#2432 - Josh Dubin

I used to think the more cases you try, the more routine they get, but it’s the opposite—the stories get wilder, from wrongful convictions to head‑scratching charges where we’re begging for clemency.

That world is brutal, because you’re stripping people of freedom, and sometimes folks chase convictions no matter what.

I’m reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new one where he opens on pharma execs dodging blame with phrases like associated with, and it made me think most harm comes less from cartoonish framing and more from good‑faith hunches that warp the evidence.

They lawyer their language in hearings so it never sounds like an admission, because perjury is a trap.

I like people who own it, so I tell clients, partners, everyone—if you’re wrong, say you’re sorry; it’s a strength, not a weakness.

Admitting fault is power, but some people bury it so deep they forget it’s there.

We just finished a wild Perlmutter case about stolen DNA and junk forensics that turned into a huge defamation win and a shot in the arm for real science.

A nasty condo feud spiraled into hate mail, and the accuser secretly collected Ike and Lori’s DNA at a deposition with a planted exhibit and an untouched water bottle.

An unaccredited lab rushed to claim a match without waiting for the accredited lab, and a later probe caught a different suspect after a border intercept.

We sued the accuser and a Chubb‑linked lawyer who helped script the DNA ambush, and the jury hit them for 50 million dollars.

How did that contamination even tie her DNA in?

The analyst pipetted from Lori’s mixture instead of the positive control, so one run was tainted, which the accredited analyst knew and discarded, but the unaccredited interpreter leaned on anyway.

Meanwhile the accuser kept pressing and, by his own admissions and news reports, floated huge payout numbers while downplaying a messy past.

At trial they tried to weaponize photos of social events to say her reputation did not matter, and the jurors rejected that by awarding big and treating her as her own person.

It’s nuts to pick a fight like that with people whose name is on a legal justice center.

That center exists because of what they lived through; they funded a post‑conviction shop so people without resources are not crushed by bad process.

Some folks seem addicted to conflict and just keep reenacting it forever.

I try to understand why they cannot course‑correct, but people start believing their own stories and it warps everything.

Then there’s Nelson Cruz: in 1998 an officer saw a muzzle flash and arrested a man with the gun, yet a few hours later the case got handed to a notoriously dirty detective and suddenly Nelson was the shooter.

They fed a witness the suspect and ran a suggestive lineup, never called the man caught with the gun, and built the whole trial on one shaky ID.

Years later a post‑conviction hearing exposed the witness as a liar, but a judge with undisclosed advanced Alzheimer’s denied relief and resigned soon after, so we’re back fighting before Brooklyn’s conviction integrity unit.

And the person who actually did it is out walking around.

He is, and it’s rare to see the real killer charged after an exoneration, even when the defense has laid out who it likely is.

Think of Clemente Aguirre, cleared off death row while the person most of the evidence pointed to never got prosecuted; that gap happens a lot.

Nelson did about 26 years, paroled out, and still carries the weight of a case that should have been over long ago.

It’s a filthy business when people plea just to get out or wait decades for the truth to matter.

Post‑conviction work bleeds into clemency, and then you hit the human mess like immigration cases that make you ask what we’re doing.

One client left a gas station dispute, came back to find his brother shot, fired a single shot at the attendant, served a short sentence, then lived clean for 51 years as a union guy with kids and grandkids.

He travels to see family, gets flagged at re‑entry, and now faces removal to a place he does not know, while a judge openly questioned why prosecutors are even pushing the case.

ICE chases numbers, so instead of targeting cartel killers they sweep up whoever is easiest, and families get shredded in the process.

I see it as a human rights problem more than a political one, and a seventy‑something grandfather who has contributed for decades should not be the target.

Immigration judges have little discretion, so I’m pushing a pardon to cut off the basis for removal.

Pardons are this wild executive power where politics and access decide who gets through.

Some grants make sense, others are head‑scratchers, and even with a strong advocate like Alice Johnson in the process there are layers that slow or derail worthy cases.

We’re backing people like Spencer Bowens, who is buried by old drug laws that would not stand today, and Emory Jones, who rebuilt his life but still carries an anchor conviction.

What happens to the dirty detectives with a trail of bad cases?

Many keep denying it and walk free even with 21 vacaturs attached to their work, so I tell people to read trial transcripts themselves and not just headlines.

Groups like Reform Alliance are pushing the Safer Supervision Act so success on parole is rewarded, but qualified immunity often shields the worst actors.

Then get involved, because that pipeline of mercy is the only shot for some people.

I tried with Governor DeSantis on Michael Giles, an Air Force airman who got blindsided in a chaotic brawl, fired one shot to stop an attack, and got 25 years under a mandatory minimum when fragments hit bystanders.

He’s spotless in prison, we met every condition the governor demanded, top conservatives backed release, the commission recommended it, and a week before a decision they planned transport so the governor could look him in the eye—then pulled the plug without a reason.

Race hangs over it; the elected prosecutor had a DOJ agreement after a whistleblower exposed a memo flagging Hispanic in caps for harsher treatment, and that history makes you question everything.

It’s got to be rough to carry all that and stay open‑hearted, but that empathy is why you can do this work.

I wear it and I cry, and I’ve learned to check my own projections so I can deliver hard news without drowning in it.

Right before we started, Trump rescheduled marijuana to schedule three, which puts it with things like Tylenol with codeine, and I think it should be legal, regulated, and treated like alcohol.

If it’s legal, educate people on risks and let adults choose; it helps many, harms some, and abuse exists with anything.

Acetaminophen kills people every year when misused, yet we accept the tradeoffs and warn folks, which is how we should treat weed instead of propping up cartels like we did during alcohol prohibition.

Look at Portugal and others who decriminalized; crime and overdoses dropped once they stopped criminalizing use.

The ban was a 1930s industrial hustle with Hearst, Ansligner, and nylon interests demonizing hemp by renaming it marijuana and selling panic to protect paper and rope profits.

Self‑interest plus hysteria set policy, and we’re still digging out of it.

Some people do get hooked on weed, but most can moderate, and for me nicotine pouches were easier to drop than expected.

I smoked a lot in high school, but modern potency wrecks me, like the time a blunt in Jamaica turned the room sideways.

Worst was a Vegas night where a couple of puffs spiraled into pure paranoia at a craps table and I hid in a corner for hours, so it is not for me anymore.

Some folks live in a permanent haze like B-Real’s hotbox, but if you barely ever get high, take a tiny puff and stop; those kief-caked pre-rolls are a rocket to paranoia.

I’ve had nights where weed felt amazing and others where I spiraled on the Penn Station platform thinking about mortality; at this stage I don’t want to interrogate strains just to avoid a panic attack.

Paranoia can surface stuff you need to face, but if I’m in a good headspace it feels great; when you’re young, no bills and fewer burdens, it lands different.

As a teen, Zeppelin and Floyd felt like mind-openers; later I quit weed and drinking because parenting through that pain wasn’t worth it, and you’ve got to know yourself.

Adults should choose for themselves with real education, not propaganda; we were lied to about marijuana for decades.

Those old ads made me judge my own dad for smoking; the one with the talking dog is still wild.

If a dog talked while you were high you’d be amazed, not swearing off weed; that campaign poisoned thinking.

On power and suppression, I once heard a tire myth and believed it, which made me think about how weed got criminalized.

Tires wear because soft meets hard, but planned obsolescence is real; look at century-old bulbs with thick filaments still lit while modern ones were thinned to pop.

So some vault might still hold a tire patent, but back to drugs—how do we square harsh cocaine sentences with weed, and the super predator era that stuffed prisons?

Marijuana can be habit forming in a behavioral way, but cocaine’s a different animal.

What eats at me is elderly people still locked up for old drug cases; take Larry Hoover, in for five decades, renounced gang life, federal time commuted, then grabbed by the state on an ancient case while the actual shooter’s been home for decades—what’s the point?

Even the triggerman was paroled more than 30 years ago.

Leaders fear the political cost of mercy; I want thoughtful second chances, and I can’t square legal alcohol’s damage with how we treat controlled substances.

History made drugs criminal and tied them to cartels; regulate cocaine and you’d crater that market and cut fentanyl poisonings, but culture treats alcohol as normal and cocaine as shadowy and unsafe.

Decriminalized models where supply is tested seem to save lives; risk from mystery powder is the killer.

You’d get stigma, a messy transition, and probably more dabblers at first, but at least purity and dosing would be known; people have used coca forever, even mummies test positive.

America’s politics make it a slog, yet warehousing people for nonviolent drug cases feels barbaric now.

It’s easier to keep them inside than admit the system got it wrong.

Look at the Ohio Four: after convictions were vacated, the new prosecutor reversed it and now targets the former DA who did the right thing, even filing a massive brief and bar complaints; I’m asking locals to press their officials, and I’m building a public-docs hub so people can see the truth.

Admitting one bad case invites scrutiny of many, and some folks want to keep lids on.

We’ll keep pushing; the press loves tragedy and chops context, so we have to control what we can and flood the zone with records.

Media chases juicy headlines, not careful corrections.

Power is intoxicating at every rung, and I don’t get how conscience doesn’t kick in when harm is obvious.

Feeling bad when you do wrong is a compass, but rewiring minds is hard; interestingly, psychedelics don’t have cartel ecosystems and tend to flow through kinder networks.

Do you need a certain temperament for psychedelics?

They’re not for the fragile; biology matters, like genetic loading for alcoholism, which devastated Indigenous communities when alcohol arrived.

At my lowest you nudged me to consider ketamine; my therapist said the data was strong and very low doses helped me immensely despite my college memories of K-holes.

I have not done it, but people I trust found relief with doctor-guided dosing; supervision and precision matter for these tools.

If psychedelics flipped psychiatry, pharma would fight it.

Humans have used them forever with mixed results, and part of freedom is choosing your own path.

What about ayahuasca and all the purging?

DMT is natural in us but gets broken down in the gut; ayahuasca pairs a DMT plant with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor so it becomes orally active over time, which is why the ceremony is long and intense.

So you drink it, digest, trip, and the purge is part of that process.

Your body wants it out, yet the experience can be profoundly healing, with entity-like encounters and trauma release; IV or smoked DMT skips the purge, is far shorter, and your body clears it fast.

Non-drug routes helped me too; EMDR put me through rhythmic sessions where I relived childhood pain, which was brutal and strangely sacred, and it broke the physiological triggers like it does for combat vets.

Holotropic breathing and float tanks also induce altered states safely; the tank’s sensory cutoff is deeply psychedelic.

You got me floating so hard I lost my sense of direction in there.

Switching gears, Jake Paul fighting Anthony Joshua is a wild mismatch on paper; AJ is a two-time heavyweight champ, an Olympic gold medalist, huge, fast, and fresh off starching elite heavyweights.

Two guys I manage are calling it, which makes it even stranger; I’m torn, but Jake’s marketing mind is undeniable.

It’s a spectacle, but the kid grinds, keeps improving, and takes big risks; still, if AJ does not stop him, that is a bad look.

I might fly down just to watch that circus; AJ is a massive, gifted athlete.

Odds should be heavily in AJ’s favor and around ten to one sounds right; anything can happen in a fight, but you lean to the proven champion.

Seeing ten to one makes you want to sprinkle a little, even if it is a long shot.

Respect to Jake for putting past opponents on the card and helping cover a fighter’s lung transplant; and Shakur versus Teofimo is the matchup I’m excited for.

Shakur against Teofimo is a great fight, full stop.

He’s the kind of kid who’ll fight anyone, and the only other guy we’ve managed with that spirit was Andre Ward. Shakur wants Jervante Davis at Madison Square Garden on January thirty-first, and I want you there because it’s going to be a great one.

We were just at the press conference with Jay, and it already feels electric. Both are in their peak years, and I’m all in.

That moment on the show last week hit me hard in the best way. He’s an incredible person.

He’s down three hundred pounds, looks like a new man, and we trained together. He ran two point six miles on the treadmill and then we hit the sauna; he’s fantastic.

When he asked for a hug, that was everything.

He’s a beautiful soul, and so are you. Thank you, Brian—much love and thanks for being here.