually the problem was me, do you know what I mean?

And in the sense that in the sense that that is not the kind of work that I was meant to do.

Practice of being a being.

A litigation paralegal was absolutely not right for me.

But I had had experience being an immigration paralegal for a nonprofit organization that helped people with HIV.

I loved that crisis.

I used to work at the Game Men's Health Crisis back in the nineties.

I loved that job and I learned a lot, and I felt like I was doing some good work for people who deserved it, who needed it.

But I will say again, it was sort of early mid nineties.

I had not only did I have a lot of clients who died, but my colleagues around me also started to go which became really really challenging.

And eventually I was like I did it for about five years and I was like, you know what, I can't do this anymore.

And that's when I was like, you know what, my next step, My logical next step would be to go work for some big law firms, and it was one really terrible experience after another.

And the case we're going to talk about, the case, the case that ended my legal career, and I kid you not was Enron.

No, so I don't know what anybody knows about did Ron.

Thank the financial sector, but the Melissa's I couldn't do it.

I could not do it anymore.

So if you don't know anything about Enron, Enron was this energy company.

It was originally based in Omaha, Nebraska, but I think it ended up having a huge base in Texas.

And what ended up happening is that they they were making a ton of money, but then they found out that a lot of it they were reporting their income fraudulently.

So there was a lot of weird stuff going on in the background.

Right, don't don't do that, And eventually they got found out.

It exploded, right, And so they got found out in two thousand and one.

In two thousand and two, the lawsuits started and there were at least twenty different law firms that were working with Enron for ran some way, and I ended up working for one of the firms that was representing them in their bankruptcy.

Wow, And that is I mean, just for context, that's like a huge Oh, it was an ilucrative one, like if if you're a firm and you land a case like that.

Anytime I see some sort of like financial meltdown, I'm like, oh, next year there's going to be a crazy ass lawsuit and somewhere is going to be making bay.

Oh.

And the amount of time, the hours, the hours that I worked, and I was apparalleegal.

I wasn't an associate, I wasn't an attorney, but you would be at work all hours of the day and night, Like I'd be at work at three o'clock in the morning, like it was my god.

And it was to the point where the stress became such that my hair started falling out.

This is too much information, but I'm gonna shot it anyway.

I had the runs all the time, Like my stomach was fucker.

And I remember it was super late at night.

I was working beautiful hair.

I would huge.

When I tell you, a huge.

Sign actually one suitress.

The stress, the stress of a lawsuit just guid.

It all before and after.

And I remember working with an associate and it was the middle of the night, and I remember he looked at me and he was like, I thought he was going to cry.

He was like, what are we doing here?

And I was like, that is a good fucking question.

What am I doing here?

And I feel like a couple of weeks later.

Just one person looking at you and saying what are we doing here?

It's such like an internal monologue internalized.

Well.

It also makes you feel like I am not alone in recognizing that this is terrible.

Yes I am.

I am not alone in realizing that this is not only is it a really hard job, but for me, the wrong.

Job and leaving is contagious, right, Like that is where you kind of get this like hive mentality of like, oh, you want to go to safety numbers.

I don't think he ever left, though, but I will tell you that a few weeks later, I was on the subway and I saw I wish I could say her name, because I know you love it so much, but I won't.

I saw a friend of mine that I had gone to high school with and we sort of connected, and she was just like, oh my god, how are you.

It's missuch a long time.

What are you doing.

I said, Oh, I'm a paralegal and she said, oh wow, that must be really exciting and on the F train, Melissa Malbranch started to cry.

The F train, I've cried on that train.

We all, oh yeah, the quick breakup hard.

Cut to twenty fourteen.

Michael foot full headed well on its way out, head of.

Hair, kind of curly, little curly, little curly, just.

Got dumped by the coach of my swim team, the gay swim team in New York.

F train blues hit the music we're not allowed to say.

Oh sorry, Okay, well there's no music.

There's no there's fucking composer.

Quit God, damn it.

There's no budget for music.

Okay.

So back to this case.

So there's a huge financial.

Meltout, huge financial meltdown.

You were one of the firms dealing with their bankruptcy.

Yeah, it was a lot of work.

It was awful.

It was really really awful.

But I meet this friend from high school and she's like, what are you doing?

I end up crying and she was just like, do you want to come work where I work?

And I was like, doing what?

And she was just like, I think the development office is hiring.

And I was like, what's development and she said, I don't know, but they raise money and they have parties, and that's what I did.

I quit, so should hit the fan with the Enron.

Their market value tanked from like ninety dollars to one dollar in a day.

Yep.

Yeah, and people started.

There were teams of people shredding.

There were teams of people shredding documents.

They were you know, and I think I think also this is sort of before people really recognize that just because you delete an email doesn't mean that it's actually gone.

Oh yeah, people forget that all the time.

I have clients you could.

Delete a text message, it's still their friends.

Oh.

So this is actually my favorite the Fourth Amendment kid the music.

So this is actually a Fourth Amendment issue that comes up all the time.

Right, So, when you send a text message, you're actually sharing it with your cell phone provider.

Technically under the Fourth Amendment, the law has decided, through much case law that because you shared it with a third party, it's you did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the message you sent.

So all the time your phone records can get subpoenut and they just like see what you were texting.

Yeah, So there were people like shredding documents, and eventually they went to trial.

The head person.

I remember this, the head person who was supposed to be sentenced.

Before he got sentenced, he died.

He had a heart attack.

Oh my god.

I think the guild killed him or something else, you know what though, or maybe the guilt didn't kill him, something else killed him.

Suspicious, suspicious circumstances.

There are pieces of and Ron were basically sold off under Chapter eleven.

Yeah, and it was sort of like a wipe this like clean situation where they were just like selling shit to pay off their creditors.

Yeah, they were selling everything.

They were selling the furniture that's supposedly was like the lawsuits were a battle.

Yeah, and also making sure that the people who were running and round were prosecuted.

And they were prosecuted, but they weren't prosecuted before they got away with a huge payday.

They still had tons of money.

Meanwhile, people whose for oh one k's were invested in and Ron lost everything.

And that was the other I think that happened with the Murdocks too correct correct.

And that was the part of it for me when I was this paralegal working at this firm.

That was the part of it that was killing me because these were all sort of regular people.

You know, my I come from a very regular family.

My mom was a teacher and my dad was sort of middle management, Like this is the kind of thing that could have impacted somebody like that.

Of course, Yeah, yeah, it was awful.

A few key differences I want to call out about the Enron Chapter eleven filing that Melissa worked on.

This was not usually Chapter eleven or like one hundred thousand dollars.

This was sixty three billion dollars.

We got to get into the DMS.

This is tales from the DMS.

These are all your questions that you sent us.

Send in your questions, leave out identifying information, and always.

Remember, while Michael is a lawyer, he is not your lawyer.

So this first question, let's let's play it for the for the group.

Hi, Michael, this is more of a question from a burgeoning young lawyer who is waiting bar results.

But yeah, if you could regale us with a tale of what the bar was like for you and how waiting months for it felt and what you did to cope in the meantime, Bar results are awful.

Do you know anything the bar exam is like?

It's truly excruciating it is for me.

I took it back in the day where it was two days.

I think it might be three days.

It was two days, and it was at the jab At Center in New York.

You're all the way over on the river.

There was no huts and yards when I was taking it.

It was just sort of where did you take it?

Twenty fourteen?

So it sure like this like wasteland down over there.

And the actual experience of like studying the bar, it really is like brutal.

I will say, as someone who's practiced law for eleven years now, I have never experienced anything quite as awful as that, and I do I have mixed emotions about it, but I do feel like it did prepare me.

The experience of sitting the bar prepared me to be a trial attorney.

Just cramming, not having everything figure it out, and being forced to do something at a deadline was actually like really real experience for entering a workforce where you are going to have to do that.

You're going to have to go to court not having all the facts.

Sometimes you're going to get a surprise.

You're not going to under stand the law one hundred percent every single time.

So it was actually like a really good way to like kind of get prepared.

And it was also like so excruciating that every terrible experience I have now I can compare it back to that and be like, oh well, at least it wasn't like that's setting the bar.

Yeah.

So I actually have a funny story.

I was sitting in the bar and the girl next to me.

You're sitting like it's like in those little desks.

Yeah, you're sitting.

It's like it's like long tables.

So I was sitting at someone's right next to you, and she finished, like I was on like page two and she was done.

And if you've sat the bar, or if you think about sitting the bar, timing is everything you have like less than you time it out of, like forty seconds per question.

You're trying to like get through as many as possible because you need to.

It's better to do that than have unanswered questions.

How long is the test supposed to last per day?

I think it was eight hour.

It was a full eight hours of testing each day and studyingly up to it.

I think I was studying sixteen hours a day and I would eat and then I would sleep, and like that it really was.

It for like six weeks.

So the girl next to me finished early, and I was like, oh my god, what the fuck is going on?

And I had just been talking to her she went to a great law school.

I'm like, Wow, I'm stupid, I'm terrible.

This is this is awful.

Right before the test ended, she scurried and like flipped back to pages she had missed, like a bunch of pages.

Oh no, And she told me after we like took a break, she was like, I missed like four pages of the exam and had to go back and she had like sixty seconds to get through it all.

I was like, do you know what happened to her?

Dead?

She died right there?

No, she didn't.

Don't say that.

If that's you, could you reach out to Michael now.

I want to know what happened.

Remember you remember to that guy at the bar.

I know that would be such a fun.

No, it actually really would be.

I hope.

I'm sure she's fine.

We had two other days of like prep and it was just one section, so she could still nail.

It four pages of questions.

It was one of those moments where like, you know, the patient is in the doctor's office and like the bone is sticking out and they're like, do you think it's broken?

Like she was looking at me like do you think I fucked up?

And I was the doctor like no.

Yeah you do.

Like my face was really like I really had to try and hide the fact that she had a bone stick it out.

This is not the same thing at all.

But have you ever been in a final exam while you were in college and you finish faster than everybody else and you know it's because you fucked up?

Right?

You know?

Like you you know, I finished so quick, there's no and I'm looking around.

You finished so quickly.

There was one word answers that said.

Everybody's writing a soliloquy and I have just done.

So I wandered the l is this the wrong clause?

Money?

Or like you show up to final exams, yeah, and there's like there's no one there.

Oh no, not that, but like you show up and you're like, oh, today's a final exam, and what advice do you have for this young woman?

Hard dorks and alcohol?

Like that is actually the only take that I think it's the only way.

To get through, right, No, no, no, no, no no no no no, don't do that.

Don't want advice?

Why ask me?

Don't prompt?

No, no, no.

I think what you do is young person.

I think that maybe you can't do anything.

But wait, so while you're waiting, do things that nourish your spirit.

Right, go to yoga, go to Pilate's, go for a walk, eat some ice cream, have sex.

Whatever I want, don't I want to, don't want to?

Hard cut to image of angel and devil on your shoulder, like I think we coult you saying all the drink of green juice and I don't.

Don't turn the party down.

Don't drink a green juice that's not going to help anything.

Maybe take an edible that I think you could do.

Yeah, right, but you hard don't break the law hard drugs right, exactly, hard drugs and alcohol?

Said you did hard dreads and alcoholic?

Something else or advice to break the law.

How does the leaving all of your money to your cat or dog in your well thing work?

Oh?

I love that this is so great, Like, how how does that work?

I love that It.

Sounds like she just found out about this concept.

That she's but it almost sounds like the background who were just like, don't ask the more questions.

Make him do it answer, Oh my god, that is so funny.

Well, Leona Helmsley famously did this.

She was a famous New York City social and.

Her husband was a big real estate guy.

She left all her money to her cat.

I think her dog.

Okay, so you can't actually do that, and I don't think that's what she did.

I mean, and if she did do that, like good for her.

Groundbreaking.

But technically pets are property in the eyes of the law, which there's there's actually some interesting articles about it.

There's like a dog lawyer on Long Island and he goes to court and like represents dogs in situations where they like bit someone, but it was really the owner's fault.

Like he always is like pro dog, which I absolutely love.

But pets are property, so in the eyes of the law, obviously I have I mean, this is my dog.

He's on before bae, before all else.

He's a bad dog.

He is bad.

But you can't leave money in your will to property.

But what you can do is you can set up a trust for the explicit purpose of taking care of that pet.

So you can establish a trust.

It's pretty simple.

You could probably find a form online.

You need like a trustee, someone who's going to hold the money and administer it for that express purpose.

What happens when the animal dies, So you would.

Need like a reversion clause.

If the animal dies, you would need a reversion clause in the will of like what happens with the corpus of that money.

So a lot of the times trust money is like invested and you're just spending the interest, right, But what you could do is say, like after that it goes to an animal charity, or it goes to the trustee who took care of the pet.

Gotcha.

So the other thing you can do is a conditional bequest and say, like Michael gives Melissa a one hundred thousand dollars to take care of his mean dog.

If she doesn't want to take care of the dog or whatever, she doesn't get one hundred thousand dollars.

So you're qualifying that bequest to that person.

But you would do it.

I would, I would in theory.

I wouldn't theory, but Jackson doesn't like anybody I actually have.

You are an incredible pet owner, and now you have Arthur Weasley.

Now I have Arthur Weasley, who I who's a maniac.

And she keeps running away.

He keeps escaping your apartment.

Yeah, I don't know why he doesn't, but he doesn't.

He doesn't mean to what's going on in the home.

What's going on in the home.

She's fucking spoiled.

That cat is spoilt.

Oh yeah, here we go.

Leona Helmsley, the New York City hotel magnet, left twelve million, twelve million dollars in a trust for her Maltese named Trouble.

A judge later cut it down to two million.

I guess the I want to read.

I want to read that decision.

The judge was like, this is actually excessive.

Two million is the right number.

But the dog still lived out its days in luxury with a caretaker.

So what I imagine Leona probably did was she set up a trust for that caretaker to watch the dog.

What happened to the balance of the funds, So there gets the money the caretaker probably no, I know, but no, no, no, no, no no.

So Leona left twelve million dollars for the dog, and then the judge knocked it down to two million dollars.

The dog probably, I mean, how much is a bag of kibble right.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm what what the ten million dollars?

What happened to the ten million dollars?

Oh yeah, that's a lot of money.

It is a lot of We need accountability.

Let's do a full audit, and then I guess the person who gets two million dollars, even if you're giving the dog, I don't know, dog caviare you're the caretaker, is really living off of the two millions.

This is the kind of math that Melissa used on the end Run bankruptcy case.

I had to to get through it.

It was no other way.

Count her days to leave the firm.

Oh my god.

I feel like at one point I was just like rocking back and.

Eat your hair.

And that's why I.

Lost it all a twitch.

It was awful.

Oh man, I was so unhappy.

I was so unhappy.

I was so happy, and your hair was falling.

I mean that is bad.

Mine fell out because of shitty genetics like yours fell out because of stress.

That is your body being like literally what's inside here is so damaging.

It's like I was just full of hellish yuck.

It was the fucking worst.

It was awful.

Melissa has the best ways of describing ailments.

I pulled it.

I pulled a muscle once and she called it a.

Moment.

That's what it is.

It's it's a full movement is French, and it means you moved incorrectly, and that's what happened.

I threw my back out.

You how a poat?

Move on?

Yeah?

I do.

What the fuck are we gonna do about it?

I don't know.

I don't have the I don't have the solutions everything.

That's another reneism.

Oh your grandmother, grandmother.

Your grandmother, a flower without odor.

A flower without a smell, movement, movement.

Well, this has been tells from the DMS.

Please keep writing in your questions and please leave out your social security.

Please leave out the personal information, guys, please, it's for your sake.

Anyway.

Thank you for watching Brief Recess.

I'm Michael Foot, I'm Melissa malbranch.

I'll see you in court.

This has been an exactly right production recorded at iHeart Studios, posted by me Michael Foot.

And me Melissa Malbranch.

Our producer is C.

J.

Ferroni.

This episode was edited by Nicholas Galucci.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.

And our guest booker is Patria Kuttner.

Our theme song was composed by Tom Brifogel with artwork from Charlotte Delarue and Manessa Lilac, with photography by Brad Obono.

Brief Recess is executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hart Stark, and Danielle Kramer.

You can find me on Instagram at Department of Redundancy Department or on TikTok at Michael foot and.

I'm on both Instagram and TikTok as Melissa Malbranch.

Got legal questions, reach out at brief Recess at exactlyrightmedia dot com.

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