(00:00:00.151):
my husband has been abusing me and my kids for years for a decade i stayed with him

(00:00:04.913):
because i was terrified of him getting visitation alone with the kids

(00:00:08.395):
and what he would do to them i consulted with a lawyer who told me

(00:00:11.816):
that 50-50 custody was a very real possibility regardless

(00:00:15.538):
of how abusive he had been she told me that the system is biased

(00:00:19.459):
against women doesn't believe us and our stories of abuse work

(00:00:22.981):
against us my husband found out and he told me that if i ever left him

(00:00:28.711):
he'd call the police and tell them i molested the kids i believe he's capable of it

(00:00:34.053):
and based on the stories i hear of women in

(00:00:35.594):
the justice system i believe i could be convicted of a crime

(00:00:38.275):
that never happened please tell your listeners that women

(00:00:41.337):
in abusive relationships stay for a reason and that most of

(00:00:44.578):
the reason involves our broken legal system hi i'm zon valines and this is

(00:00:50.041):
the liberating motherhood podcast today we are going to talk about how

(00:00:53.682):
the legal system victimizes and wrongly punishes women

(00:00:58.455):
Before we get started,

(00:00:59.415):
as always,

(00:01:00.135):
I'd like to ask you to leave a positive review on your favorite podcast platform and

(00:01:04.276):
a heart react if you are listening on substack.

(00:01:06.657):
These reviews and heart reacts are critical to the success of the podcast.

(00:01:10.558):
They influence who comes on the podcast,

(00:01:12.618):
where it appears in the algorithm and rankings,

(00:01:14.959):
and whether the podcast ultimately continues.

(00:01:17.519):
This work is entirely free and a quick review helps make it worthwhile to continue doing.

(00:01:22.480):
If you really love this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

(00:01:26.410):
paid subscribers get a bonus episode each month eight additional essays access to

(00:01:31.050):
a support group free merch and more they also ensure that i never have

(00:01:35.110):
to use advertisements and help me fund scholarships for people

(00:01:37.870):
who cannot afford access subscribe

(00:01:40.390):
at zawn .substack .com slash subscribe you can also find all of

(00:01:46.150):
the books i mentioned on the podcast at the liberating motherhood bookshop page

(00:01:49.430):
which also hosts tons of book recommendations and reading lists

(00:01:53.359):
visit the page at bookshop.org slash shop slash liberating motherhood

(00:01:58.222):
and that's all one word today i'm interviewing valina beady valina thank you so much

(00:02:03.526):
for coming on the podcast thank you for having me fun i'm so excited to have you so

(00:02:08.489):
before we get started i want to tell listeners a little bit about you

(00:02:11.290):
a wrongful convictions litigator

(00:02:14.112):
and former federal prosecutor valina beady is mckinney professor of law

(00:02:18.555):
at indiana university bloomington moore school of law

(00:02:22.013):
and a co-founder of

(00:02:22.974):
the indiana innocence project her book manifesting justice received a gold medal

(00:02:27.798):
in women's issues from the independent publishers book award and her course book

(00:02:32.222):
the wrongful convictions reader is used in classrooms nationwide to teach

(00:02:35.525):
about wrongful convictions her latest book pink crime examines the criminalization

(00:02:40.309):
of motherhood pregnancy and queer identity she lives in indiana

(00:02:44.313):
with her wife daughter and tripod dog i love that the dog is a part of this

(00:02:50.309):
she's special she's a big part of our family now did she start as a tripod or

(00:02:55.792):
that came later no she actually right before our daughter was born she was diagnosed

(00:03:02.195):
with cancer in her leg and had her leg amputated and

(00:03:06.697):
the doctor said you know she might have a year but we really think

(00:03:12.279):
that our daughter has kept our dog going and our dog has now been

(00:03:18.660):
for three years and is doing great. Shout out to all the tripods

(00:03:23.140):
out there because they live their best lives. I appreciate our whole family.

(00:03:28.440):
Oh, I love it. Well, I'm so excited to talk to you generally about

(00:03:32.100):
the criminal justice system but I want to focus on your most recent book

(00:03:36.380):
Pink Crime. Maybe we could get started by telling me a little bit

(00:03:40.620):
about the book, why you decided to write it, what you think listeners need

(00:03:46.803):
Yeah, thanks so much.

(00:03:48.924):
I wanted to write this book because I am a queer woman,

(00:03:52.727):
a queer mother,

(00:03:53.628):
I'm married to another woman in my home state of Indiana,

(00:03:58.091):
and Indiana has made queer identity illegal in a number of ways.

(00:04:05.876):
It this year announced that Pride Month instead would be Nuclear Family Month.

(00:04:10.539):
It has made abortion illegal in almost all situations, with very few exceptions.

(00:04:16.800):
and it has gone after women who are pregnant for pregnancy crimes as well.

(00:04:22.725):
And all of this really resonates with me because

(00:04:25.288):
of my background litigating wrongful convictions.

(00:04:29.432):
I've represented women and queer people who have been wrongfully convicted for

(00:04:33.295):
the past 15 years and I saw a pattern which was that

(00:04:38.920):
the folks I was representing were being charged and convicted

(00:04:43.476):
where no crime occurred, where there was no crime.

(00:04:46.459):
There was just a villainization of them and a villainization of women in particular.

(00:04:52.065):
I mean, 75% of women who have been wrongly convicted and exonerated in

(00:04:57.491):
the United States were convicted where literally there was no crime.

(00:05:02.204):
where there was a electrical fire and they were charged with setting an arson where

(00:05:08.550):
a child you know tragically fell down a steep set of stairs and they were charged

(00:05:13.434):
with murder and that's exactly what is happening right now with the the attention

(00:05:20.661):
and prosecution against pregnant people against mothers and against queer people

(00:05:25.646):
so I thought this book

(00:05:27.965):
is really important to respond to the current moment and say,

(00:05:31.106):
hey, this has been happening before.

(00:05:33.667):
Here's how we can stop this from continuing.

(00:05:38.868):
Well, I'm so glad you're writing it.

(00:05:41.409):
I have been working with a woman for about a year and I've spoken about her on

(00:05:46.010):
the podcast before who had a similar thing happen to her where she was prosecuted

(00:05:51.432):
for something that was not a crime.

(00:05:53.832):
Her baby was born with a rare birth defect that caused

(00:05:57.263):
a brain injury

(00:06:27.653):
I wonder if you would talk a little bit more about these prosecutions

(00:06:32.436):
where no crime has occurred because it's really scary and it's particularly scary

(00:06:38.599):
when you see how healthcare providers are working with social workers are working

(00:06:43.882):
with the police against pregnant women and

(00:06:47.244):
against mothers what you have shared I have seen many times where women go to

(00:06:55.089):
the hospital and give birth and

(00:06:57.635):
then the next thing they know if there's a health challenge for the child

(00:07:02.999):
the child is taken away

(00:07:04.420):
by child protective services child protective services is called police are called

(00:07:10.043):
in my local hospital here where I gave birth I received a phone call about a woman

(00:07:18.289):
who had had a difficult labor and had had to be given some pain relievers

(00:07:27.395):
for I think for an emergency c-section and she was also drug tested

(00:07:33.758):
because these hospitals do mandatory drug testing and so she was drug tested and

(00:07:38.421):
of course

(00:07:39.640):
the painkiller was in her system of course it was the hospital had given it

(00:07:44.443):
to her nevertheless

(00:07:45.664):
the hospital called child protective services police were notified

(00:07:51.268):
the child was taken away from the parents fortunately only for a short period

(00:07:55.431):
of time but the mother was you know aghast she was like you gave me

(00:08:01.975):
the painkillers you gave me the drugs that you found in my system and the response

(00:08:07.379):
of the hospital was well we don't know that

(00:08:10.212):
we don't know that you didn't come in here

(00:08:11.993):
and already had taken some opioid we don't know that so that's how all

(00:08:17.977):
of this can come together when there's really no crime at all and it's

(00:08:25.055):
playing on stereotypes about women as bad mothers.

(00:08:30.618):
And as you were just saying, it can also be a tool for domestic violence.

(00:08:36.462):
And I've seen that as well, where just like you were saying, the abusive partner will

(00:08:46.654):
lie about the mother and will say that the mother caused the abuse

(00:08:51.598):
when they're really in instances like you were just talking about where it's

(00:08:55.281):
a health condition where for example it's a short fall out of a crib or it's rickets

(00:09:05.409):
and these lies then lead to these women not only being charged

(00:09:09.493):
but tragically sometimes wrongfully convicted as well

(00:09:14.027):
I want to talk a little bit more about these drug tests in the context of pregnancy

(00:09:18.310):
and birth so I my husband and I had an interesting experience when I was pregnant

(00:09:23.934):
with our third child because he had to have his gallbladder removed about a month

(00:09:28.376):
before I gave birth and so we got his medical records

(00:09:32.439):
after his like gallbladder crisis and of course when you have

(00:09:35.041):
a gallbladder removal you go in really sick and your liver enzymes are all elevated

(00:09:39.344):
and all this kind of stuff and

(00:09:41.846):
they didn't drug test him which is interesting to me because heavy drinking

(00:09:46.930):
and drug use can cause your liver to fail and can cause gallbladder issues

(00:09:51.653):
so I just sort of noted that as a data point and then a month later

(00:09:56.817):
when I gave birth they did drug test me and I was just incensed by this fact because

(00:10:04.062):
to me it felt like purely by virtue of being a woman I have given up

(00:10:11.100):
some right to not being searched and and now I have to treat my doctor like

(00:10:16.844):
the police and I'm like

(00:10:18.605):
the most boring straight edge person ever I don't use drugs I've never used drugs

(00:10:23.928):
so it wasn't that I was scared it felt like

(00:10:26.509):
a really intense privacy violation especially in contrast to my husband

(00:10:31.973):
who had just had this real medical crisis

(00:10:33.614):
that didn't warrant drug testing can you talk to me a little bit like as a lawyer

(00:10:38.117):
about

(00:10:39.170):
why this is allowed or even if it really

(00:10:42.090):
is or should be allowed like what's going on here

(00:10:46.350):
well in a number of places now

(00:11:04.368):
so a number of people just sign that without even thinking twice about it

(00:11:08.210):
to your point you know oh there's there's nothing to be found there's no harm here

(00:11:13.934):
of course I'll sign it and you know that leads

(00:11:17.316):
to situations like we were just talking about when the hospital is the one

(00:11:20.778):
that gives you the drugs or for example you have

(00:11:23.100):
a prescription you take prescription medication that's assigned to you and

(00:11:29.124):
yet comes up in these tests that are not always reliable tests

(00:11:34.306):
and is used against you so the fourth amendment is intended to protect

(00:11:41.090):
against unreasonable searches and seizures of individuals

(00:11:45.512):
and it should protect women who are in the hospital and yet we've seen doctors

(00:11:52.236):
and nurses not only turn over medical files but allow police right into

(00:11:58.839):
the emergency room

(00:12:01.099):
after giving birth within half an hour of giving birth being able to come in

(00:12:07.785):
and interrogate mothers so it's a space where hospitals are not protecting patients

(00:12:20.757):
as much as they should from police

(00:12:25.538):
yeah it's it's just outrageous because

(00:12:27.819):
to me it seems like doctors should be protecting you from police because we all know

(00:12:31.920):
that the police are a threat to everyone's health and well-being in

(00:12:36.001):
the wrong circumstance um so you know this this urine drug testing

(00:12:41.902):
to me feels like sort of the criminalization of motherhood or

(00:12:46.844):
of womanhood particularly since we're not doing it to every man who comes into

(00:12:50.665):
the hospital and one of the things that you talk about a lot in your book

(00:12:55.938):
is the criminalization of identity and how certain identities are more suspect

(00:13:02.101):
or are weaponized against folks or are just used as grounds for prosecution.

(00:13:08.224):
Can you tell me how that happens and what that looks like?

(00:13:13.047):
Yeah.

(00:13:13.607):
And to build off of kind of the cases we've been talking about,

(00:13:17.269):
we could look at Rennie Gibbs,

(00:13:19.690):
who was a teenager, single mom in Mississippi, black woman,

(00:13:25.994):
and when she gave birth and tragically gave birth to a stillbirth the prosecution

(00:13:32.998):
and the police just focused in on her as this is a quote unquote bad mom this is

(00:13:40.502):
a woman of color this is a woman who is you know really working financially

(00:13:45.945):
to make things work

(00:13:47.468):
as a single mom and then isn't able to have a healthy birth you know isn't able

(00:13:54.810):
to have a healthy pregnancy and that's often held against women even

(00:13:59.411):
though miscarriages happen in up to one in four pregnancies and those are generally

(00:14:06.532):
from genetic problems it's still held against the woman held against

(00:14:11.873):
the pregnant person and if it's a marginalized person

(00:14:17.144):
in race in gender in sexual orientation in class in disability

(00:14:24.268):
if they're marginalized in some way then that just increases this focus

(00:14:29.312):
of prosecutors and police that this person is a bad mother this person didn't want

(00:14:33.514):
to be a mother and therefore killed their child which is an extreme jump to make

(00:14:40.219):
that this person is a murderer and murdered a baby

(00:14:45.525):
but that's the allegation they're making so to go back

(00:14:47.725):
to rennie gibbs she has this stillbirth prosecutors charge her

(00:14:52.487):
with homicide they have a forensic pathologist who says oh there were drugs

(00:14:57.508):
in her system that's what caused the the death of this baby and in reality what

(00:15:04.429):
the forensic pathologist forensic expert failed to share and disclose was that

(00:15:11.291):
the baby was born and had

(00:15:13.520):
its umbilical cord around its neck.

(00:15:17.243):
That is what led to the stillbirth.

(00:15:19.625):
That is what led to the death.

(00:15:21.166):
Was that ever shared with the jury?

(00:15:23.728):
No.

(00:15:24.109):
Was that ever shared broadly when these charges were being brought?

(00:15:28.212):
No.

(00:15:28.933):
So those are the kinds of situations where we see this real targeting.

(00:15:34.417):
Why would prosecutors who know that information bring charges of murder?

(00:15:38.780):
Why would they do it?

(00:15:39.801):
And it's because of Rennie Gibbs's identity.

(00:15:43.707):
yeah i just i mean i'm listening to the story and i'm just like why would they do it

(00:15:48.069):
and and really trying to understand kind of like the psychology behind it i think

(00:15:52.251):
that one thing i'm struck by is how victim blaming functions to like separate us

(00:15:58.574):
from other people um we had a baby who died and what i was really struck by is

(00:16:04.817):
that one of the first questions people would always ask us is like

(00:16:09.675):
well did you get a vaccine while you were pregnant or did you use retinol

(00:16:13.316):
while you were pregnant what I realized is that it was so scary to people to think

(00:16:19.497):
about the potential of a baby or a newborn dying that they wanted to find a way

(00:16:25.159):
that it wouldn't happen to them and so they wanted to find like something

(00:16:29.160):
that we had done wrong and so you know while

(00:16:32.040):
that was like really enraging it also showed me just how scared people are

(00:16:36.641):
and how they will look for a way to

(00:16:39.252):
to make themselves feel safe and i do feel like in a lot of these cases some of

(00:16:44.553):
that is at play that like she's the wrong kind of woman she did

(00:16:48.314):
the wrong thing here's the wrong thing she did and that's why that won't happen

(00:16:53.236):
to me and i think that makes sense as like a human impulse but

(00:16:57.437):
then we see how it's like baked into the legal system of like okay now we're going

(00:17:02.678):
to find a reason that i'm safe and then we're going to prosecute her for that reason

(00:17:09.590):
do you see that happening what do you think about that tendency so

(00:17:13.854):
the criminal legal system is meant to provide safety that is its purpose and

(00:17:22.881):
if people who are prosecuted are labeled and presented as dangerous and as a danger

(00:17:31.568):
then again as you were just saying then the community can feel more safe

(00:17:38.075):
by that person being incarcerated.

(00:17:40.177):
The community can feel protected.

(00:17:44.139):
But if it's just a story of someone being a villain and it's not a reality,

(00:17:49.703):
then we're not creating any safety.

(00:17:52.345):
And you're absolutely right.

(00:17:54.627):
I thank you for sharing your personal experience and being asked,

(00:17:59.590):
did you eat any fish while you were pregnant?

(00:18:04.252):
what about unpasteurized milk you know just the list can go on and on and on

(00:18:08.996):
about how pregnant people can do something wrong

(00:18:13.640):
that could potentially cause some kind of harm while ignoring again that to talk

(00:18:19.865):
about miscarriages the majority of miscarriages are genetic problems genetic issues

(00:18:27.232):
that are that are tragically happening and then once a child is born

(00:18:32.876):
that's where we have a number of these cases where it's such a tragedy for a baby

(00:18:40.582):
and a young child to die it's such a tragedy and we can't handle that individually

(00:18:47.988):
as a society it makes us feel safer to have someone to blame rather than

(00:18:53.732):
that sometimes children and babies just don't make it or there's an accident or

(00:19:01.794):
again there's

(00:19:02.234):
a tragic shortfall that's really really scary like you just said Zawn that's really

(00:19:09.420):
scary and it feels less scary to hold again a woman a mother accountable instead

(00:19:18.086):
and what compounds that is that these women often blame themselves even

(00:19:23.830):
when they had nothing to do with the death

(00:19:26.171):
of their child they still will blame themselves I should have done something I

(00:19:30.855):
should have

(00:19:34.247):
i should have been able to protect my child and so they'll take on

(00:19:38.249):
that responsibility and then prosecutors and police turn that into a confession and

(00:19:46.335):
then we see a wrongful conviction where truly the mother has done nothing to harm

(00:19:50.818):
the child yeah i see a lot of parallels between that and abusive

(00:19:56.502):
and violent relationships where

(00:19:59.077):
The woman who's in the abusive relationship blames herself for the relationship

(00:20:02.838):
or she doesn't really fully recognize it as abusive

(00:20:05.199):
because she thinks she deserves it and then that behavior is used as a signal

(00:20:09.801):
that she wasn't really abused or maybe that she did deserve it and we're seeing

(00:20:13.642):
the same thing with these women where their natural impulse to feel guilty

(00:20:19.264):
and devastated and you know to maybe kind of feel hopeless

(00:20:24.340):
is used as a sign that well you know she deserves to feel those feelings

(00:20:28.264):
because she caused it um i guess i'm thinking

(00:20:33.209):
about you know how our legal system like bakes bias into itself

(00:20:38.915):
and also what we might be able to do to counteract that bias do you have thoughts on

(00:20:45.062):
that

(00:20:47.272):
Yeah and I mean thank you for your ongoing discussions about criminalized victims

(00:20:52.613):
and how when women are victimized in many different ways the criminal legal system

(00:20:57.354):
then uses that against them and uses that to your point as evidence

(00:21:02.116):
that they quote unquote deserve some kind of punishment I mean one of

(00:21:07.557):
the worst things that I would hear when I was a prosecutor was well

(00:21:12.938):
if she didn't do this she did something else

(00:21:16.400):
this idea that because of

(00:21:18.842):
who this woman was she quote unquote deserved punishment regardless of

(00:21:24.588):
whether she had committed the offense that was charged or not and you know one of

(00:21:29.692):
the things we don't talk about much and July is disability pride month

(00:21:35.522):
is mothers with disabilities and how often mothers who have

(00:21:40.283):
a disability lose their child to child protective services for no reason other than

(00:21:45.505):
the fact that they have that disability.

(00:21:47.946):
Women who give birth and the first person who is there to talk to them

(00:21:51.147):
after giving birth is a social worker.

(00:21:55.028):
And again,

(00:21:56.348):
just as many women with disabilities are having children as women

(00:22:00.370):
who do not have disabilities.

(00:22:02.710):
And yet, because we do not provide

(00:22:06.003):
accessible prenatal care,

(00:22:08.285):
because we have doctors and nurses who,

(00:22:12.167):
again, chastise, demonize mothers who have a disability and have a child.

(00:22:20.753):
That comes together to often separate children from a disabled mother.

(00:22:27.237):
So I think that's something we don't think about enough or talk about enough,

(00:22:30.599):
that that bias, that stereotype

(00:22:34.874):
is, to your point,

(00:22:36.035):
so baked in that doctors and nurses have no shame in directly saying to

(00:22:44.103):
a disabled parent, you can't be a parent, I'm calling Child Protective Services.

(00:22:48.587):
No shame in that at all.

(00:22:49.868):
So that's one example I wanted to give particularly for Disability Pride Month.

(00:22:55.823):
so I really appreciate you pointing that out it's timely because there is

(00:22:59.527):
a disabled writer who I follow and I actually saw on her Facebook today this morning

(00:23:05.413):
that some troll had reported her to child protective services

(00:23:11.039):
and what their report was was she's disabled and she shouldn't have a child mm-hmm

(00:23:16.439):
and to me a functional child protective service system would immediately screen out

(00:23:21.505):
that report and say well it's from someone who doesn't even know her and no

(00:23:26.211):
but instead they came to her house and they went through her stuff and they asked

(00:23:31.017):
for letters from her doctors and I think they wanted something from like

(00:23:34.481):
the child's therapist

(00:23:36.483):
And all of this has a cost to her And did they take her kit?

(00:23:40.191):
No But was there a threat that they might?

(00:23:42.455):
Like absolutely And unapologetically And solely because she's disabled

(00:23:50.175):
yes and thank you for sharing that and we see this

(00:23:54.336):
for disabled moms we also see this for queer parents so also what was in

(00:23:59.197):
the news recently was Pete Buttigieg who is a fellow Hoosier like me from Indiana

(00:24:05.758):
and he's a married gay man and has twins that are four years old and

(00:24:11.279):
to your example you just gave there was an anonymous report filed

(00:24:17.460):
with child protective services

(00:24:19.898):
against him, saying that he wasn't fit to be a parent, that he was harmful to children.

(00:24:28.325):
And essentially, it was because he was gagged.

(00:24:32.309):
This was an anonymous,

(00:24:36.232):
likely politicized report that CPS did investigate,

(00:24:41.716):
came to his home, came with police,

(00:24:44.472):
the children had to stay somewhere else away from him for 24 hours had

(00:24:49.477):
to be interviewed on their own he wasn't able to have contact with them thankfully

(00:24:57.544):
for a short period of time and it ended up going nowhere

(00:25:01.428):
but it's it crushes your belief in

(00:25:06.697):
going back to our criminal legal system and safety it crushes your belief in

(00:25:10.139):
that safety you're like I am no longer one of the people who is being protected

(00:25:14.262):
by our criminal legal system I am being targeted and I am being targeted

(00:25:19.325):
by our family policing system as well so it also happens with queer individuals

(00:25:25.288):
and frankly marginalized parents generally so you spoke a little bit

(00:25:31.832):
about how prosecutors respond to people and

(00:25:35.523):
You were a prosecutor and I don't get to talk to former prosecutors a lot

(00:25:41.268):
and I would love to get your insight into what's going on on the prosecution side of

(00:25:47.153):
a lot of these cases because you know I've been working with and talking to women

(00:25:52.338):
in these situations for years and years and from the outside looking in the behavior

(00:25:57.302):
of some of these prosecutors looks absolutely unhinged

(00:26:02.072):
But I know that people generally don't say hey i'm gonna wake up this morning

(00:26:05.533):
and abuse someone they say hey i'm gonna wake up this morning and i'm gonna go fight

(00:26:09.274):
for justice and that these prosecutors really think they're doing the right thing.

(00:26:14.456):
What's going on what's the thought process that gets this going because I think

(00:26:18.217):
if we can maybe understand that then we could maybe start to untangle that

(00:26:22.158):
a little bit.

(00:26:24.833):
Thanks for this question, Dawn,

(00:26:25.914):
because this is one of the key things I talk about in my book,

(00:26:28.755):
Pink Crime, and that is what's referred to in the law as tunnel vision.

(00:26:34.539):
So when prosecutors or police will just focus in on one theory of a case,

(00:26:41.423):
will just focus in on one suspect,

(00:26:43.844):
and there's tragic,

(00:26:45.105):
tragic stories of wrongful convictions where because the police

(00:26:49.267):
and prosecutors focused in on one person, Felina, for example,

(00:26:55.312):
they missed the true perpetrator who then went on and committed other offenses

(00:27:00.655):
so this tunnel vision is when there's so much commitment to one idea one story

(00:27:08.319):
of how this you know tragedy unfolded that prosecutors

(00:27:13.701):
and police ignore any evidence that would undermine it they only look at evidence

(00:27:19.244):
that supports their theory of the case

(00:27:21.460):
and this is tied to the fact that prosecutors often feel like they have

(00:27:27.223):
to be right they usually win their cases and they are the white knight they are

(00:27:34.967):
the protectors and they again have this belief that they are going to be correct

(00:27:41.450):
in their case and when you couple that

(00:27:45.031):
with how prosecutors are often truly overworked and have a lot of cases

(00:27:51.995):
then it's just a toxic combination where they don't have much time to spend on

(00:27:56.260):
the case they focus in on one person as perpetrator as one idea of how for example

(00:28:04.931):
a harm happened to a child how their health condition happened

(00:28:09.208):
and that's it and then they focus on that and they pressure the person

(00:28:13.211):
to plead guilty you know 90 to 95 percent of cases in the u.s end in guilty pleas so

(00:28:20.176):
that includes innocent people who plead guilty uh so it's it's all tied together

(00:28:26.199):
in this uh and i'll just give one example which is i now uh

(00:28:34.352):
see a lot of ways that faulty forensic evidence like fire science evidence is used

(00:28:40.836):
to wrongly convict people but when I was a prosecutor I didn't see

(00:28:45.899):
that I didn't know that information I just knew this is evidence that is going

(00:28:50.881):
to convict the defendant and I have an expert and I'm going to make sure I ask

(00:28:56.285):
the expert the right questions where they'll say yes 100% without a doubt it's

(00:29:01.487):
that defendant

(00:29:03.017):
That's what I cared about.

(00:29:04.438):
I didn't look into whether the evidence was reliable.

(00:29:07.599):
I didn't look into whether my expert had additional information or there was

(00:29:13.801):
a different view on it.

(00:29:15.262):
I just looked at what I needed to get the conviction.

(00:29:17.723):
That's so interesting and it's also so scary.

(00:29:22.805):
So I want to focus a little bit more since this is a podcast about mothers

(00:29:26.726):
and motherhood and oppressive maternal norms.

(00:29:29.835):
on the construction of the unfit mother.

(00:29:32.796):
So when I was getting ready for this interview,

(00:29:34.397):
I found a paper that you just published that I loved,

(00:29:38.398):
and I want to quote from it because it's so amazing.

(00:29:41.299):
So here's the quote that I pulled.

(00:29:44):
74% of known exonerated women were wrongly convicted where no crime occurred.

(00:29:49.442):
Similarly,

(00:29:50.222):
in criminalizing pregnancy behaviors,

(00:29:52.363):
police, medical personnel, or prosecutors erroneously label a non-criminal event

(00:29:57.875):
such as a miscarriage or stillbirth is criminal criminal charges are being brought

(00:30:02.036):
against new mothers who test positive for their own legally prescribed medicine

(00:30:06.098):
for morphine that was given to them by the hospital for pain during labor or for

(00:30:10.039):
a controlled substance when the child is born healthy

(00:30:12.420):
and unharmed this article conceptualizes reproductive wrongful convictions

(00:30:17.142):
and exposes how marginalized women are being labeled as unfit

(00:30:20.303):
and are particularly vulnerable to these charges historically and today

(00:30:24.764):
the label unfit applies to women with disabilities

(00:30:28.017):
as well as women from race and class subordinated communities.

(00:30:31.098):
That's the end of the quote.

(00:30:32.058):
And it just sums up the issue so well.

(00:30:34.399):
And one thing that I kind of wanted to focus on with this concept of

(00:30:38.560):
an unfit mother is that I have this really popular piece I published a couple

(00:30:42.901):
of years ago that I called Welcome to Motherhood, Fuck You.

(00:30:46.782):
And the piece was about how in patriarchy,

(00:30:50.383):
there's not really a way to be conceived of as a good mother.

(00:30:54.804):
No matter what you do, you're doing it wrong.

(00:30:57.815):
someone has a problem with it if you breastfeed you're breastfeeding wrong

(00:31:01.257):
if you formula feed you should have breastfed however you give birth it's wrong

(00:31:04.658):
however you discipline or don't discipline your kids it's wrong and

(00:31:08):
so i think it's important for all mothers to realize that in

(00:31:13.423):
a patriarchal society we can all be painted as unfit mothers and like that's not

(00:31:20.526):
an accident that's exactly right that's exactly right uh it goes back

(00:31:25.789):
to what we were talking about earlier that

(00:31:28.790):
you can do everything in your control and still if something goes wrong

(00:31:36.214):
with your pregnancy if something goes wrong with your birth

(00:31:39.895):
and your birth plan you will be blamed simply because you are the mother you are

(00:31:44.817):
the pregnant person there will be a way to blame you and if that's

(00:31:50.660):
because it makes other people feel more comfortable to have someone to blame um

(00:31:56.031):
then maybe that's one reason but your identity can be used against you

(00:32:02.374):
and something can be found in what you've done again

(00:32:05.255):
whether it's were you always wearing

(00:32:07.997):
a seatbelt did you rest enough did you walk enough did you provide

(00:32:17.373):
certain foods or not provide certain foods there's there's always some reason that

(00:32:22.875):
the mother can be blamed and you're right that that's directly tied to

(00:32:26.076):
the patriarchy that's directly tied to mothers having

(00:32:29.536):
to take responsibility not only for caring for a child raising a child caring for

(00:32:35.178):
the home taking care of the home all of that labor but also for health and wellness

(00:32:39.939):
that is completely out of their control

(00:32:42.900):
absolutely and also they'll be blamed for whatever

(00:32:45.583):
the man does literally anytime I post anything on social media

(00:32:49.366):
about abusive men I will get inundated with comments that are like

(00:32:54.310):
and why do women just keep letting them get away with it like we're responsible

(00:32:59.054):
for our behavior responsible for men's behavior and we're responsible for

(00:33:03.998):
the entire political landscape around us

(00:33:07.492):
that's exactly right and that's why it's so important

(00:33:09.834):
that laws like we're just passing oklahoma about criminalized survivors are crucial

(00:33:16.738):
to trying to change this landscape because we do see women who when they try

(00:33:20.621):
to fight back against their abusers they're the ones

(00:33:23.583):
who are criminally charged we see women who when they try to protect their children

(00:33:28.426):
from their abusive partner and they're not able to

(00:33:31.324):
they fail in protecting themselves and their children from their partner they are

(00:33:36.245):
the ones who are criminally charged and punished and sentenced to years

(00:33:41.966):
in prison not the abusive partner so we see this happening and it's part and parcel

(00:33:50.287):
with this victim blaming and I can only say at least there is a movement now

(00:33:58.129):
towards recognizing that

(00:34:00.782):
These women are not to blame for what their abusive partners do.

(00:34:05.504):
They are not the ones who are responsible for this.

(00:34:08.265):
They are not going to make society safer by having them incarcerated.

(00:34:15.848):
And I'll give one example,

(00:34:16.988):
which is Melissa Lucio,

(00:34:19.709):
who was wrongly convicted in Texas,

(00:34:22.470):
where her toddler tragically fell down a steep set of stairs

(00:34:28.244):
Melissa herself was pregnant with twins at the time that she goes to the hospital

(00:34:33.028):
with her toddler and her toddler dies and this is tragic and then right from

(00:34:40.052):
the hospital the police take her to be interrogated

(00:34:44.095):
and not only do they present false evidence towards her

(00:34:48.498):
but they're like you must have abused this child you must have been the cause

(00:34:52.501):
of this child's death you must have done this

(00:34:56.565):
and in reality it was her romantic partner who had been abusive and he hadn't caused

(00:35:04.030):
the child's death the child's death was from the fall from the staircase and

(00:35:08.692):
yet they didn't look into him as the person who had caused the child's death even

(00:35:15.377):
though he had a pattern of abuse they didn't look into him they looked into Melissa

(00:35:20.139):
who had no history of being abusive to any of her children

(00:35:25.838):
so okay you mentioned this false evidence thing with her story and

(00:35:29.280):
and i see this come up over and over and over again um you know the

(00:35:35.223):
the manufacturing of false evidence the misconstrual of real evidence where

(00:35:40.887):
the people doing it have to know that they're lying it's it's not just an accident

(00:35:46.350):
or bias it's a lot more malicious than that

(00:35:49.850):
what is the incentive structure that encourages this to happen um this seems to me

(00:35:55.694):
to be a systemic problem it's not just a few bad apples what's going on

(00:35:59.317):
that supports this is absolutely a systemic problem because in

(00:36:03.960):
the united states police can lie to anyone they interrogate in some states we see

(00:36:11.767):
growing protections for juveniles who are being interrogated by police

(00:36:16.514):
that police cannot lie to a teenager because we recognize

(00:36:20.359):
that teenagers may be particularly susceptible

(00:36:23.063):
but for adults for anyone in the united states if the police ever arrest you

(00:36:28.849):
and bring you in for questioning they can lie

(00:36:32.313):
to you they can tell you there's medical documents that prove

(00:36:37.097):
that you caused some kind of a harm they can tell you that another witness

(00:36:43.113):
saw you commit some kind of act they can even say well maybe you did it

(00:36:48.957):
while you were sleepwalking maybe you did it and you weren't fully aware

(00:36:53.880):
of what you were doing these are all ways for police to get confessions especially

(00:37:00.725):
if they're allowed to interrogate you for hours and hours and hours

(00:37:05.428):
so Melissa Lucio was interrogated middle of the night right

(00:37:10.031):
after her toddler's death

(00:37:12.589):
for hours until by the end she finally said I don't know what you want me to say

(00:37:19.114):
and she finally says okay I'll take responsibility for my child's death even

(00:37:26.240):
though she did not cause the death so that is one of our systemic problems is

(00:37:31.885):
that police can present false evidence false information for hours

(00:37:38.711):
until finally obtaining

(00:37:40.622):
what they would call and use as a confession the false confession thing is

(00:37:46.106):
so interesting to me I know there was that study several years ago

(00:37:50.450):
of false confessions outside of a criminal context where they were able to induce

(00:37:56.094):
a large number of people to commit to crime to admit to crimes that they didn't do

(00:38:00.798):
and that never happened I'll have to dig it up and put it in the show notes

(00:38:04.741):
but it was so compelling to read and I think that we

(00:38:09.393):
i'll have a chance to see in our own lives how easy it is to induce

(00:38:12.094):
a false confession because if you interrogate your child

(00:38:15.535):
for long enough they'll say anything to make it stop or even if you try

(00:38:19.617):
to make your child talk about their feelings

(00:38:21.658):
for too long they'll start telling you what they think you want to hear so imagine

(00:38:26.519):
if if there's a gun and a jail to me it seems obvious that

(00:38:31.541):
of course people are going to say

(00:38:33.842):
whatever you want especially when the police are often promising oh I'm going

(00:38:37.264):
to help you out of this if you just confess right right

(00:38:40.645):
and you're also thinking how can I get out of this right now to get home

(00:38:44.387):
to my children yes able to go back to work on Monday to be able

(00:38:48.869):
to keep my job I need to get out of this as soon as possible

(00:38:53.671):
and I can always fix it I'll just say what they want to hear

(00:38:57.033):
and I can always fix it later but instead that is used again as proof

(00:39:03.019):
that the person committed a crime when they didn't.

(00:39:07.481):
So it is a very coercive setting.

(00:39:11.142):
And I love your examples about false confessions

(00:39:14.444):
because another study is simply asking people,

(00:39:18.225):
oh, you went to Disney World recently.

(00:39:21.906):
So did you see Bugs Bunny?

(00:39:24.050):
oh you must have seen bugs bunny there he was right by

(00:39:27.293):
the front entry he was right there you took a picture with bugs bunny and the number

(00:39:31.837):
of people

(00:39:32.358):
who ultimately would say oh yeah yeah that's right i did see bugs oh yeah yeah i did

(00:39:37.402):
take a photo

(00:39:37.863):
with bugs bunny that's right that's right bugs bunny is warner brothers bugs bunny

(00:39:43.267):
is not disney there's no way bugs bunny would have been there and yet through

(00:39:47.231):
that simple test

(00:39:50.181):
we're able to see how easy it is for people to falsely confess

(00:39:55.106):
so I actually did a test like this in my own life years and years ago

(00:39:59.870):
so my husband is a federal civil rights litigator and so he works

(00:40:03.193):
on some cases like this and he came up with this scheme to sort of get people

(00:40:10.239):
to better appreciate false confessions and here's how it works you try to induce

(00:40:16.504):
a false memory in someone you love and you even tell them that you're going to do

(00:40:21.488):
that so he did this to me

(00:40:23.849):
and he was going to create this false memory of this time I went to the fair

(00:40:28.172):
and there were these ducks following these geese and they went down a water slide

(00:40:32.174):
and then they chased me this absolutely did not happen and every now

(00:40:36.917):
and again he would just bring it up tell me about the time you went to

(00:40:40.158):
the fair again just totally casual,

(00:40:42.180):
not a high stakes conversation just messing with my memory and now I remember this

(00:40:48.103):
as actually having happened to me even though I know that it did not

(00:40:52.060):
um because our memories are just weird like our memories are not perfect recordings

(00:40:56.383):
of our lives and you can mess with people's memories in all kinds of ways

(00:41:00.406):
and i just i feel like that's something people aren't fully aware

(00:41:03.548):
of yeah that's right our memories are malleable they're not

(00:41:07.591):
a perfect recording i'll uh often ask my students i'll say okay so uh think of

(00:41:14.836):
a important day in your life uh graduation or a marriage day

(00:41:20.587):
some day that's really important to you.

(00:41:23.708):
And can you see yourself in that moment?

(00:41:26.909):
Can you see yourself dancing on the floor?

(00:41:30.630):
Can you see yourself walking across the stage and getting that diploma?

(00:41:35.071):
And I give them a few seconds.

(00:41:37.932):
And then I say, if you can see yourself, it's a false memory.

(00:41:43.025):
because you could never see yourself and see what you are actually doing.

(00:41:46.867):
That's something your mind has created of what happened in that moment.

(00:41:52.051):
So again, our memories are indeed very malleable.

(00:41:56.453):
That's such a great, simple experiment.

(00:41:59.395):
I love that.

(00:41:59.936):
And I think people should do that because I think it will cultivate more empathy

(00:42:04.078):
for how people can be kind of induced to say anything.

(00:42:07.580):
so my last question to you is kind of a big one and in that regard sort of

(00:42:12.623):
a frustrating one but I have to ask it anyway and that is what needs to happen

(00:42:19.026):
to change this what kinds of measures could make

(00:42:22.788):
an immediate difference what do we need long term how do we begin fixing

(00:42:28.491):
or rebuilding or destroying and then rebuilding the system so a lot of the

(00:42:36.065):
answers that I think of come from our discussion today,

(00:42:39.626):
ending deceptive police tactics in interrogations.

(00:42:44.468):
We didn't even talk about how trauma can be such a factor in these interrogations as well.

(00:42:49.390):
We alluded to it,

(00:42:50.311):
but really recognizing the trauma that victims and survivors are going through

(00:42:56.273):
and how that is used against them when they're being interrogated.

(00:43:01.918):
curbing faulty forensic evidence so actually challenging that evidence in court

(00:43:09.766):
that often relies on defense attorneys but it can also mean we

(00:43:15.831):
as individuals pay attention to our prosecutors and who is elected

(00:43:22.217):
as our countywide or citywide prosecutor

(00:43:25.200):
so we have our elections coming up this fall and oftentimes people don't pay

(00:43:30.184):
as much attention to elected prosecutors but those are the folks who are deciding

(00:43:35.148):
a priority of our office is going to be to investigate miscarriages to see

(00:43:40.992):
if they are abortions if abortion is illegal in our state and

(00:43:45.136):
to bring criminal charges against those women those lead prosecutors

(00:43:51.305):
those elected officials are the ones who can create that culture for the office

(00:43:56.347):
so it really matters pushing those individuals for where they stand

(00:44:01.969):
on bodily autonomy for where they stand on how they prosecute parents

(00:44:09.312):
and pregnant people

(00:44:11.121):
and then voting on that.

(00:44:13.844):
So that's another area.

(00:44:15.625):
Prosecutor's offices can also have conviction integrity units and that is a unit

(00:44:24.413):
that looks into past convictions to see if there was a wrongful conviction.

(00:44:29.497):
So that can be important on the back end to go back and say,

(00:44:32.420):
oh my gosh, these are innocent folks who have gone to prison because we have had

(00:44:38.028):
this one police detective who has coerced individuals into false confessions

(00:44:44.969):
for example so really being able to figure out where those problems are along

(00:44:50.771):
the criminal legal system so those are you know a couple of ideas my book ends with

(00:44:58.112):
a whole chapter that talks to both people who are

(00:45:02.978):
litigators people who are social justice advocates exonerees and people

(00:45:08.439):
who are social media influencers on how they see

(00:45:14.360):
in their different roles they can challenge wrongful convictions uh so i hope

(00:45:18.801):
that folks will get a chance to to pick up the book and to learn a bit more

(00:45:22.622):
about what we can all do together so it's it's really a great book and i have

(00:45:27.682):
to add my own plug for it so i'll do that um

(00:45:31.647):
if you're not in publishing and you're not

(00:45:33.708):
a writer you may not know one how hard it is to write a book and two how hard it is

(00:45:38.471):
to sell a book so i'm going to tell you the thing that is probably

(00:45:42.833):
the most important determinant of a book success are pre-orders um so if you want

(00:45:48.516):
to help valina's book succeed and send a message that we care about these issues

(00:45:52.718):
that we want more feminist writing

(00:45:54.419):
that we want more investigative progressive legal writing

(00:45:59.815):
then you should pre-order the book that helps it to succeed I will put a link to

(00:46:03.879):
the book it's out August 4th but you can order now

(00:46:08.084):
and I just really hope you will support this important work

(00:46:11.367):
because these stories really really need to get out and Helena thank you so much

(00:46:16.193):
for coming on it's been wonderful oh my gosh

(00:46:18.860):
thank you this has been such a really powerful conversation to have with you and

(00:46:24.145):
and thank you and uh thank you for your support of the book and i do want

(00:46:28.208):
to let listeners know there is a code tnp30 which stands for the new press tnp30

(00:46:35.595):
for 30 off on pre-orders oh that's awesome now can they use

(00:46:39.078):
that anywhere do they have to go to a specific site

(00:46:42.143):
they have to pre-order it from the new press okay i will i'll put a link to

(00:46:48.269):
that website as well as the code and yep please order get it

(00:46:52.193):
for gifts it's really good really well researched and well organized and i hope

(00:46:57.819):
that listeners will go out and buy it lena thank you again it's been

(00:47:01.343):
so wonderful talking to you thank you thank you this has been

(00:47:07.497):
really important and really moving and thank you for everything you talk about

(00:47:11.581):
on this podcast and I'm so glad you have such a great supportive audience that wants

(00:47:16.846):
to hear about this and learn more yes I have the best listeners

(00:47:20.710):
and listeners I will be back with you in two weeks