Judge David Fleisher: When Judges Choose Compassion Over Punishment?

Welcome to Why Not Me The World? Podcast hosted by
Tony Mantor, broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join
us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will
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people who will inspire and show that you are not
alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me The World?
Humanity of a Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis. She Levan. Joining
us yes today is the Honorable Judge David Fleischer, who
currently presides over Harris County Criminal Court Number five in Houston, Texas.
His focus is on reforming the court and ensuring all
defenders receive fair and equal treatment. We are honored to
have him join us today. Thanks for coming on and
can you tell us a little bit about what you do.
I'm happy to be here. You know, anytime we can
spread awareness, I think it's a great thing. The business
that I'm in, it goes hand in hand with mental health,
the struggles to get a grip of mental health, because
I think it really a lot of behavior can potentially
and unfortunately turn criminal if mental health goes unchecked. And
I don't know how many people realize that. I think
it's very difficult to realize, you know, hey, I'm bipolar.
I would imagine that a lot of people don't see it,
they don't recognize it, and it takes something catastrophic for
them to finally realize, hey, I might really need to
talk to someone, I might really need medication, and sometimes
it's too late. What we do here is we really in.
What I'm doing is really trying to get to the
heart of the issue, to figure out what's going on
with everyone and to help them. And you know, we
want everybody to leave better than they came.
So as a judge, you have two different points of view.
Of course, you've got the prosecutor that's trying to get
his point across. Then you have the defense attorney that's
trying to get his point of view across. One tries
to paint it as the worst thing in the world.
The other tries to paint a picture that it's not
as bad as it looks. So being the judge, you
have to commit at some point to making a decision.
What goes into your process after everything is said and
done to making that decision so that it can be hopefully.
Good for everyone in sense.
Right, Yeah, that sounds good.
Let me get a couple of things, bringing a couple
things to the forefront here that I think it's important
that not letting people realize. Okay, Number one, I'm a
judge of one of the misdemeanor courts here in Harrison County,
which is Houston. In our court, we only deal with
misdemeanors Class A and Class B, whether they're punishable by
up to six months in jail and or a year
in jail. I have sixteen of my brethren, So there's
sixteen of us here in Harris County. You have to
realize that Houston is a humongous city. From one part
to the other it takes three hours, right, It's absolutely
just enormous. So there's a lot of people here, well
three million, four million people, So there's a lot of
things going on at all times. One of the biggest
things that we do is probable cause. So initially someone
gets arrested, they have their first court date. That's when
we a lot of times will do probable costs, where
we determine if there's enough to go forward. We as judges,
we call balls and strikes. To be fair, you don't
link to one side, you don't link to the other side.
We are given a set of circumstances. We look at
what the law is and we go forward from there.
In our experience here, we've had great ada's. They're not
out for blood. It's not like that. Now. Sometimes you
may seem like that, but understand they're advocating their position
and reasonable minds can differ, you know how what defense
lawyer may see something, it not may necessarily as someone
else sees something. And so that's why we kind of
like horse blinders, take a middle of the road approach,
the common sense result and look whether there's probable cause
to go forward or not. Sometimes there is, sometimes there
is not. But one of the most important factors at
play here that I don't know if you guys know
about it, but we, along with our brethren here in
twenty and eighteen, really changed the landscape of criminal justice
because of bail reform. I don't know if you're familiar
with bail reform, but what that is is that back
in the old days and how it's been since the
beginning of time, if you've got arrest, you went to jail,
and the only way you got out of jail is
if you bonded out. Not everybody has that kind of money.
So in sixteen, a lady filed a lawsuit, a federal
lawsuit says, hey, man, it's not fair what's going on.
So what happened was a lady gets arrested for a
suspended license case. She ends up going to jail. Her
bond gets set, if I remember correctly, twenty five hundred dollars,
which is you would pay ten percent traditionally, which is
two hundred and fifty dollars. You get out and you
go fight the case. Not everybody has that kind of money.
So what they would do is they would sit in jail.
They would plead guilty, and they would sit there just
to get out. They would plead guilty, whether you know
you're innocent or not. If you even if you can't
make that, they charge you with an assault or DWI
or whatever. Maybe who's going to sit there in their
right mind for four months waiting for evidence to come in.
No one's going to do that. It's easier to plead
guilty and get out. Who cares about the consequences.
Yeah, that's a tough situation. So how did you get
that changed?
So when we got elected, me and my brother in
an age team. You know, the judges before us fought
bail reform. I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact
that you know, you're used to a system in place,
you know, and people fear change. But I don't know.
But when we came in, we said, hey, we agree
with bail reform. Bail reform is good from a misdemeanor standpoint.
I don't know about felonies, but misdemeanor, because the idea is,
when you're in jail, it affects this, it affects this.
I don't know if you've ever been to jail, and
I don't want you to say yes or no, but
it is such an awful place. It can play with
your mind, it can play with your psych It can
make you develop anxiety, mental health problems, and you lose
your house, your apartment, cars. Now what we've done is
we've completely, like just turned around a system that's been
in place for one hundred and fifty years on it said, now,
when you get arrested for nonviolent offenses, and of course
there's exceptions to the rule, but by and large, a
lot of people are given a personal recognizance bond prbond
to get out to fight the case. The idea is
is that it shouldn't be a wealth based criminal justice
system how it's been. What you have now are people
being able to be on the outside fighting their case
so they don't have to plead guilty to get out.
The conviction rate has dropped from a sixty percent I
mean to mind this a sixty percent conviction rate in
twenty sixteen now to around a twenty five twenty three
to twenty five percent conviction rate. That's staggering.
Yes, that's pretty amazing.
It helps people in everyday life from not losing their jobs,
their mental health, keeping families, prize possessions. And so now
we see a lot of people coming back with other
issues at play. And so what we do now is
we tried to get down to Okay, you're here, why
how do we help you so you don't come back,
because we want to close the revolving door of criminal justice,
so you don't just keep coming back. As I can't
tell you the amount of people that come with twenty
thirty convictions, and they would prefer to live on the
street than me finding you housing. It's really staggering. So
that's now the mission. You know, we've done a one
to eighty with regard to bail reform. Now that we've
instituted this program, what's next Next on the list is
mental health, getting down to how we help every single
person that comes to the criminal justice system. And that's
that's where we are now. I think it's difficult because
one more point is what makes it so difficult is
I want to help you, but you don't want to
help me helping you. How do we go forward?
So true, there's definitely a staggering amount of people that
get caught up in the legal system. One of the
things that I hear very consistently is that if you
haven't been in a court, you just don't realize how
overwhelming it can be. Really, that comes from people that
quote live the normal life. Now you add autism or
any other mental health situation that can affect how they
act or react. It can turn something that's just stressful
into something that's insurmountable. So how do we help those
people that really need the help?
Yeah, I think one of the major other issues that
we have is we were really limited with the resources
that we have as well to be able to help.
Many times it's addiction issues. Many times it's just not
getting the proper medication. And when you do that, it
really helps. My philosophy is, you know, I have four
kids at home, right and then I have another two
thousand at work. Every person that comes through, I treat
like they're my own child. You know, if you do well,
you know, we hug you, we congratulate you. Hey, great job.
Because positive reinforcement has really such a it's so great. Hey,
you mess up, you're going to get it as well.
We give everybody the expectation of, hey, you know, this
is what the expectation is. When you come here we
need help, We will give you help. All you have
to do is ask. But unfortunately the problem is sometimes
they just won't accept it no matter how much, and
I don't know how to go forward.
You've got Let's say you have an autistic person that
comes in front of you. They're wired differently in the
way they think, the way they process things. Some will
come across that they don't have any empathy about the
things that they've done when they really do. It's just
that they don't understand because to them, if you cut
your finger, what's the problem you cut your finger? You know?
So how do you how do we help people like
that that don't understand the system? They can't really afford,
you know, they're gonna have to go with a public defender,
you know, which which I'm not saying anything bad about
public defenders, but they just sometimes don't have the time
to learn about the affliction that that that that person
they're defending might have, and then they've got the ada
that's trying to prosecute. How do we go about helping
those people so that we can get more empathy towards
the person that's really not violent, but they just need help.
I will tell you I've had quite a number of
autistic In my opinion, I never know because when I'm
facing someone in front of me, I don't have information
that they may be autistic. At times, you can tell,
you know, when you're talking to someone. When I have
someone that I think is either special needs, needs a
little bit more care, what I do is I shower
them with even more love. I swear to you, I
take more time, show a lot more compassion to get
them to try to trust me because that's what I want.
I want you to open up to me. I want
to see what makes you tick. I want to be
able to look into you to see how I can
help you, whether it's get you into a sober living facility.
You know, we have a mental health docket here that
we help a lot of people with as well, and
whether it's getting them into a mental health docket. But
what's really sad is that if you look around courts
around the country, a lot of people don't see it
because you don't get to really see the inner workings
of how a court works. And that's why we do
what we do, complete and utter transparency so that you
get to see what goes on, because I think it's
imperative for the public to get access to see how
courts work, how we do what we do, and why
we do what we do, so that you get a
better understanding of what we do, how difficult it may
be at sometimes, and how you may be able to
help us as well. When we get autistic, When we
get persons with either mental health issues, we shower them
with love, we shower them with help so that they
can open up and accept what we're trying to give.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Yeah, that's all you can do. Now as a judge,
you're always trying to show that you're impartial. Sure, Now
how do you get it across to the ADA and
of course the defense that you're showing compassion because they
may be autistic or have some other issues. Yet you're
being fair with the judgment that you give.
So when I get someone in front of me, we
look at what the initial charge is. Sometimes it may be,
you know, a criminal trespass. Sometimes it may be a
criminal mischief. Sometimes it may be a DWI on assault.
A lot of times I can tell the person by
how they're acting in court, what happened with the case,
and what kind of bond conditions to put on them.
That's how we help by really looking at the person
who they are, crafting conditions that specifically help them. And
so what we're doing is not only am I helping
the defense, but I'm also helping the das as well,
so that they know we are number one protecting the public,
making sure that we put enough conditions if they need conditions,
so that they won't commit new offenses. Because what we
don't want is we don't want you to while you're
on bond to pick up another case. We don't want
you to endanger our public. So I'm not necessarily being
fair to one side or to the other side. What
I'm doing is I'm trying to harmoniously protect the public
and also help everybody that's coming through.
You're the third judge that I've spoken to. The others
have the same philosophy as you. They want to get
them through the system. They don't want to see them
come back again, because if they get them help from
the outside, then chances are they won't come back. I'm
sure there are many other judges around the country that
feel exactly the same way you do. Unfortunately, for everyone
that wants change, there are many out there that want
to keep the system status quo. How do we get
them to change their outlook so ultimately we can get
the legal system.
It's the person. It's the person, you know. I mean,
there's a couple of things that play. I think one
is is what happens to a person who sees too
much of a course of many, many years, Perhaps they
become jaded, they become desensitized. Right, That's what happens when
you watch all on the TV the murder violent, you
become desensitized. It can happen with judges as well, and
that's why you need either you know, term limits or
that's why you have elections. Right, it's the will of
the people. Unfortunately, the problem is is that most people
you know, statistically, just don't vote at the end of
the day. The way that you really keep a judge
in check is through the election process, because it's the
will of the people that should command the vote. Right,
it's there, and they're the ones who should be the
driving force as to whether a judge is in place
or a judge is not in place. If a judge,
like you said, has too much meanness, so to speak,
it needs to come out, right, how do you do that?
That's a great question. I don't know.
Now there's an overset committee on judges, correct, of course,
is there any way that the oversight committee, the judges,
the other people that might be involved could sit in
a room and talk it all out? You know?
Theoretically what would happen is someone would have to file
a complaint, okay, right, And that's you know, just like
anything in life. You know, when you have people who
are upset either at a lawyer at a judge at something.
There's always a bar, a state bar that can either
you know, you file a complaint. That's one way, so
to speak, right, But I think ultimately, at the end
of the day, an election is just that you know, here,
we recently had an election a couple months ago, and
a lot of the judges that were here are not
here anymore. It was the driving force of the will
of people. So I think that's one of the things
that keeps judges in check. But it's a very big
problem where you know, a lot of judges become desensitized
and they either take it for granted, they don't see
the human or the person that's in front of you,
because you can really change someone's life, because judges really
have so much power.
Yeah, that's so true. Now when it comes to elections,
does it get to the point where they just get put.
In if you have enough rename recognition, if I was
Elvis and I ran for something, you know, But by
and large it's usually not like that. There's very very few,
especially on the judiciary, where they become such a name
recognition that it's futile to run against them. Most of
those are either in Senate or in Congress, not in
local judges.
Yeah, that makes sense. Let's say you're running for a
judge hip. You put it out there, you're trying to
help people. You're not the hanging judge like they see
on TV. So many people, if they don't know autism
or special needs or mental health, they'll see something, not
understand it and say put them in jail and throw
way the key, which is not the right thing to do.
They have to understand that in the real world of
the legal system, it's not like the movies or TV.
How do you get that across to them, so hopefully
they understand more about what you do.
It happens. It happens all the time, it really does.
And the only way is through education and to somehow
get it out there that hey, this is what's going on.
This is the reality of the situation. But far, far
too many times, you know, a lot of judges get
a bad rap, you know, when it's certainly it's just
not true, and it's very very difficult, and a lot
of judges get it because of it. It happens all
the time. We have certain things we can say, we
have certain things we can't say. I can't come back
and say something we're not allowed to, you know, so
there are certain things we can we can't, and we
just have to basically.
Take Yeah, that's tough, especially where people don't really understand
how the legal system actually works. How do we educate
them and get them at least headed in the right
direction so they can see how the judicial system works
and then follow it and hopefully get a better attitude
for it moving forward.
That's exactly what we're doing now. My I live stream
is exactly what we're doing. Now. You get a perspective
of exactly what's going on. It's complete and it's complete transparency.
You are looking what happens every single day in our court.
You get to see the good, you get to see
the bad. It is such an educational tool because all
too often we get so many people that are just misunderstood,
and that's when we step in and just try to help.
Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought up live streaming.
That brings up a couple of questions. When did you
start it, Why did you start it, and how has
it changed the perception either positive or negative in what
you're doing with it.
If you remember back in times of COVID. There were
no courts. There were no basic open courts because everybody
was home balanced. Believe it or not, criminality never ended.
People continued to get arrested, Things continued to happen. So
courts have to stay open. They have to continue. We
were closed, how do you get because it's still an
open form. Courts have to stay open. They have to
be an open form so that anybody has access to
it that wants to have access to it. So what
we did was we began live streaming. What I did
was and what we all did, what we were required
to do, was to use Zoom as an avenue to
be able to communicate with the lawyers, and we would
live stream the Zoom proceedings so that the entire world
could see. You can go to our court now, go
to my web page, click on the live stream and
you can watch. And I've been doing it since we
were required to back in twenty twenty, now four years later,
I continue to do it. It kind of somehow just
someone started watching and it just kind of ballooned out
of there. The great thing about it is is that
it provides number one transparency. Number two, it's a great
educational tool, like I been saying. However, the bad part
is not everybody likes to be on it right, so
they take issue with being thrust into it. And it's
the court process. I'm sorry when you get in trouble.
This is what happens. There's consequence to behavior. You have
to learn it. Nowadays, anonymity is just gone right in
every aspect of life. I would hope that it would
possibly be a great deterrent as well, especially for those
who you're professional and you're out there, think before you act,
think before you speak. There is a humongous consequence.
Now, what kind of results have you seen come from this?
You started it because you had to. Now you're keeping
it going, and of course there are people out there
that love it, and there are people out there that
hate it. Sure, how have you seen a change or
have you seen it change the dynamic within your courtroom
since you started doing this?
It doesn't change the dynamic in the courtroom. What I've found,
and I'll tell you that I get a lot of
comments and people that reach out to me that say, hey,
thank you for doing what you're doing. Because of you,
I have reached out to a long lost brother. We've
had people that have told us that they've stopped harming themselves,
they've checked into rehab because they see how other people
go through things, they empathize with them, they see what
good can come from it, and so they in turn
do the same thing. I promise you, I can't tell
you how many people have reached out to us in
such a positive way that it has impacted them seeking
mental health treatment, prevention from suicide, really seeking drug treatment.
I mean, I can give you a letter after letter,
email after email, But of course there's always a negative
as well, right the people who don't like it, and
there's going to be that with every aspect of life.
I think it's just great that because I never thought
of it from that angle, that showing this, that other
people could use it as a tool to show their
son or daughter or relative that hey, look this is
what this person's going through. You're doing the same thing,
and you can't use your ADHD or whatever as an excuse.
I've had teachers that have reached out to us that
they show it to their classroom, and so I've had
other teachers that say, hey, can you come and speak
to our class So from that aspect that I think
that It's really just a great resource and an educational
tool because now our young children and our young adults,
they don't think before acting. God knows that I was
seventeen and eighteen two, right, But when you see what
happens and when you see the consequence, right.
Well, this has been great, so Quesse. Now this podcast
is about autism and mental health and all that. What
would you like to say regarding your courtroom and the
mental health and autism that you think that people listening
to would benefit from hearing.
One of the biggest problems in life, and I think
that this can really play in everything is patience. If
people had more patience in every aspect of life, we
would just be a better, overall, better world. Patience whether
you are being a judge, you're judging, whether you are
a district attorney, whether you're on probation and dealing with someone,
whether you are talking to someone who has autism and
mental health issue and you're trying to get through to
them and you're not getting through and you become so
agitated that everybody explodes. Just patience has such a virtue.
It's a very difficult trait to have to practice. And
if everybody did and just took a second to reflect.
I really think it would help in every aspect of life,
especially when we're talking about mental health. It's not hard.
I mean, I'm sorry, it's very difficult dealing with participating
and speaking to someone who may have mental health issues
or autism. It's not easy, and if you don't have patience,
it's even going to be more difficult. Not only are
you going to be frustrated, but the other person is
going to be double frustrated because think about them, They're
trying to get to you and they have an issue
trying to express themselves. Autism is a very tricky thing.
But if you have patience and you show compassion and
love toward that person, once they start to trust you,
they'll open up and hopefully you will learn how to
deal with the autism and how to best communicate and
perhaps help them.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. Many people have forgotten
the definition of the word patience.
This is one analogy that I give quite a bit.
I was pulled over quite a while ago, and I
had an officer come up to me, extremely arrogant, just
hey man, why did you do that? Why did you
run that stop sign? I knew I stopped. Okay, maybe
I stopped for a second. I didn't stop for three seconds.
So I looked at the officer and I said, you know,
I'm sorry, man, I'm an idiot. I just truly I'm sorry,
and I'll do better next time. He let me go.
If I would have been aggressive to him, what would
have happened if you practice that in everyday life with
mental health, with autism, when they're trying to combat it
to you and you really shower them with love and empathy.
I mean, this guy's a limit. So that's what we
do in our court, and actually in all of our
courts here right, not just me, just our entire brethren.
And I think that hopefully we'll make a change because
that's what we try to do, you know, just try
to make everyone better when they leave.
Yeah, that's a great model, and hopefully many people around
the country catch.
On to that. I don't know, you know, it's one
percent at a time, one step at a time, and
you know, I'm not going to be here for long,
but I hope that we can touch as many lives
as you have with your podcast. I mean, you've done
it in hundreds of thousands. Me I'm just one at
a time, but you know that's all it takes.
That's right, one at a time.
You know, when you prevent that one person from committing
a criminal act, you're winning. Well.
I really appreciate you coming on. This has been great information.
Thank you for having me. I'm always willing to help
if you ever want to chat. I'm around anytime I
can help. If you ever want just I'm happy to
join you.
You know that's fantastic. I really appreciate it. Thanks again.
Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule
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