Published May 14th, 2021

Elie Honig:

Hey folks, before we get started with today’s episode, I have some news to share with you about The Third Degree Podcast. Beginning the week of May 24th, The Third Degree feed, this feed where you’re listening now, will feature audio of my weekly notes to the Cafe community, where I analyze news at the intersection of law and politics. We’ll be dialing back the current Monday, Wednesday, Friday format a bit because we’re turning our attention to a brand new podcast. I’m going to tell you now, this thing will blow your mind when you hear it. I don’t want to say too much at the moment, but it draws on my experience as a prosecutor in the Southern district of New York. I can’t wait to tell you more about it in the coming weeks. And I can’t wait to drop it, I can’t wait for you to hear it.

So thanks for listening. As always, please keep sending us any thoughts and questions you may have to letters@cafe.com. From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is Third Degree. I’m Elie Honig. And everybody. It is another Friday, a beautiful day out. I am always in a good mood on Friday because I get to be joined by a guest. Back again, one of our law student co-hosts, Safeena Mecklai. Safeena, welcome. But before I bring you in, congratulations are in order. You are now the owner, possessor, holder of a JD, am I correct here?

Safeena Mecklai:

Correct. Well, graduation is next week, but I successfully finished my last final, crawled across the finish line, and I am so happy to not be a law student this week. It feels good.

Elie Honig:

Well, congratulations. You are actually in the weird purgatory now where you are, or about to be a JD, but not a lawyer yet. You have to pass the Bar first, which is what you’re going to be looking at this summer, correct?

Safeena Mecklai:

Yes, that’s right. I know my mom was like, “yay, you’re a lawyer.” And I of course had to correct her that I wasn’t yet a lawyer. And she was like, “just enjoy it. Just be normal and have a great week, and you’re almost a lawyer and you can count it.?

Elie Honig:

That is great advice. How do you feel? Do you feel bummed out that your school career is over? I’ll just tell you before, I remember this was a weird time in life, because for me, I didn’t take any years off in between. So from kindergarten through what would be, I guess, if you did the grades, 19th grade-

Safeena Mecklai:

Wow.

Elie Honig:

I guess, right? You are in school. You have more or less the same rhythm. You have your spring break, you have exams, you have start of school, and then all of a sudden it’s over, and now you’re kind of a professional or about to be one. So I remember it felt weird, satisfying, but also a little unsettling. Where are you at?

Safeena Mecklai:

It’s definitely unsettling. I am still waking up at like 7:00 AM in a panic that I have an exam to take or a class to get on. And before today, I hadn’t opened Zoom in three days, which felt really great. But yeah, I took some years off between undergrad and law school. So I’ve had a taste of the professional working world, and I came back to school because I was feeling nostalgic for being in school. And there’s something nice about getting to be in a conversation where everything is theoretical, there are no stakes. And so I’m already feeling that I’m going to miss that.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. I think you will. But always, what’s next? And there’s always good stuff next. Can I just brag one time on your behalf, and I will embarrass you and announce that you gave your school’s, your law school’s graduation speech, as the, I guess, president of your class. How was that? And what was the best part of that? What were you most proud of for that?

Safeena Mecklai:

Well, I got to talk about my mom, which was really great, and that felt really good because she’s my biggest cheerleader. And she’s a scientist and always jokes that she has no idea how I got the desire to become a lawyer. And I loved getting to talk about the fact that she is an incredible advocate and totally the reason that I went to law school. So it was weird because we recorded the speech, but it airs at our graduation next week. So I’m excited for all my friends to see it too.

Elie Honig:

Well, I’m sure your friends will be proud of you, and I’m sure your mom will be, to use, the way my people would phrase it, your mom will be kvelling. I don’t know if you know that term?

Safeena Mecklai:

No.

Elie Honig:

There’s no exact English equal for it, but it means about to pass out with pride.

Safeena Mecklai:

Great. That is a very useful term that I can be incorporating into my life.

Elie Honig:

Exactly. Well, congratulations. It’s also been a fascinating week in the sort of outside world, the real world of law and media. And the first thing that jumped out to me was that the judge in the Derek Chauvin case, and you and I had talked about this, came out with a ruling that I think presages what he is going to do in the sentencing. And you and I talked about, I think last time you are on, that the prosecution, they had the conviction all wrapped up and they were arguing for five aggravating sentencing factors. And I think we ticked through them all and sort of talked about the likelihood the judge would find them. Well, the judge made his ruling this week and he found four of the five apply. And I think the ruling itself has some really interesting pieces to it.

Elie Honig:

So I know you’ve taken a look at it now. So two of the five, I think, were no-brainers. One, that children were present. Obviously they were, they testified at the trial. That’s an aggravator under Minnesota law. And two, that Derek Chauvin abused a position of public authority. Of course, he was a cop in full cop uniform, responding to a scene as a cop. Those two were kind of no-brainers. Then there were three that I think that were maybe contestable. So the first one was whether Derek Chauvin used particular cruelty in the way he committed this crime. And I thought there was a little bit of wiggle room here, but I think you and I concluded that there was a good argument for it and the judge found that he did use it. And the judge really uses some pretty specific examples. For example, the judge talks about quote, “the prolonged use of this technique,” meaning the knee to the neck, “was particularly egregious, in that George Floyd made it clear he was unable to breathe and express the view that he was dying as a result of the officer’s restraints.”

Elie Honig:

So I found that really interesting. And the other thing the judge found that I find really, not just interesting, but important to what’s going to come next, is the judge did find that the crime involved three or more people, meaning the other cops, which is kind of an awkward position for everybody, because those three cops are still waiting for their trial in August. Now, the judge made a point of saying, “I’m not making any opinion here on their guilt or non guilt, that’ll be up to trial. However, I do find that the crime involved them in some respect.” What was your reaction to those pieces of the ruling, the particular cruelty and the fact that it involved multiple people? What do you read into that?

Safeena Mecklai:

I was definitely struck also by the language that the opinion used. It was pretty short, but I feel like the judge was clearly expressing condemnation of the tactics used, that he was colorful in his language describing the cruelty. And I found that sort of vindicating in some ways. I feel like he was channeling some of the language that the public had used to describe the crime. And so I was hopeful that he would find that was an aggravating factor that existed, but I was surprised that the language that he used, including that George Floyd was begging for his life, that he was scared. I mean, he was clearly responding to that, to the public also.

And as far as the other three persons present, I was really surprised that he was able to say that they were involved, but also make no findings as to their culpability for their own trials. And I was curious if it could be grounds for a mistrial? How it would come up in their case? If there was a way, even thinking about jury selection for the three other officers, what if potential jurors had read this order? How do you sort of separate this order from their case?

Elie Honig:

A lot of good questions in there. So first of all, you’re right. The language in this ruling, which is only about five pages, the judge does talk about an egregious abuse. And he talks about George Floyd was terrified as he was dying. I mean, the judge really comes through with a sort of very concise ruling, but it’s also sort of visceral in a way that I think is signaling that the judge is not looking to go low here on the sentence. And we can talk about what that ultimate sentence may be. How does this play for the other three is so interesting. Look, the judge had to rule on this before that trial, because Chauvin’s being sentenced in June and the trial’s in August. So that the judge couldn’t punt this. I’m sure he would have if he could have, this ruling that three others were involved, or at least three people were involved total.

Elie Honig:

I do think you’re right, they’re going to have to vet the jury, because if the jury knows this, I mean, you have to be following the case fairly closely, but it’s possible. I mean, I’m sure it’s front page news in Minneapolis. And if the jury reads, oh, the judge found there were other people involved in the crime, they’re going to think … I mean, look, it takes some mental gymnastics to say, yes, I find others were involved. No, this has no reflection of my view on whether they were involved, or liable, or guilty. It’s the kind of, sort of mental trick that lawyers are asked to perform, and jurors sometimes are asked to perform. I mean, another one is the Fifth Amendment. The judge always tells the jury, well, the defendant in this case did not take the stand, but you’re not to draw any inference from that.

Elie Honig:

And I think you and I have talked about, from the time you’re a kid, if someone gets accused of something and doesn’t defend themselves, you naturally assume, well, they must be hiding something. But jurors are instructed, don’t do that, which is contrary to sort of the way that people think. So you’re right, I do think this is going to be another complicating factor in picking that jury. I still think, and I think you and I have talked about this, I still think all the forces here, judge, prosecutor, everything else is pushing us towards a plea on these three defendants. I mean, put yourself in their position. How would this impact you? I’m going to ask you to play defense lawyer, even though you don’t have your Bar license just yet, what would you make of this? Let’s say you’re representing Thomas Lane, or Tou Thao, or Alexander Kueng, one of the other three lawyers, what would you tell them about this?

Safeena Mecklai:

Take the plea. Because it’s not only that you don’t want to have to re-litigate this case and have a trial, but also there’s just too much media attention, too much sort of public thoughts about this case. It feels almost impossible to truly have a fair trial in a case that’s been followed so closely and that people have such strong opinions about. And there’s a lot of suspending disbelief for having to manipulate the way that you think about this case in order to create a fair trial. And I think this order, as it relates to the three of them, is a perfect example of the mental gymnastics that a juror or a judge would have to do to really give these folks a fair trial. So I would encourage them to take a plea if it’s fair in this case.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. Take a plea if it’s fair, and if it’s there. Because it takes two. So the prosecution is going to have to be willing to plead these guys out too. And by the way, on that front, I believe the prosecution, if I’m the prosecutor, I guess I’ll say this much, I am trying as hard as humanly possible to plead this case out, because this is a difficult trial and you don’t want to, in a sense, taint or undermine what you’ve already achieved. You’ve got this conviction of Chauvin. It was a monumental moment in, I think our history. It will be the capstone of the careers of Jerry Blackwell, and Steve Schleicher and the other members of the prosecution team. Now you’re going to try a much more difficult case, which absolutely could come back with a mixed verdict and unsatisfactory verdict. Some get convicted, some don’t, or a hung. It is many times more complicated to get a conviction in the case of these three.

And so if you can get them to plead, admit guilt, make sure they get decent sentences out of this, I’m not talking about probationary sentences, I think you take that in a second. So the question is, is there going to be a middle ground? And another question is, from both sides, do you and see what sentence the judge imposes on Chauvin first? Or do you sort of take your plea first? And one other very subtle thing I picked up, I may be reading too much into this. The two lead prosecutors were on Preet’s Podcasts last week, on Stay Tuned, Jerry Blackwell and Steve Schleicher. And it was really interesting listening to them. It was a fascinating, compelling interview. But I have to say, I picked up a vibe from listening to the two of them of, they don’t think they have a really difficult trial a couple months from now that they’re frantically preparing for that could go either way.

I picked up a little bit more of a looking back vibe, a little bit more of a, our job is mostly done here vibe. They didn’t say anything along those lines. I’m just telling you, I’ve talked to prosecutors who are looking down the barrel of a terrifying trial, and I’ve talked to prosecutors who have just finished a trial. And to me, they sounded much more like the latter. Not that there’s a plea in place. I’m not saying there’s some secret deal in place. But again, if I’m in their shoes, my hope and expectation is to plead this thing out. But we shall see. We shall see. Are you willing, if you’re the prosecutor here, Safeena, are you willing to plead these guys out? Let’s say they’re willing to take 5 to 10 years each. Are you willing to do that? Do you think it sends a bad message perhaps? Because I assure you, if there is a five-year plea, there will be people who say, why were they let off easy?

Safeena Mecklai:

Yeah, it’s difficult. Because on the one hand, you want to think about what purpose of punishment does a plea serve. And if you think the facts of this case have sort of been put out in public, they have been functionally tried through the Chauvin trial. People feel like they know what happened. People feel like the facts have been able to be aired. Maybe giving them a plea that reflects that they’ve already experienced some level of punishment is sufficient. If you think that one, they’ll personally learn a lesson from all of this, and two, that hopefully it reflects that there are broader changes to policing happening, maybe you’re willing to offer that.

But I think I’d want to think about their own culpability. I’d be curious to hear from them sort of what they’ve learned already, what they think that punishment would serve. But I’m curious, even in this judge’s order, he talked about the trust that was placed in the defendant included the trust that anyone arrested would be treated with respect. So I think there’s also this indictment of police violence and police brutality happening. And I’d be curious about a sentence that reflects their own individual culpability, but also reflects that there’s reform to come, broadly.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. And I think the number matters a lot there in terms of selling it to the public. If you plead someone out for two years, that I do not think is acceptable, and I don’t think the public will accept that. If you get into your double digits, I mean, that’s real punishment. That’s real time behind bars. And you’re right, we do, I do, I’m guilty of this, I always call them the other three, the other three. We lump them all together. But they all did different things that day, and some of them did worse than others. And I think that would need to be reflected for the idea of sort of appropriate and proportional punishment as well. So some very difficult, sort of intricate, strategic and tactical moves about to happen. And as they used to say on the TV show, The Wire, which is fantastic, everything, it’s all connected, or everything’s connected.

And every move, and I think the judge understands this and the prosecutors understand this, the judge’s ruling on the four aggravating factors matters a lot here in the calculation. It weighs in really in the prosecutor’s favor. And what sentence the judge gives Derek Chauvin will matter a lot too. So we shall see. Now, there was another big piece of news this week on the Chauvin case, which is that DOJ filed federal charges against all four defendants here. And I talked on an earlier episode of Third Degree about sort of breaking down those charges. And what I found interesting is that the way that some of those charges were phrased as failure to intervene, failure to render medical aid. But here’s the question I want to ask you, what do you make of the way DOJ is using its power and its resources here?

And I guess to phrase it more broadly, DOJ has sort of struggled for years with this question of, where do we get involved in these police violence cases and where do we not get involved? And so, does it make sense for DOJ to charge cases that have already been charged in the state, and to do it before we even know the full outcome, before we know who will be convicted and what the sentences will be? In other words, would it makes sense for DOJ to say, here’s our policy, basically. We’re going to investigate these cases. We’re going to wait and see what happens at the state first, because if the states prosecute these cases and the cops get enormous punishments, 20 years, 40 years, life, there’s not going to be a need for us to come in? Or is it the better tack for DOJ to say, we have to do what we have to do, and what happens in the state is not really our issue, and we have to make a statement here with our prosecutorial powers? Which do you think is the better approach?

Safeena Mecklai:

Yeah. On the one hand, I guess in thinking about the theories of federalism, DOJ is accountable to a different constituency. Accountable to us as citizens of the Federal Government. And so I think there’s political calculations that, even if the state is doing its job and bringing these cases, DOJ still has a responsibility to bring the cases where there are federal charges. So I sort of get the impulse to bring the charges. But in thinking practically, if a defendant is already charged at the state level, if you’re essentially going to bring a charge that’s going to come out with a concurrent sentence, is it a good use of resources? And I wonder about, is it better if DOJ focuses its authority on pattern and practice investigations, or are there police violence cases, and we know that there are, that don’t get as much public attention, that don’t bring the same kind of public energy, that don’t bring state charges?

And maybe a better use of DOJ energy and resources to find the cases that aren’t getting the attention in the states and bring those cases federally, either pattern and practice on the whole, or individual cases where we’re just not seeing charges at the state level. So I think it makes sense that they have the authority, there are federal charges available here. But maybe it makes more sense to focus on the cases that aren’t getting so much attention, or they have the ability to focus on structural change. And I think people want to see structural change here.

Elie Honig:

Yeah. I think you laid out the arguments sort of perfectly there. On the one hand, they do have limited resources. And if this becomes a trial of these four officers, it could be severed, it could be split up into four separate trials, theoretically even, or it could be two, it’s up to the judge, or it could be one trial. But that’s a heavy lift. And if you take it out to an extreme, what would happen if all four of these police officers get maxed out? What would happen if everyone in the state got 40 years each, and now DOJ is adding on top of that? Is that the best use of your resources when they don’t have infinite resources, especially not in civil rights, not in the sort of police reform area. So would it be better to go elsewhere? By the way, talk about everything’s connected here, the federal charges weigh in as well, because now if you’re a defendant, any of these guys, you’re looking at multiple trials.

Elie Honig:

Even Chauvin’s looking at two more trials because he was indicted, not just for George Floyd, but for, according to the allegations, vicious assault on a 14 year old unrelated to this. So every one of these defendants is now looking at two more trials. And to me, that pushes even more strongly for them to try to plead out. It would be what we call a global plea, meaning you plead to everything at once, everyone sort of signs on board. On the other hand, DOJ, I think feels like it’s important, particularly in these early days, particularly coming on the heels of the Trump Administration, DOJ under Trump, and the way it was handled under Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, which was essentially more or less indifferent to police cases. They essentially stopped doing those pattern and practice civil investigations. They were not aggressive at all in charging police officers with acts of violence or excessive force.

So I wonder if they’re trying to make a statement here, trying to send a message to the public, that we are not going to tolerate this, we are going to step in, we are going to bring charges if we deem them appropriate, regardless of whether the state has dropped the hammer on these guys, or regardless of whether the state has failed to charge altogether, we’re going to do what we have to do. So I do wonder if there’s a public messaging sensitivity happening here.

Safeena Mecklai:

I’m very curious to hear about your experience in just being a prosecutor in the changing media landscape. I imagine early on in your prosecuting career, you followed maybe local news, local papers closely, and I wonder how that influenced some of your charging decisions, or if it influenced your behavior at all in trial, even? And I’m wondering how that’s changed now when local newspapers are sort of disappearing? But maybe we’re able to be even closer to the public on, say Twitter, and I wonder how prosecutors sort of leverage Twitter or follow Twitter and how it impacts their decisions?

Elie Honig:

Yeah. So gosh, there’s a lot of issues there. So let me start with this. Do prosecutors read the media? Absolutely. Especially your own case. I mean, if you know your case is being written up in the newspapers. It wasn’t so much when I was trying cases. My cases weren’t really on Twitter, but they’d be in the New York Post, and the daily news and occasionally the New York Times. And oh, you would absorb every word of that because you wanted to know what was being said. You were wondering, are jurors reading this? They’re not supposed to, but I always suspected that at least some did inadvertently or perhaps intentionally. I also will say this, and this I’ve said publicly, prosecutors rely on investigative reporting for leads all the time. I mean, especially your local reporting. When I was with the Jersey AG’s office, all the time someone would do an investigative piece on corruption or shady dealings at the Middlesex County Water Commission, or you name it. And we would go, whoa.

I mean, sometimes you would read it and go, this is nothing. But sometimes you read it and say, wow, this could be something here. So prosecutors are not by any means above taking in media. In fact, I would say, in our heart of hearts we are voracious consumers of certainly our own media, but also media around our offices and around the cases that we’re doing. But the broader question that you raise is to what extent should prosecutors be responsive to public opinion? And I think the answer is, I would not sign on to this notion that prosecutors just put on blinders, and don’t go on media ever, and just do the right thing period, and we live in this black and white world. I mean, look, prosecutors are human beings. And prosecutors, you bet are aware of what the public is saying about them, and should be. I mean, you are a public servant. That’s not to say you should be amenable to the public whim the way that a candidate for state Senate will be like, how is this polling? I’m going to do it.

And so the idea of prosecutors looking, in particular Twitter, unnerves me a little bit, because Twitter can be so reactionary and so unrepresentative. You see eight negative Twitter comments and you think, oh my God, the whole world is freaking out. But it’s eight comments. You know what I mean? So I wonder actually, Twitter wasn’t that big until really sort of the end of my time as a prosecutor. I mean, I was a prosecutor up until 2018, so I guess I was a little behind the times on Twitter. But yeah, we always wanted to know what was being said. And I do think there’s some legitimacy in a case like Chauvin, for example. And again, I think the prosecutors talked about this with Preet. They said, we understood the world was watching. We understood the stakes here. And do you charge a defendant with something extra because of that? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine you would. Do you seek a higher sentence because of that? I really hope not.

But do you bring an appreciation for the gravity of what you’re doing to the way you present the case, to the way you comport yourself? That I think is appropriate. And I think that’s where I would probably draw the line in terms of being responsive to media and to public perception.

Safeena Mecklai:

That seems like the right balance. Because I think Twitter, when Twitter first started getting big, was seen as this big potential democratizing force where the public could really start speaking both to each other and to the elected officials, appointed officials, folks like prosecutors. People thought, now everyone has a microphone, essentially. And I think people know that prosecutors have a ton of discretion, a ton of agency in their charging decisions. And maybe there’s a hopeful, democratizing function that Twitter can have in speaking to prosecutor’s offices about what’s important to them, what policies they want to see, what kinds of things they want to see brought.

But at the end of the day, you hope that there’s also some distance. Maybe prosecutors need a kind of media training to know the difference between Twitter bots creating controversy over a potential charge versus a real reflection of what it is that communities want or need, or what communities are defining safety to be. So it seems like there has to still be some distance, some processing, some use of discretion. But I like the hopefulness that maybe the public can speak, but that comes back to the whole prisoners of politics thing where the public can also be particularly harsh or punitive. And it’s not a true reflection, I think of what people want. So there has to be some sort of filter, I think in order for Twitter to be useful.

Elie Honig:

It is really important to have that filter. And I just, I’m laughing to myself, because I’m remembering one of the state attorneys general who I worked for, and there were five of them, and they were all men, so I’m going to use he so it doesn’t limit anybody. But I won’t say who, but he knows who he is and he’ll laugh if he hears this. He was a compulsive reader. Nj.com covers all the local stuff that we would read. I would have nj.com up on my screen all day following stories. And this attorney general used to always read the user comments on the stories. And sometimes he would go, “people are freaking out about this thing.” And I would go, “are you reading the comments again?” He’d go, “yes, I am.” We used to joke that our PIO, our public information officer, had to disable the comments on his, whatever. Because it can. I mean, look, you do want to know how the public’s reacting to things, but you do sometimes get a skewed sort of look at the way the world sees things.

And by the way, I will tell you that, I think it helps me now that I’m in media, that I was on the other side, because A, I understand what’s going on sort of from an insider’s perspective, but it was driven home to me early on that the filter for all of this is the media. And I had experiences when I was a prosecutor with media doing things that I thought were not responsible. I’ll tell you one specific story that I remember, again, from my AG days. When I was at the SDNY, by the way, I had no dealings with media. I mean, if any media, they would occasionally call on a case, and I would just be like, “no comment,” and click. That’s how we were trained. But when I was at the AG’s office I was in a leadership position and we would deal with media inquiries. And we had one case …

Okay. So in the very last days that Chris Christie was our governor, you remember the Bridgegate scandal? Several of those people were tried and convicted in the federal courts. Now, later the Supreme Court overturned all their convictions in what I think was a correct ruling, nine, zero, actually. That was a unanimous ruling. The liberals and the conservatives agreed that it wasn’t a correctly phrased federal charge. Thankfully, not my charge. That was the feds. I was at the state at the time. So anyway, but at this point, these defendants had been convicted. And there is a provision in state law that says, if a person gets convicted of a public corruption offense, federal or state, they can be barred from ever holding a state office again. And so, in all of these cases, and it happened a lot, my office would just file a formal piece of paper with the state court saying, “Dear Judge,” not dear judge, but I’m being colloquial here.

“Dear Judge, these three people were convicted in a federal trial of corruption charges, therefore they should be barred from ever holding state office.” And the judge would say, “so ordered,” stamp. Boom. So we did that for the Bridgegate defendants. And it happened to be the last week Chris Christie was in office. So some reporter decides, I’m going to make a thing of this. And his angle, this reporter’s angle, he was a local reporter, was I’m going to suggest in my article that Chris Christie is just being super vindictive on his way out of office, and he had his AG’s office nail these people with these orders barring them. And it just on his way out as a final F you to these people. First of all, I will tell you, Chris Christie had nothing to do with this. Chris Christie had nothing to do.

He was actually, I write about this in my book. You can criticize, there are criticisms of him. But he was explicitly hands-off with us. He had been a prosecutor, and he says, “the last thing any prosecutor ever needs is some governor in a state situation or some politician getting involved.” And he lived by that, and I have an example, a separate example of that in my book, actually. Anyway, Christie had nothing to do with it. And what we did for the media is we went back to this report and we said, look, here are the last 12 times this has happened. The last 12 times that some federal defendant was convicted of a corruption offense, dating back 10 years through Democratic and Republican administrations. And every single time we did exactly this. We went to the court, we said, “hey, judge, he’s been convicted federally, please bar him from ever holding state office.” Every single time.

And it totally gutted the entire purpose and point of this article. So you know what they did? They ran the article. They did not quote us. That was our statement. They did not mention the 12 cases. I mean, that is, now that I’m in media I understand even more how utterly irresponsible that type of media is. No legitimate reporter or media organization would ever exclude the comment of the party, especially when it sort of undermines the exact central theme of your article. So I tell that because it was infuriating, and I think it is important to know that sometimes the media doesn’t always handle things exactly right. I think that’s an example. I am proud to say that all the media that I am affiliated with now, I think is very responsible and very careful. And I don’t say that just as a sort of homer.

But I can tell you that inside the media organizations I’m part of now, there are constant conversations about, is this the right thing? Should we include this? Are we phrasing it fairly? I mean, when I write for CNN, I get it back and it is filled with that kind of comments and questions, that I think it’s healthy and I think it’s necessary for the media to be cognizant of its role in shaping public policy. Okay. I will get off my soap box now. But I want you to know all these things. As you go out into the real world as Safeena Mecklai, not quite Esquire, Safeena Mecklai, JD. So congratulations, again. And remind us, what’s next for you? You’re taking the Bar?

Safeena Mecklai:

I’m taking the Bar, and then I’m headed to a big law firm for a year, and then clerking for a federal judge the year after that. And then, who knows? Hopefully public defense, that’s the longterm dream. And hopefully more hanging out and chatting on a podcast. That would be great too.

Elie Honig:

Absolutely. Well listen, I will, of course, be following your career and helping you, and all of us here will. And I think our viewers are going to be interested. It’s going to be fun for our listeners to see what happens to these young folks. I said last time to the other Elie, the young Elie, that I see him ending up on the bench someday as a judge. I said, probably going to have to be nominated by a Republican president with a filibuster proof Republican majority. Safeena, I’m trying to think, I could absolutely see you as a defense lawyer. I could see you as a prosecutor. And that’s a compliment to say I could see you as either.

Safeena Mecklai:

Thank you. I take that as a compliment.

Elie Honig:

I’ll be following it and we’ll all be following. Thanks again for joining us here, Safeena, just a couple days after you finished finals.

Safeena Mecklai:

Thank you so much. It’s been great to be on the podcast. It’s been great to do these shows. I feel like this has been a great extra part of law school. I’ve learned the law better by having these conversations.

Elie Honig:

Oh, wonderful. I love to hear that. Thank you everyone for tuning in again. And as always, send us your thoughts, questions or comments to letters@cafe.com.

Third Degree is presented by Cafe Studios. Your host is Elie Honig. The Executive Producer is Tamara Sepper. The Senior Producer is Adam Waller. The Technical Director is David Tatasciore. The Audio and Music Producer is Nat Wiener. And the Cafe team is Matthew Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Jake Kaplan, Geoff Eisenman, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh and Margot Maley.