March 29, 2025 • 51 mins
Join us for our review of Daredevil Born Again episodes 5 and 6!
No part of this recording should be considered legal advice.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok @TheLegalGeeks
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Joshua Gilliland (00:05):
Hello everyone , my name is Joshua Gilliland,
one of the founding attorneys ofthe Legal Geeks.
It's Wednesday, it's the dayafter we had two new episodes of
Daredevil and we're going totalk about them because it's
WonderCon week.
With me is retired Judge MattSherino.
Your Honor, how are you tonight?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:25):
I am good.
I didn't know it was going tobe a double episode, so it was a
pleasant surprise.
Is retired Judge Matt Sherino.
Your Honor, how are you?
Joshua Gilliland (00:30):
tonight.
I am good.
I didn't know it was going tobe a double episode, so it was a
pleasant surprise.
Yeah, and both were excellent.
So I don't know if they'redoing this to clear the deck for
Andor Season 2, so that wayit's over by then, or if there's
some other plan in motion.
But wow, these were glorious,so let's, let's get to it.
(00:52):
Uh, your honor, first off, whatdid you think of these, these
episodes?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:59):
I thought they, they, they went
well together.
So I I kind of get why they didthe two.
They certainly both reallyfocused in on Matt Murdock's
Irish and Catholic roots and,you know, continue the crisis
that's going on within him as towhether or not to resurrect the
(01:23):
dead devil, as to whether ornot to resurrect the the dead
devil, and so, you know, it kindof flowed and it made sense to
link these two and they were,they were, they were incredibly
good episodes.
Joshua Gilliland (01:34):
Yeah, I thought both are amazing.
I think I liked the bankrobbery one a little bit more,
but that's it.
It's still really close and andjust exceptionally well done,
well acted master class instorytelling.
So let's break down the litanyof legal issues that starts on a
(01:57):
saint patrick's day episode and, uh, out of the gate, there
there's a beautiful connectionto Miss Marvel with her dad, is
the banker that Matt goes tovisit for a loan for the law
firm and again, a subtle littleEaster egg.
(02:18):
You know he plays a major rolein the entire episode.
That was, I'm like that's thetype of connected universe met
marvel fans like that going back.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:30):
What?
Was it his daughter or a friendof his daughters?
That?
Because he said that missmarvel comes from jersey city
and it's and I.
There was some connection withthe daughter, but I wasn't
positive that it was hisdaughter.
In fact it is his daughterthat's.
Joshua Gilliland (02:43):
That's very cool.
Yeah, so again, and it was hisdaughter in fact, it is his
daughter.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:45):
Oh, that's very cool.
Joshua Gilliland (02:46):
Yeah.
So again, when he appeared onscreen I was like he was in Ms
Marvel.
That's her dad, it's like cool,and naturally it would have a
Funko Pop of his daughter on hisdesk, while also not blowing
her secret identity.
So having her off in Californiaon some adventure was also cool
(03:07):
, but Daredevil is the type ofcharacter who would bump into
her, or Spider-Man and this isagain nice little Easter eggs
for the rest of the Marvelcontinuity.
Funding a law firm is hard.
Matt's firm is pretty big forbeing a year old, two named
(03:34):
partners I don't know if thereare others who are breadwinners
and they have a healthy staff.
And it was nice to actually seethat discussed as a reason for
getting a loan and thechallenges the bank recognized
with that.
So again, I just thought thatwas interesting.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (03:54):
Yeah, the bank manager brought up both
their expansion and how they'vebeen spending the money and
also was very quick to point outthat they seem to have,
although they're very good atthe spending of the money,
they're not as good as gettingpaying clients that can continue
the operation of a firm.
That is that size front office.
(04:30):
The Vig on rent is a lot lessthan when you're doing a
Manhattan space with the youknow, big conference rooms and a
very nice size law office with,even if they're the only two
lawyers, there certainly was alot of other staff and
paralegals and other people atthat firm.
Joshua Gilliland (04:44):
Yeah, you know , the leverage rule is a
secretary is supposed to help,like three lawyers, maybe five
in some situations, but like oneto three.
The paralegal ratio can alsovary, like you know.
One per team.
So if you have a litigationteam, you might have a
litigation paralegal assigned tothat team.
(05:05):
So if you have a litigationteam, you might have a
litigation paralegal assigned tothat team.
Again, results vary dependingon the firm and the complexity
of their cases.
But, flashing back to lawschool, those were the leverage
numbers and they have a bigspace with a whole bunch of
people.
And now it'd be one thing to golike, yeah, there's nine
(05:26):
lawyers and you know enoughsupport staff, so a number they
seem.
They seem to be running big.
We then get to a bank robbery,a good old fashioned bank
robbery episode, which again isa very comic book opportunity.
But, your Honor, what jumpedout?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (05:52):
at you A few things.
Both the bank robbery and thenwhen it turned into a hostage
situation gave me vibes of DogDay Out Dog Day Afternoon with
Al Pacino, which was a greatflick from 1975.
And it just brought back somememories of that.
It also the lead robber atleast had an Irish brogue, which
(06:16):
certainly played well into StPatrick's Day.
In fact, while talking with thenegotiator in order to buy more
time, he asked for a joke andthe negotiator provided a good
Irish joke to get some extratime.
Legally, most bank robberiestend to be prosecuted by the
(06:37):
federal government if they're ofthat level, as opposed to a
small little failed attempt thatmight be prosecuted in the
state.
If you're charged with bankrobbery, you're dealing with
(07:08):
Section 2113 of 18 US Code,which does make robbing a bank
and the incidental crimes thatare associated with robbing the
bank into a felony which you canbe sentenced for a period of
not more than 20 years but up to20 years in jail.
(07:30):
If you're charged in the NewYork statute, you're going to
probably be charged with robberyin the first degree, which is a
class B felony which would bepunishable by five to 25 years,
and robbery in the first degreein New York is Section 160.15 of
our penal law and that would bebasically a bumped up robbery,
(07:52):
because you're either armed witha deadly weapon or you cause
physical injury there was somehitting with the gun, et cetera
or even just displaying afirearm brings it up to that
robbery in the first degree.
There was also a veryinteresting discussion with Matt
Murdock, who was kind of tryingto negotiate a good resolution
(08:17):
of the situation by, you know,telling the bank robbers that
you know, at this point theywere only facing robbery, you
know.
But if someone were to bemurdered or killed while this
was going on, that one of themmight be prosecuted for felony
murder.
(08:37):
And felony murder is a type ofcrime that has been up to some
discussion over the years.
Some states have even gottenrid of felony murder.
But what felony murderbasically is is that in the
course of the commission of afelony, if someone were to die,
then everyone that was part ofthat group that was committing
(09:00):
the felony would be subjected toa murder charge for the death
of that individual.
And there are in New York someaffirmative defenses to the
felony murder that if you reallycan prove that you had nothing
to do with the homicidal act, ifyou didn't know that your
(09:25):
co-conspirators were armed orhad deadly weapons, there was no
reasonable belief that deathcould happen, all of those
things would be affirmativedefenses to felony murder.
But if you are convicted offelony murder, which is the same
as murder in the second degree,which we discussed in earlier
episodes, this is a Class A1felony, which means you would be
(09:48):
subject to life in prison.
Joshua Gilliland (09:51):
The felony murder rule has been one of
those catch-alls and it'skissing cousin to conspiracy
liability as well.
For again, what was the natureof the conspiracy of the
felonious act?
And if it was bank robbery,okay is.
Is murder a natural, improbableconsequence of someone getting
(10:13):
killed during a bank robbery?
And yeah, I could see a jurysaying yes, uh, but it could be
very fact, specific of you know,I I was.
I did not sign up for this, butthat's again encourages people
to make good life choices, notnot to go down the path of
(10:34):
committing a felony in the firstplace.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (10:36):
And felony murder is a pretty old
charge.
It's been around for a very,very long time In fact.
I think it pretty much predatesa lot of the conspiracy charges
that have come about.
So that's one of the reasons Ithink there's that overlap.
And, additionally, once theyactually grabbed everyone as
hostages, started to negotiatewith the hostage negotiator from
(11:00):
the NYPD.
That ups it in the federalrealm as well.
And once you're talking holdinghostages, you're under Section
1201 of the 18 US Code and thatbasically now makes you subject
to a possible sentence of thedeath penalty and or life
imprisonment, so that hostagetaking really does escalate the
(11:24):
crime to pretty much the highestlevel in what you could be
charged for in this country.
Joshua Gilliland (11:32):
So life choice ?
Don't do that.
But the hostage situation againwe get into.
There's false imprisonment andkidnapping and again guns are
out.
We're telling people to kneel.
One thing that struck me as theI don't know how many people
(11:54):
are aware of this phenomenon.
My mom was a paramedic and oneof the things that she believed
from experience was in thathostage situation, killers don't
want to look at someone's facewhen they shoot them to end
their lives.
So that's why we'll say, like,lay down on the ground, face
(12:16):
down.
And when the hostages were toldto put their heads down, I was
concerned we were going to startseeing people get killed
because, like you, can't makeeye contact and that's one of
those deterrents to peoplegetting killed.
Results may vary, but that'sthat was what she learned from
(12:39):
her experience, and I don't knowif you've heard similar things.
Your Honor and in your time,with being on the bench.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (12:51):
Yes, psychology-wise, clearly, if you
establish a rapport with theperson, it's much harder to kill
someone that you have a bit ofa relationship with than if you
are a total stranger that theydon't even know what you look
like.
Also, for the fact of futuretestifying against you if they
(13:17):
can't identify you because theirfaces were down during any of
the periods where you did nothave the masks on, there's
certainly, you know, less of athreat, when and if you're
caught in the future, of thosepeople being able to identify
you as the person who was partof the group that robbed the
(13:38):
bank.
If you always had a mask on,except for the periods when they
had their face down, then theyreally can't ever say, yes,
that's the person that washolding us hostage.
Joshua Gilliland (13:53):
So let's get into some of the hero aspects of
this.
Murdoch is out of the bank onthe phone with his partner when
the robbery starts and hedecides to go back.
He has zero duty to rescue,like there's no special
relationship.
I mean, you know, alone wasjust denied.
Leaving with sore feelings isunderstandable.
(14:16):
Going back to make sure thepeople who denied, alone because
it's the right thing to do tomake sure people don't die is
again the hero status of him,which I thought was well played
Because it's not over the top.
He just goes out and does theright thing, with a gun getting
(14:38):
pointed at him multiple times inthe process multiple times in
the process.
Judge Matthew Scia (14:48):
Additionally , you know when he could have
again left, because thenegotiator was able to, you know
, as a sign of good faith, get apromise to release two of the
hostages.
And Matt was going to be one ofthose two hostages and the
other was going to be a coupleand the wife didn't want to
leave without her husband andMatt willingly stood in for the
(15:12):
husband so that the couple wouldbe able to be released and he
continued to stay longer.
And clearly, you know, wheneverything was said and done,
you know talking with the bankmanager again who kind of said
you know, this doesn't mean thatyou're going to get the loan
after he does all of this kindof stuff, and he's basically,
(15:34):
you know, had no expectation ofthat.
You know, kind of just to showthat he was just doing the right
thing.
Joshua Gilliland (15:42):
Which was awesome, like.
So, again, the finding out hissuperpower does include safe
cracking, which again cool, uh,we haven't seen graphically I
love the way they handled that.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (15:54):
It was fun to watch the way, uh, you
know the, the dials of the, ofthe safe kind of worked in.
Or you know what he wasvisualizing in his blind world
as to the, the triple tumblersafe it was very cool.
Joshua Gilliland (16:13):
The stairwell fight was also masterful, having
the added element of don't makeany noise and catching the
rifle to keep it from falling.
It's just like well done.
I mean great choreography, uh,great message as well, of he's
just trying to do the rightthing and beats the tar out of
(16:34):
two dudes, and then the finalfight with with the leader
fantastic, just very well done,uh.
And he made a friend like thatwas the other good thing.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (16:48):
Uh, it's like come over for dinner
and let's we'll talk about howto make your firm more
profitable right, and it was,you know, not just an offer of a
thank you dinner, it was, youknow, let's, let's discuss how
we can make your firm, um, youknow, basically get into the
black, so that either you'll beable to qualify for a future
(17:08):
loan or you won't need a futureloan.
And it was nice to see, as faras the you know, the target of
the robbery itself, which turnedout to be the contents of a
safety deposit box.
I know that, or at least Ibelieve from the prior movies,
(17:29):
that all of the Infinity Stonesare gone or accounted for or
what have you, but to me itlooked very much like a Infinity
Stone, but I don't know if itwas an Infinity Stone or not.
Joshua Gilliland (17:41):
I don't think so.
Okay, because a human beingwouldn't be able to touch it
without negative consequences.
Okay so that makes sense.
But it did look special and ifit is worth $1.7 million,
there's got to be some qualityto that.
Maybe it's not of this earth ormaybe it's just really special.
But the entire fake out withlike catch and dropping it off
(18:06):
and switching it out with candy,all very well done, very clever
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (18:11):
And luckily, the candy was of
similar color and shape as thejewel.
Joshua Gilliland (18:17):
Yeah, good thing you like caramel, you know
it's like again, just goodstorytelling and just fun.
It felt like a comic book cometo life and which is, uh, one of
those great qualities.
And that fight at the endbrutal, it was well earned for a
(18:39):
nice slug fest, uh, at the end.
But let's get to the secondepisode of the evening, uh,
which is, uh I didn't catch thename of episode six episode six
was excessive force.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (18:54):
So episode five was with interest,
which makes sense, with the, thebank and and the loan, and then
episode six was calledexcessive force, which also very
much is the topic of episodesix.
Joshua Gilliland (19:08):
Yeah, on multiple levels.
So, yeah, premise sanitationdepartment figures out that the
graffiti going up is made withuh, the paints mixed with blood
and so it's really hard to cleanoff.
And there have been a lot ofpeople disappearing, so their
(19:28):
body count is at least 60.
So that is at the freak outlevel of how how many?
Uh, because I don't think anyof the other serial killing
cases that we've had in reallife are pushing those kind of
numbers in that short a periodof time.
Uh, so again, a high level ofterror and a lot of things are
(19:52):
going to make sense for whypeople uh take issue.
But uh, people take issue.
But we have Bebe interviewing agraffiti artist who shows his
face and admits to doinggraffiti.
It's a party admission, yourHonor, how would that kid get
charged?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (20:12):
I certainly had my fair share of
graffiti cases, especially whenI was in the lower criminal
court, and you know the graffitiartists themselves are not shy
about who they are.
Sometimes it's hard tonecessarily catch them in the
act, although they do have,generally a specific tag that
(20:36):
they will use so that othergraffiti artists know that it's
them.
That same tag is used by theNYPD to track graffiti artists
and charge them with graffiti.
And making graffiti in New Yorkis a crime under Section 14560
(20:57):
of the penal law.
It's a Class A misdemeanor,which means it's punishable by
up to a year in jail.
Generally.
For the first time that you'recaught you're going to get a
violation.
It'll then get scaled upGenerally you'll end up doing
community service and cleaningup graffiti.
(21:19):
And so that admission in and ofitself unless he is
subsequently charged with makinggraffiti and they have
something that ties him to aparticular piece of graffiti
then they would be able topossibly use that admission
because that's a declarationagainst his own interest, which
is one of those exceptions tohearsay which would be
(21:42):
admissible at trial.
So that, coupled with theactual graffiti and something
that ties that individual tothat piece of graffiti, would be
enough probably for aprosecution of that individual.
Joshua Gilliland (21:58):
I have never, thankfully, had any cases that
dealt with uh, blood being mixedwithin the graffiti paint no,
no and and I think the reactionfrom the mayor having everyone I
want the chief here like thatreaction of maybe we need to
(22:19):
change procedures, wasunderstandable.
With how many people are gone.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (22:24):
Right, and also the fact that it was
the Department of Sanitation,who you know from the prior
episodes.
We know that there's a bit ofsome bad blood with the
Department of Sanitation and themayor's office because of some
of the things that they're doing, and it was the Department of
Sanitation who has brought this,you know, serial killer and
(22:47):
this crime spree to hisattention as opposed to his own
police department, also kind ofand I think justifiably angered
the mayor in that this is howthat you know he was learning
about this particular thing andserial killers to a large extent
(23:08):
, you know, from the things thatI've read and I never had any,
thankfully any serial killersbefore me, but thankfully any
serial killers before me, butthey do tend to keep some kind
of trophies, or and the factthat he was basically making the
(23:31):
blood of all of his victimsinto this public display of art
as a public trophy, I you knowit really gave me some thought.
It was really really sick andevil, but it's a very, very dark
turn that the story took.
Joshua Gilliland (23:50):
Yeah, I agree, I haven't read every Daredevil
story, I just haven't.
I don't know if this was from astoryline or if this is
something the writers came upwith for a really dark evil
crime spree that's taking place,but collecting blood to make
(24:11):
graffiti is a new level of scaryum and his, his lair itself,
and you know there's sometimesyou can't really call something
a lair.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (24:21):
This was a lair, um, it was, was, was
a.
You know straight out of your,your nightmare yeah, because
it's just.
Joshua Gilliland (24:32):
it's a butcher shop by the train station Right
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (24:38):
Hanging bodies and hanging body parts
and just table.
It was just a real scaryhaunted house.
Joshua Gilliland (24:46):
Yeah, we're going to call that not good.
So, going back to the mayor'soffice, he gets a visit from one
of his prime boss familymembers who just shows up.
Prime boss family members, uh,who just shows up.
I don't know how difficult thatwould be in real life.
I know I just can't pop in andsee a mayor in any of the major
(25:08):
cities in the bay area.
Like it doesn't work that way.
Yeah, you might see one, butlike, if you're in downtown San
Jose you might see the mayor, ifyou're in Oakland you might see
the mayor, but you don't justgo hang out at the mayor's
office and wait for them to showup.
(25:29):
That might be the mostunrealistic part of this episode
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (25:39):
Since I was appointed by two mayors one
mayor twice and and one mayoronce I've had the privilege of
having to go see the mayor onseveral occasions and even with
an appointment to see the mayorand being expected at the
mayor's office, it is not thateasy to get through all of the
(26:01):
levels that you have to get toto actually get into that office
or for one of my appointmentsto the mayor's house.
There's various layers ofsecurity and just showing up
unannounced and having to alsobe probably the leader, one of
the families of the Russian mobor the Latvian mob or whichever
(26:22):
one Luca is part of, generallythey're going to send you away
and you would never even getanywhere close to the door, let
alone to the secretary who'ssaying you know, someone wants
to see you and they won't takeno for an answer.
Joshua Gilliland (26:35):
You ain't getting that close to see you
and they won't take no for ananswer.
You ain't getting that close.
No, it's going in for a casemanagement conference at any of
the local courthouses.
You're going through a metaldetector.
The belt comes off Like that'sall of them, even the tiny ones.
You're jumping through thosehoops.
You're not going to go pop into see your buddy, the mayor of
(26:58):
New York City.
It's just not happening.
But they're talking about acriminal conspiracy at the
mayor's office.
No, bad.
Good thing he doesn't have likea recording device in there,
because that's never been aproblem.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (27:17):
he doesn't have like a recording
device in there, because that'snever been a problem.
Yeah, clearly you know there'sissues with official misconduct
which can be charged under thepenal law on the section 195.05
for using the office to conductcriminal enterprises.
Also clearly there would beproblems with the conflict of
(27:38):
interest laws under the citycharter because you can't engage
in any kind of business ortransaction which would give you
a private financial interestand being the top of a criminal
enterprise and discussing dealsand ransoms and taxes to your
criminal enterprise on publicproperty in the city hall would
(28:02):
clearly be a violation of many,many, many conflict of interest
laws, if not in fact criminalunder the official misconduct
statutes.
Joshua Gilliland (28:12):
Yeah, well said.
Now there's something that Ithought was interesting.
Uh included the fundraiser thatthey go to uh and the
interactions that take place,and I think there's this a
second cameo.
I'm not positive, but I thoughtthe guy with the ascot was
almost kate bishop's stepdad,that he was from the hawkeye
(28:36):
series.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (28:36):
He looked very familiar I know I he
was.
He was in better call saul.
Um he he played, uh, one of theum really violent and effective
members of of one of themexican cartels.
Um, that was part of the bettercall Saul show and played a
(28:57):
phenomenal, phenomenal role asjust an incredibly good hitman
and negotiator for some of yourmore extreme elements of the
cartel.
Joshua Gilliland (29:12):
So I'm not 100% the same person, but I was
like I want to double check thisbecause, again, subtle Easter
eggs like that are well done,just being able to go hey, we've
seen them before and likethat's a nice touch that they
(29:33):
have.
But the idea that power brokerswithin the city are not
thrilled with fisk trying to fixup red hood or red hook red
hook because it would.
Now he made his money at thedocks and therefore it seems
self-serving it's like oh,that's astute and different and
(29:55):
and on one level it's a littleweird for me wanting to defend
the kingpin him going like noports matter.
Getting shipments and industrycoming in is radically important
.
We get imports, we need it towork, we need it to be safe, we
want this type of commerce andyeah, I have experience here,
(30:15):
but that's because I know it'simportant.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (30:32):
So that's why I'm pushing it and
some of the outer boroughs andtheir battle to get part of the
pie.
And Red Hook are the ports ofBrooklyn that lead into the old
Navy ports of Brooklyn and theyhave suffered and there's always
(30:53):
attempts to rebuild them.
There's cruises that are nowthere to rebuild them.
There's cruises that are nowthere.
So the Manhattan and thoseother people want all of the
money to the New York CityManhattan ports as opposed to
the outlying Red Hook ports.
So that part can be somewhataccurate.
I mean, I love Fiske's linewhen he said that you know,
(31:17):
politics and crime is basicallythe same.
You find what a person wantsand you either withhold it or
you provide it and and that, ina nutshell, you know is how he
negotiates and and that thengoes through for the rest of the
episode as such.
But that, yeah, I thought thatthat you know thatiser, which is
probably what it was, wasreally well done to just show
(31:42):
the we don't accept you as oneof us.
It almost gave me Eva Peronvibes, where the the Argentina
aristocracy would not acceptthis person, who came from a
peasant class, to be amongstthem.
Joshua Gilliland (32:07):
It's.
President Jimmy Carter hadproblems with the DC elite
because it's like, even thoughthey were all on the same
political party, they hadproblems playing nice together.
On the same political party,they had problems playing nice
together.
But again, other issues, otherexamples.
So we've discussed our serialkiller.
(32:29):
Is there anything that you wantto?
Oh well, we get the specialtask force, hence where the name
excessive force comes from.
There's when, when the leverageis, they get over time and they
don't have to wear a bodycamera.
Uh, I, I agree with knockingout overtime seems to be a bad
(32:51):
life choice for city politics.
To keep the streets safe, nobody cam seems to be inviting
all kinds of problems.
Can you elaborate on that issue?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (33:05):
They set out to basically form a task
force of NYPD officers thatplay very loose with the rules.
So they had a binder of variousofficers that qualified and you
qualified if you were maybe alittle bit rougher than you
(33:27):
should be or did things to shortcircuit the system and really
brought it to a level of streetjustice.
And really brought it to alevel of street justice and to
save money.
One of the mayoral reforms wasto cut the overtime of his
(33:47):
police officers.
This was also done, I think, topunish the commissioner for not
playing ball with the currentmayor.
So these officers would beexempt from that rule, mayor.
So these officers would beexempt from that rule.
They would be allowed to haveovertime, which, of course,
would increase all of theirsalaries.
And they also said that thisgroup of officers would not have
(34:10):
to wear body cams.
And in New York, as part of thesettlement in the Floyd versus
the city of New York lawsuit,part of the settlement was that
the NYPD would embark on a bodycam cameras.
They are required in mostcircumstances to have those
(34:31):
cameras on when they interactwith people.
There are very rare exceptionswhere they can turn off the
cameras, including and thesethings make sense.
If they're talking with aconfidential informant, if
(34:55):
they're interviewing a sex crimevictim, if they're conducting a
strip search for those things,they are allowed to shut off the
cameras, but it does indicatewhen they put on the camera,
when they shut off the camera.
So if there's a gap, they wouldhave to explain that.
And those cameras, the digitalrecordings of those cameras, are
(35:17):
then preserved and then, ifrelevant, those digital cameras,
the digital footage, can beused in a court.
They can be used in a civiliancomplaint review board.
They can be used by the policedepartment's administration if
someone should be disciplined.
But in large part, everyofficer is required in New York
(35:43):
City to use the cameras.
So by not using the cameras,you're basically saying to this
task force you could do whateveris necessary to get the results
that we need.
And the officer that wasinvolved in the earlier episodes
with regards to the shakedownof the confidential informant,
(36:09):
which resulted in his death bythe White Tiger, is part of this
task force and it's kind ofloosely based on a in 2008, 2009
, there was a task force thatwas part of Brooklyn South
Narcotics in Brooklyn and theywere accused of and some of them
(36:32):
pled to.
Basically they were stealingdrugs as off the top or skimming
drugs off the top of some oftheir drug arrests and then
using those drugs to pay offconfidential informants.
With the drugs that they wereskimming to get information on
(36:53):
other drug dealers and they weretargeting certain drug dealers
and some of the officers alsopled to basically working for
some of the other big drugdealers by getting some of the
other competition out of the way.
And a lot of officers went tojail for this or
(37:16):
administratively decharged ortook a very early pension.
And you know, like in allthings there's only a few bad
apples to ruin the entire bunchand overwhelmingly the cops that
I dealt with in the NYPD reallywanted to do a good job.
This particular part of NYPDhistory was a big black eye to
(37:40):
the NYPD and I could see thatkind of I think, basing some of
this on that particular taskforce.
Joshua Gilliland (37:49):
And having the mayor show up and claim I'm in
charge of it seems to be a highrisk politically.
You know, if they get results,it's one thing, but this just
opens the door for corruption.
Because it's one thing to takeout the muse, do they disband
afterwards?
(38:09):
And he, being Mithviskisk,paints the picture of, you know,
vigilantes.
Muse isn't a vigilante, that's,that's the serial killer.
Vigilante is not out therehelping people or, excuse me,
muse is not out there helpingpeople yeah, in fact in fact the
(38:30):
vigilante is looking to getMuse.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (38:32):
The vigilante in this series is
Daredevil and I have a feelingthe reemergence of the White
Tiger through the niece.
Those are going to be thevigilantes that are targeted by
this task force, and thevigilantes are trying to get the
serial killer yeah, it's wrongeffort guys going, going after
(38:54):
the wrong people, uh, and it'salso the.
Joshua Gilliland (38:59):
What's the punisher doing if, if 60 people
have died, you think thepunisher also would be on this
and would not be messing aroundeither.
So again, just that.
Again just one of thosereactions, uh, but again it's a
daredevil story.
So we're going to see daredevilgo in and save the day.
Now the it's important tohighlight there's no duty to
(39:21):
rescue.
So and you know matt's clientsdid so the niece coming in and
asking for help.
Like, lawyers get asked for helpin all kinds of ways.
Going out and fighting crime isnot one of them normally.
Uh, it's the.
This is how we do a lawsuitlike or administrative paperwork
(39:43):
to file.
We're not out there punchingbad guys.
Sorry, we don't.
And Cherry, what a bad way totry to discourage somebody.
Cherry gets the informationabout the serial killer and
(40:06):
decides I'm going to go talk toMatt.
I know it's going to upset him.
Sure, I'm going to give himsome scotch or rum or whatever
drink and say whatever you do,don't do this.
That's not a good pep talk.
That's the wrong way toapproach the situation.
Would have been better to havesaid nothing, as opposed to 60
(40:31):
people have died.
But you shouldn't go out and doanything, just setting him up
to go out and start fightingcrime again.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (40:40):
Which I think was his absolute purpose.
I think he saw how bad it was.
He saw that the NYPD was notgoing to be able to take care of
this and that it needed acertain level of skills that
Matt Murdock has.
Joshua Gilliland (40:59):
So you think Cherry did reverse psychology?
I think so.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:03):
I think so.
Joshua Gilliland (41:05):
I mean he was nervous about it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:07):
Yeah.
Joshua Gilliland (41:08):
Yeah, hummingbird heart in effect.
Hummingbird heart in effect.
Now matt's reaction likecalling 9-1-1 and just you know,
again the spouse of thedeceased calling saying the
niece is missing, and matt'sreaction okay, seems very
superhero, suits up, goes outthere and we got swinging from
(41:28):
the rooftops.
No duty to rescue, but he goesout and does it anyway.
And what a beautiful fightscene.
Is all of this force justifiedin order to save the niece?
Your thoughts?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:44):
he was already dead, um, you know but.
But arguably he didn'tnecessarily know that she was on
the table and had a big syringesticking out of her, but he was
in his mind protecting her andusing force in order to remedy
(42:07):
the situation.
And as the title of the episodeis, was that force excessive in
order to remedy the situation?
And as the title of the episodeis, was that force excessive?
You know, I wasn't sure whetherhe beat the muse to death.
(42:28):
We can probably figure out thathe didn't, because when he
looked to see if muse was stillthere, muse was no longer there.
So muse probably escaped, so hedidn't kill him.
So he used an amount of forcethat was necessary to stop the
Muse from being able to finishhis plans with Denise.
It turned out that Denise hadin fact just expired and Matt
(42:53):
was able to resuscitate her,thankfully.
So I think he would have a verygood argument that he might
have, although he might havegone a little bit past the
excessive point, you know, notjust stopping but punishing the
muse.
I think he would have a verygood argument that his actions
(43:17):
were justified and in allhonesty, I would be very
surprised to see any courtconvict someone of beating a
serial killer too much.
Joshua Gilliland (43:30):
Yeah, I don't think someone's going to
prosecute that.
It would be.
Oh, how many times did you hithim?
Okay, I don't see that endingin charges.
Not that I'm encouraging anyoneto go out and do that, but if
you have over 60 people dead,that they can figure out and the
(43:50):
bad guy was stopped.
I don't see that ending in acriminal prosecution.
And I don't see a serial killerif they're caught, prosecuted,
then suing saying hey, he was alittle rough, beating me up
after I killed 65 people.
I don't see that civil case.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (44:14):
If that civil case does come out, I
think that would be in the nextseason of She-Hulk.
Joshua Gilliland (44:18):
Yeah.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (44:19):
Matt would have to hire her for for
his defense.
Joshua Gilliland (44:23):
Yeah, I just no, but they're just.
That's not going to go far.
I mean not that you're going tosee, is it possible to have
jury nullification in the civilcase?
I think so in this situationNot the norm, but definitely
plausible, with people going no,no and that'll be the end of it
(44:45):
.
These were exceptional episodesand parallel to Matt suiting up
and going out to save the dayas Daredevil, we see Mayor Fisk
going to beat the snot out ofAdam, telling him to come out of
(45:10):
the cell, saying here's an axe,come at at me.
And the fights are happening atthe same same time.
Storytelling wise I is.
This mutual combat.
Adam's still a prisoner.
It's not like he could justwalk out and go.
Thanks you open the door, I'mleaving.
(45:30):
He doesn't have that option.
How did you classify this?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:37):
Yeah, I love the way they juxtapose the
two fights because, you know,in some ways they're very
similar.
Both have issues with excessiveforce and it does show, really,
the two stars of the series in avery similar act, that of
(45:59):
attacking someone else in a very, very deadly fight.
And I had the same query, youknow, can I hand a gun to
somebody and then shoot thembecause they have a deadly
weapon?
And I'm now justified to usedeadly force to stop them
because they have a deadlyweapon?
And what Fisk does is Fiskgives him an axe, clearly a
(46:23):
deadly weapon, and he makes surethat Adam attacks him and from
that point on he is defendinghimself using deadly force
because it's apparent that hedoes kill Adam and thwarting
(46:46):
Adam's attack.
Now there is in the law ofjustification, you know, the
duty to retreat.
So if you have that opportunityand you don't take it, and
clearly before he gives him theaxe, fisk could have left and
(47:07):
Adam was of no danger to him,because Adam was in a cage and
had no weapon.
So I really don't see how hewould be able to avail himself
of the justification defense inthis situation.
To me, this was giving theother side a chance so that you
(47:31):
would be able to have a morecompetitive fight when you beat
him to death.
Joshua Gilliland (47:39):
And I could.
I was a little tired at the end.
Is Adam dead, or did he justput him back in the cell and so
they can repeat this dance overand over again?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (47:49):
It's probably to me it looked like he
he wasn't moving anymore.
I mean, with all things in tvthat no one's dead until they
actually have the funeral andyou see him buried, um, but but
I got the impression that that,uh, that he beat him to death.
Joshua Gilliland (48:05):
But yeah, it's very well that he beat him to
just unconsciousness yeah,because that way you can still
tell vanessa, no, I haven'tkilled him and and so he doesn't
end up lying to her, uh, butthis seemed to be.
I mean, he yelled mine likethat's primal and messed up on
(48:26):
all kinds of levels.
Uh, that's just uh super creepy.
So, yeah, yeah, was thisexcessive force A little in some
situations.
Muse I'm not sure about Muse isthe only one, I'm not sure
about the others, I think.
(48:48):
So, with that said, this seriesis just so good, it is so well
done.
Do you have?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (49:00):
similar feelings?
Yeah, no, I do I.
I very much liked the series umwhen it was on netflix and I'm
very, very happy, uh, again,that they they really kept kept
the stars of the NetflixDaredevil series and are
continuing it's as good as thefirst season was, and the first
(49:23):
season of Daredevil was, to me,one of the best Marvel series
that Netflix was ever able to do.
So you know, we use that as thebenchmark.
You know, when we talked about,uh, january Jones and we talked
about, uh, the less successful,uh, iron Fist, um, you know, we
, we all compare it to that,that first season of Daredevil,
(49:47):
uh, the Defenders.
You know how did it compare tothe first season of Daredevil?
How did the second season ofDaredevil compare to the first
season of Daredevil?
It wasn't as good.
It was good, not as good.
This one, I think, is as goodas that first season.
Joshua Gilliland (50:01):
I actually think it's better.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (50:05):
Maybe Until we see that punchline at
the end, you know, because youcould really drop the ball at
the goal line, um with, withsome of these series that's
happened before.
But yeah, clearly it's, it's,it's, it's a very it's really
good.
I'm enjoying it that's good.
Joshua Gilliland (50:21):
That one of the the netflix model had too
many episodes and so there endedup being what I would call
filler episodes a lot of talkingthat it just seemed very
pronounced and disney has muchless of that.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (50:35):
You know it's a very tight.
Uh, you know it.
The amount of episodes are justwhat you need.
There's very little dead space.
Uh, I think, yeah, I thinkdisney has done a better job on
that end.
Absolutely yes agreed.
Joshua Gilliland (50:50):
So with that, everyone, thanks for tuning.
We will be back next week onmore of our regular schedule
because of again we're going toWonderCon and for those going,
look forward to seeing you andif not, stay tuned, we'll be
posting on social media and,wherever you are, stay safe,
stay healthy and stay geeky,take care.
Hello everyone , my name is Joshua Gilliland,
one of the founding attorneys ofthe Legal Geeks.
It's Wednesday, it's the dayafter we had two new episodes of
Daredevil and we're going totalk about them because it's
WonderCon week.
With me is retired Judge MattSherino.
Your Honor, how are you tonight?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:25):
I am good.
I didn't know it was going tobe a double episode, so it was a
pleasant surprise.
Is retired Judge Matt Sherino.
Your Honor, how are you?
Joshua Gilliland (00:30):
tonight.
I am good.
I didn't know it was going tobe a double episode, so it was a
pleasant surprise.
Yeah, and both were excellent.
So I don't know if they'redoing this to clear the deck for
Andor Season 2, so that wayit's over by then, or if there's
some other plan in motion.
But wow, these were glorious,so let's, let's get to it.
(00:52):
Uh, your honor, first off, whatdid you think of these, these
episodes?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (00:59):
I thought they, they, they went
well together.
So I I kind of get why they didthe two.
They certainly both reallyfocused in on Matt Murdock's
Irish and Catholic roots and,you know, continue the crisis
that's going on within him as towhether or not to resurrect the
(01:23):
dead devil, as to whether ornot to resurrect the the dead
devil, and so, you know, it kindof flowed and it made sense to
link these two and they were,they were, they were incredibly
good episodes.
Joshua Gilliland (01:34):
Yeah, I thought both are amazing.
I think I liked the bankrobbery one a little bit more,
but that's it.
It's still really close and andjust exceptionally well done,
well acted master class instorytelling.
So let's break down the litanyof legal issues that starts on a
(01:57):
saint patrick's day episode and, uh, out of the gate, there
there's a beautiful connectionto Miss Marvel with her dad, is
the banker that Matt goes tovisit for a loan for the law
firm and again, a subtle littleEaster egg.
(02:18):
You know he plays a major rolein the entire episode.
That was, I'm like that's thetype of connected universe met
marvel fans like that going back.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:30):
What?
Was it his daughter or a friendof his daughters?
That?
Because he said that missmarvel comes from jersey city
and it's and I.
There was some connection withthe daughter, but I wasn't
positive that it was hisdaughter.
In fact it is his daughterthat's.
Joshua Gilliland (02:43):
That's very cool.
Yeah, so again, and it was hisdaughter in fact, it is his
daughter.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (02:45):
Oh, that's very cool.
Joshua Gilliland (02:46):
Yeah.
So again, when he appeared onscreen I was like he was in Ms
Marvel.
That's her dad, it's like cool,and naturally it would have a
Funko Pop of his daughter on hisdesk, while also not blowing
her secret identity.
So having her off in Californiaon some adventure was also cool
(03:07):
, but Daredevil is the type ofcharacter who would bump into
her, or Spider-Man and this isagain nice little Easter eggs
for the rest of the Marvelcontinuity.
Funding a law firm is hard.
Matt's firm is pretty big forbeing a year old, two named
(03:34):
partners I don't know if thereare others who are breadwinners
and they have a healthy staff.
And it was nice to actually seethat discussed as a reason for
getting a loan and thechallenges the bank recognized
with that.
So again, I just thought thatwas interesting.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (03:54):
Yeah, the bank manager brought up both
their expansion and how they'vebeen spending the money and
also was very quick to point outthat they seem to have,
although they're very good atthe spending of the money,
they're not as good as gettingpaying clients that can continue
the operation of a firm.
That is that size front office.
(04:30):
The Vig on rent is a lot lessthan when you're doing a
Manhattan space with the youknow, big conference rooms and a
very nice size law office with,even if they're the only two
lawyers, there certainly was alot of other staff and
paralegals and other people atthat firm.
Joshua Gilliland (04:44):
Yeah, you know , the leverage rule is a
secretary is supposed to help,like three lawyers, maybe five
in some situations, but like oneto three.
The paralegal ratio can alsovary, like you know.
One per team.
So if you have a litigationteam, you might have a
litigation paralegal assigned tothat team.
(05:05):
So if you have a litigationteam, you might have a
litigation paralegal assigned tothat team.
Again, results vary dependingon the firm and the complexity
of their cases.
But, flashing back to lawschool, those were the leverage
numbers and they have a bigspace with a whole bunch of
people.
And now it'd be one thing to golike, yeah, there's nine
(05:26):
lawyers and you know enoughsupport staff, so a number they
seem.
They seem to be running big.
We then get to a bank robbery,a good old fashioned bank
robbery episode, which again isa very comic book opportunity.
But, your Honor, what jumpedout?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (05:52):
at you A few things.
Both the bank robbery and thenwhen it turned into a hostage
situation gave me vibes of DogDay Out Dog Day Afternoon with
Al Pacino, which was a greatflick from 1975.
And it just brought back somememories of that.
It also the lead robber atleast had an Irish brogue, which
(06:16):
certainly played well into StPatrick's Day.
In fact, while talking with thenegotiator in order to buy more
time, he asked for a joke andthe negotiator provided a good
Irish joke to get some extratime.
Legally, most bank robberiestend to be prosecuted by the
(06:37):
federal government if they're ofthat level, as opposed to a
small little failed attempt thatmight be prosecuted in the
state.
If you're charged with bankrobbery, you're dealing with
(07:08):
Section 2113 of 18 US Code,which does make robbing a bank
and the incidental crimes thatare associated with robbing the
bank into a felony which you canbe sentenced for a period of
not more than 20 years but up to20 years in jail.
(07:30):
If you're charged in the NewYork statute, you're going to
probably be charged with robberyin the first degree, which is a
class B felony which would bepunishable by five to 25 years,
and robbery in the first degreein New York is Section 160.15 of
our penal law and that would bebasically a bumped up robbery,
(07:52):
because you're either armed witha deadly weapon or you cause
physical injury there was somehitting with the gun, et cetera
or even just displaying afirearm brings it up to that
robbery in the first degree.
There was also a veryinteresting discussion with Matt
Murdock, who was kind of tryingto negotiate a good resolution
(08:17):
of the situation by, you know,telling the bank robbers that
you know, at this point theywere only facing robbery, you
know.
But if someone were to bemurdered or killed while this
was going on, that one of themmight be prosecuted for felony
murder.
(08:37):
And felony murder is a type ofcrime that has been up to some
discussion over the years.
Some states have even gottenrid of felony murder.
But what felony murderbasically is is that in the
course of the commission of afelony, if someone were to die,
then everyone that was part ofthat group that was committing
(09:00):
the felony would be subjected toa murder charge for the death
of that individual.
And there are in New York someaffirmative defenses to the
felony murder that if you reallycan prove that you had nothing
to do with the homicidal act, ifyou didn't know that your
(09:25):
co-conspirators were armed orhad deadly weapons, there was no
reasonable belief that deathcould happen, all of those
things would be affirmativedefenses to felony murder.
But if you are convicted offelony murder, which is the same
as murder in the second degree,which we discussed in earlier
episodes, this is a Class A1felony, which means you would be
(09:48):
subject to life in prison.
Joshua Gilliland (09:51):
The felony murder rule has been one of
those catch-alls and it'skissing cousin to conspiracy
liability as well.
For again, what was the natureof the conspiracy of the
felonious act?
And if it was bank robbery,okay is.
Is murder a natural, improbableconsequence of someone getting
(10:13):
killed during a bank robbery?
And yeah, I could see a jurysaying yes, uh, but it could be
very fact, specific of you know,I I was.
I did not sign up for this, butthat's again encourages people
to make good life choices, notnot to go down the path of
(10:34):
committing a felony in the firstplace.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (10:36):
And felony murder is a pretty old
charge.
It's been around for a very,very long time In fact.
I think it pretty much predatesa lot of the conspiracy charges
that have come about.
So that's one of the reasons Ithink there's that overlap.
And, additionally, once theyactually grabbed everyone as
hostages, started to negotiatewith the hostage negotiator from
(11:00):
the NYPD.
That ups it in the federalrealm as well.
And once you're talking holdinghostages, you're under Section
1201 of the 18 US Code and thatbasically now makes you subject
to a possible sentence of thedeath penalty and or life
imprisonment, so that hostagetaking really does escalate the
(11:24):
crime to pretty much the highestlevel in what you could be
charged for in this country.
Joshua Gilliland (11:32):
So life choice ?
Don't do that.
But the hostage situation againwe get into.
There's false imprisonment andkidnapping and again guns are
out.
We're telling people to kneel.
One thing that struck me as theI don't know how many people
(11:54):
are aware of this phenomenon.
My mom was a paramedic and oneof the things that she believed
from experience was in thathostage situation, killers don't
want to look at someone's facewhen they shoot them to end
their lives.
So that's why we'll say, like,lay down on the ground, face
(12:16):
down.
And when the hostages were toldto put their heads down, I was
concerned we were going to startseeing people get killed
because, like you, can't makeeye contact and that's one of
those deterrents to peoplegetting killed.
Results may vary, but that'sthat was what she learned from
(12:39):
her experience, and I don't knowif you've heard similar things.
Your Honor and in your time,with being on the bench.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (12:51):
Yes, psychology-wise, clearly, if you
establish a rapport with theperson, it's much harder to kill
someone that you have a bit ofa relationship with than if you
are a total stranger that theydon't even know what you look
like.
Also, for the fact of futuretestifying against you if they
(13:17):
can't identify you because theirfaces were down during any of
the periods where you did nothave the masks on, there's
certainly, you know, less of athreat, when and if you're
caught in the future, of thosepeople being able to identify
you as the person who was partof the group that robbed the
(13:38):
bank.
If you always had a mask on,except for the periods when they
had their face down, then theyreally can't ever say, yes,
that's the person that washolding us hostage.
Joshua Gilliland (13:53):
So let's get into some of the hero aspects of
this.
Murdoch is out of the bank onthe phone with his partner when
the robbery starts and hedecides to go back.
He has zero duty to rescue,like there's no special
relationship.
I mean, you know, alone wasjust denied.
Leaving with sore feelings isunderstandable.
(14:16):
Going back to make sure thepeople who denied, alone because
it's the right thing to do tomake sure people don't die is
again the hero status of him,which I thought was well played
Because it's not over the top.
He just goes out and does theright thing, with a gun getting
(14:38):
pointed at him multiple times inthe process multiple times in
the process.
Judge Matthew Scia (14:48):
Additionally , you know when he could have
again left, because thenegotiator was able to, you know
, as a sign of good faith, get apromise to release two of the
hostages.
And Matt was going to be one ofthose two hostages and the
other was going to be a coupleand the wife didn't want to
leave without her husband andMatt willingly stood in for the
(15:12):
husband so that the couple wouldbe able to be released and he
continued to stay longer.
And clearly, you know, wheneverything was said and done,
you know talking with the bankmanager again who kind of said
you know, this doesn't mean thatyou're going to get the loan
after he does all of this kindof stuff, and he's basically,
(15:34):
you know, had no expectation ofthat.
You know, kind of just to showthat he was just doing the right
thing.
Joshua Gilliland (15:42):
Which was awesome, like.
So, again, the finding out hissuperpower does include safe
cracking, which again cool, uh,we haven't seen graphically I
love the way they handled that.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (15:54):
It was fun to watch the way, uh, you
know the, the dials of the, ofthe safe kind of worked in.
Or you know what he wasvisualizing in his blind world
as to the, the triple tumblersafe it was very cool.
Joshua Gilliland (16:13):
The stairwell fight was also masterful, having
the added element of don't makeany noise and catching the
rifle to keep it from falling.
It's just like well done.
I mean great choreography, uh,great message as well, of he's
just trying to do the rightthing and beats the tar out of
(16:34):
two dudes, and then the finalfight with with the leader
fantastic, just very well done,uh.
And he made a friend like thatwas the other good thing.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (16:48):
Uh, it's like come over for dinner
and let's we'll talk about howto make your firm more
profitable right, and it was,you know, not just an offer of a
thank you dinner, it was, youknow, let's, let's discuss how
we can make your firm, um, youknow, basically get into the
black, so that either you'll beable to qualify for a future
(17:08):
loan or you won't need a futureloan.
And it was nice to see, as faras the you know, the target of
the robbery itself, which turnedout to be the contents of a
safety deposit box.
I know that, or at least Ibelieve from the prior movies,
(17:29):
that all of the Infinity Stonesare gone or accounted for or
what have you, but to me itlooked very much like a Infinity
Stone, but I don't know if itwas an Infinity Stone or not.
Joshua Gilliland (17:41):
I don't think so.
Okay, because a human beingwouldn't be able to touch it
without negative consequences.
Okay so that makes sense.
But it did look special and ifit is worth $1.7 million,
there's got to be some qualityto that.
Maybe it's not of this earth ormaybe it's just really special.
But the entire fake out withlike catch and dropping it off
(18:06):
and switching it out with candy,all very well done, very clever
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (18:11):
And luckily, the candy was of
similar color and shape as thejewel.
Joshua Gilliland (18:17):
Yeah, good thing you like caramel, you know
it's like again, just goodstorytelling and just fun.
It felt like a comic book cometo life and which is, uh, one of
those great qualities.
And that fight at the endbrutal, it was well earned for a
(18:39):
nice slug fest, uh, at the end.
But let's get to the secondepisode of the evening, uh,
which is, uh I didn't catch thename of episode six episode six
was excessive force.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (18:54):
So episode five was with interest,
which makes sense, with the, thebank and and the loan, and then
episode six was calledexcessive force, which also very
much is the topic of episodesix.
Joshua Gilliland (19:08):
Yeah, on multiple levels.
So, yeah, premise sanitationdepartment figures out that the
graffiti going up is made withuh, the paints mixed with blood
and so it's really hard to cleanoff.
And there have been a lot ofpeople disappearing, so their
(19:28):
body count is at least 60.
So that is at the freak outlevel of how how many?
Uh, because I don't think anyof the other serial killing
cases that we've had in reallife are pushing those kind of
numbers in that short a periodof time.
Uh, so again, a high level ofterror and a lot of things are
(19:52):
going to make sense for whypeople uh take issue.
But uh, people take issue.
But we have Bebe interviewing agraffiti artist who shows his
face and admits to doinggraffiti.
It's a party admission, yourHonor, how would that kid get
charged?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (20:12):
I certainly had my fair share of
graffiti cases, especially whenI was in the lower criminal
court, and you know the graffitiartists themselves are not shy
about who they are.
Sometimes it's hard tonecessarily catch them in the
act, although they do have,generally a specific tag that
(20:36):
they will use so that othergraffiti artists know that it's
them.
That same tag is used by theNYPD to track graffiti artists
and charge them with graffiti.
And making graffiti in New Yorkis a crime under Section 14560
(20:57):
of the penal law.
It's a Class A misdemeanor,which means it's punishable by
up to a year in jail.
Generally.
For the first time that you'recaught you're going to get a
violation.
It'll then get scaled upGenerally you'll end up doing
community service and cleaningup graffiti.
(21:19):
And so that admission in and ofitself unless he is
subsequently charged with makinggraffiti and they have
something that ties him to aparticular piece of graffiti
then they would be able topossibly use that admission
because that's a declarationagainst his own interest, which
is one of those exceptions tohearsay which would be
(21:42):
admissible at trial.
So that, coupled with theactual graffiti and something
that ties that individual tothat piece of graffiti, would be
enough probably for aprosecution of that individual.
Joshua Gilliland (21:58):
I have never, thankfully, had any cases that
dealt with uh, blood being mixedwithin the graffiti paint no,
no and and I think the reactionfrom the mayor having everyone I
want the chief here like thatreaction of maybe we need to
(22:19):
change procedures, wasunderstandable.
With how many people are gone.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (22:24):
Right, and also the fact that it was
the Department of Sanitation,who you know from the prior
episodes.
We know that there's a bit ofsome bad blood with the
Department of Sanitation and themayor's office because of some
of the things that they're doing, and it was the Department of
Sanitation who has brought this,you know, serial killer and
(22:47):
this crime spree to hisattention as opposed to his own
police department, also kind ofand I think justifiably angered
the mayor in that this is howthat you know he was learning
about this particular thing andserial killers to a large extent
(23:08):
, you know, from the things thatI've read and I never had any,
thankfully any serial killersbefore me, but thankfully any
serial killers before me, butthey do tend to keep some kind
of trophies, or and the factthat he was basically making the
(23:31):
blood of all of his victimsinto this public display of art
as a public trophy, I you knowit really gave me some thought.
It was really really sick andevil, but it's a very, very dark
turn that the story took.
Joshua Gilliland (23:50):
Yeah, I agree, I haven't read every Daredevil
story, I just haven't.
I don't know if this was from astoryline or if this is
something the writers came upwith for a really dark evil
crime spree that's taking place,but collecting blood to make
(24:11):
graffiti is a new level of scaryum and his, his lair itself,
and you know there's sometimesyou can't really call something
a lair.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (24:21):
This was a lair, um, it was, was, was
a.
You know straight out of your,your nightmare yeah, because
it's just.
Joshua Gilliland (24:32):
it's a butcher shop by the train station Right
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (24:38):
Hanging bodies and hanging body parts
and just table.
It was just a real scaryhaunted house.
Joshua Gilliland (24:46):
Yeah, we're going to call that not good.
So, going back to the mayor'soffice, he gets a visit from one
of his prime boss familymembers who just shows up.
Prime boss family members, uh,who just shows up.
I don't know how difficult thatwould be in real life.
I know I just can't pop in andsee a mayor in any of the major
(25:08):
cities in the bay area.
Like it doesn't work that way.
Yeah, you might see one, butlike, if you're in downtown San
Jose you might see the mayor, ifyou're in Oakland you might see
the mayor, but you don't justgo hang out at the mayor's
office and wait for them to showup.
(25:29):
That might be the mostunrealistic part of this episode
.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (25:39):
Since I was appointed by two mayors one
mayor twice and and one mayoronce I've had the privilege of
having to go see the mayor onseveral occasions and even with
an appointment to see the mayorand being expected at the
mayor's office, it is not thateasy to get through all of the
(26:01):
levels that you have to get toto actually get into that office
or for one of my appointmentsto the mayor's house.
There's various layers ofsecurity and just showing up
unannounced and having to alsobe probably the leader, one of
the families of the Russian mobor the Latvian mob or whichever
(26:22):
one Luca is part of, generallythey're going to send you away
and you would never even getanywhere close to the door, let
alone to the secretary who'ssaying you know, someone wants
to see you and they won't takeno for an answer.
Joshua Gilliland (26:35):
You ain't getting that close to see you
and they won't take no for ananswer.
You ain't getting that close.
No, it's going in for a casemanagement conference at any of
the local courthouses.
You're going through a metaldetector.
The belt comes off Like that'sall of them, even the tiny ones.
You're jumping through thosehoops.
You're not going to go pop into see your buddy, the mayor of
(26:58):
New York City.
It's just not happening.
But they're talking about acriminal conspiracy at the
mayor's office.
No, bad.
Good thing he doesn't have likea recording device in there,
because that's never been aproblem.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (27:17):
he doesn't have like a recording
device in there, because that'snever been a problem.
Yeah, clearly you know there'sissues with official misconduct
which can be charged under thepenal law on the section 195.05
for using the office to conductcriminal enterprises.
Also clearly there would beproblems with the conflict of
(27:38):
interest laws under the citycharter because you can't engage
in any kind of business ortransaction which would give you
a private financial interestand being the top of a criminal
enterprise and discussing dealsand ransoms and taxes to your
criminal enterprise on publicproperty in the city hall would
(28:02):
clearly be a violation of many,many, many conflict of interest
laws, if not in fact criminalunder the official misconduct
statutes.
Joshua Gilliland (28:12):
Yeah, well said.
Now there's something that Ithought was interesting.
Uh included the fundraiser thatthey go to uh and the
interactions that take place,and I think there's this a
second cameo.
I'm not positive, but I thoughtthe guy with the ascot was
almost kate bishop's stepdad,that he was from the hawkeye
(28:36):
series.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (28:36):
He looked very familiar I know I he
was.
He was in better call saul.
Um he he played, uh, one of theum really violent and effective
members of of one of themexican cartels.
Um, that was part of the bettercall Saul show and played a
(28:57):
phenomenal, phenomenal role asjust an incredibly good hitman
and negotiator for some of yourmore extreme elements of the
cartel.
Joshua Gilliland (29:12):
So I'm not 100% the same person, but I was
like I want to double check thisbecause, again, subtle Easter
eggs like that are well done,just being able to go hey, we've
seen them before and likethat's a nice touch that they
(29:33):
have.
But the idea that power brokerswithin the city are not
thrilled with fisk trying to fixup red hood or red hook red
hook because it would.
Now he made his money at thedocks and therefore it seems
self-serving it's like oh,that's astute and different and
(29:55):
and on one level it's a littleweird for me wanting to defend
the kingpin him going like noports matter.
Getting shipments and industrycoming in is radically important
.
We get imports, we need it towork, we need it to be safe, we
want this type of commerce andyeah, I have experience here,
(30:15):
but that's because I know it'simportant.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (30:32):
So that's why I'm pushing it and
some of the outer boroughs andtheir battle to get part of the
pie.
And Red Hook are the ports ofBrooklyn that lead into the old
Navy ports of Brooklyn and theyhave suffered and there's always
(30:53):
attempts to rebuild them.
There's cruises that are nowthere to rebuild them.
There's cruises that are nowthere.
So the Manhattan and thoseother people want all of the
money to the New York CityManhattan ports as opposed to
the outlying Red Hook ports.
So that part can be somewhataccurate.
I mean, I love Fiske's linewhen he said that you know,
(31:17):
politics and crime is basicallythe same.
You find what a person wantsand you either withhold it or
you provide it and and that, ina nutshell, you know is how he
negotiates and and that thengoes through for the rest of the
episode as such.
But that, yeah, I thought thatthat you know thatiser, which is
probably what it was, wasreally well done to just show
(31:42):
the we don't accept you as oneof us.
It almost gave me Eva Peronvibes, where the the Argentina
aristocracy would not acceptthis person, who came from a
peasant class, to be amongstthem.
Joshua Gilliland (32:07):
It's.
President Jimmy Carter hadproblems with the DC elite
because it's like, even thoughthey were all on the same
political party, they hadproblems playing nice together.
On the same political party,they had problems playing nice
together.
But again, other issues, otherexamples.
So we've discussed our serialkiller.
(32:29):
Is there anything that you wantto?
Oh well, we get the specialtask force, hence where the name
excessive force comes from.
There's when, when the leverageis, they get over time and they
don't have to wear a bodycamera.
Uh, I, I agree with knockingout overtime seems to be a bad
(32:51):
life choice for city politics.
To keep the streets safe, nobody cam seems to be inviting
all kinds of problems.
Can you elaborate on that issue?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (33:05):
They set out to basically form a task
force of NYPD officers thatplay very loose with the rules.
So they had a binder of variousofficers that qualified and you
qualified if you were maybe alittle bit rougher than you
(33:27):
should be or did things to shortcircuit the system and really
brought it to a level of streetjustice.
And really brought it to alevel of street justice and to
save money.
One of the mayoral reforms wasto cut the overtime of his
(33:47):
police officers.
This was also done, I think, topunish the commissioner for not
playing ball with the currentmayor.
So these officers would beexempt from that rule, mayor.
So these officers would beexempt from that rule.
They would be allowed to haveovertime, which, of course,
would increase all of theirsalaries.
And they also said that thisgroup of officers would not have
(34:10):
to wear body cams.
And in New York, as part of thesettlement in the Floyd versus
the city of New York lawsuit,part of the settlement was that
the NYPD would embark on a bodycam cameras.
They are required in mostcircumstances to have those
(34:31):
cameras on when they interactwith people.
There are very rare exceptionswhere they can turn off the
cameras, including and thesethings make sense.
If they're talking with aconfidential informant, if
(34:55):
they're interviewing a sex crimevictim, if they're conducting a
strip search for those things,they are allowed to shut off the
cameras, but it does indicatewhen they put on the camera,
when they shut off the camera.
So if there's a gap, they wouldhave to explain that.
And those cameras, the digitalrecordings of those cameras, are
(35:17):
then preserved and then, ifrelevant, those digital cameras,
the digital footage, can beused in a court.
They can be used in a civiliancomplaint review board.
They can be used by the policedepartment's administration if
someone should be disciplined.
But in large part, everyofficer is required in New York
(35:43):
City to use the cameras.
So by not using the cameras,you're basically saying to this
task force you could do whateveris necessary to get the results
that we need.
And the officer that wasinvolved in the earlier episodes
with regards to the shakedownof the confidential informant,
(36:09):
which resulted in his death bythe White Tiger, is part of this
task force and it's kind ofloosely based on a in 2008, 2009
, there was a task force thatwas part of Brooklyn South
Narcotics in Brooklyn and theywere accused of and some of them
(36:32):
pled to.
Basically they were stealingdrugs as off the top or skimming
drugs off the top of some oftheir drug arrests and then
using those drugs to pay offconfidential informants.
With the drugs that they wereskimming to get information on
(36:53):
other drug dealers and they weretargeting certain drug dealers
and some of the officers alsopled to basically working for
some of the other big drugdealers by getting some of the
other competition out of the way.
And a lot of officers went tojail for this or
(37:16):
administratively decharged ortook a very early pension.
And you know, like in allthings there's only a few bad
apples to ruin the entire bunchand overwhelmingly the cops that
I dealt with in the NYPD reallywanted to do a good job.
This particular part of NYPDhistory was a big black eye to
(37:40):
the NYPD and I could see thatkind of I think, basing some of
this on that particular taskforce.
Joshua Gilliland (37:49):
And having the mayor show up and claim I'm in
charge of it seems to be a highrisk politically.
You know, if they get results,it's one thing, but this just
opens the door for corruption.
Because it's one thing to takeout the muse, do they disband
afterwards?
(38:09):
And he, being Mithviskisk,paints the picture of, you know,
vigilantes.
Muse isn't a vigilante, that's,that's the serial killer.
Vigilante is not out therehelping people or, excuse me,
muse is not out there helpingpeople yeah, in fact in fact the
(38:30):
vigilante is looking to getMuse.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (38:32):
The vigilante in this series is
Daredevil and I have a feelingthe reemergence of the White
Tiger through the niece.
Those are going to be thevigilantes that are targeted by
this task force, and thevigilantes are trying to get the
serial killer yeah, it's wrongeffort guys going, going after
(38:54):
the wrong people, uh, and it'salso the.
Joshua Gilliland (38:59):
What's the punisher doing if, if 60 people
have died, you think thepunisher also would be on this
and would not be messing aroundeither.
So again, just that.
Again just one of thosereactions, uh, but again it's a
daredevil story.
So we're going to see daredevilgo in and save the day.
Now the it's important tohighlight there's no duty to
(39:21):
rescue.
So and you know matt's clientsdid so the niece coming in and
asking for help.
Like, lawyers get asked for helpin all kinds of ways.
Going out and fighting crime isnot one of them normally.
Uh, it's the.
This is how we do a lawsuitlike or administrative paperwork
(39:43):
to file.
We're not out there punchingbad guys.
Sorry, we don't.
And Cherry, what a bad way totry to discourage somebody.
Cherry gets the informationabout the serial killer and
(40:06):
decides I'm going to go talk toMatt.
I know it's going to upset him.
Sure, I'm going to give himsome scotch or rum or whatever
drink and say whatever you do,don't do this.
That's not a good pep talk.
That's the wrong way toapproach the situation.
Would have been better to havesaid nothing, as opposed to 60
(40:31):
people have died.
But you shouldn't go out and doanything, just setting him up
to go out and start fightingcrime again.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (40:40):
Which I think was his absolute purpose.
I think he saw how bad it was.
He saw that the NYPD was notgoing to be able to take care of
this and that it needed acertain level of skills that
Matt Murdock has.
Joshua Gilliland (40:59):
So you think Cherry did reverse psychology?
I think so.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:03):
I think so.
Joshua Gilliland (41:05):
I mean he was nervous about it.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:07):
Yeah.
Joshua Gilliland (41:08):
Yeah, hummingbird heart in effect.
Hummingbird heart in effect.
Now matt's reaction likecalling 9-1-1 and just you know,
again the spouse of thedeceased calling saying the
niece is missing, and matt'sreaction okay, seems very
superhero, suits up, goes outthere and we got swinging from
(41:28):
the rooftops.
No duty to rescue, but he goesout and does it anyway.
And what a beautiful fightscene.
Is all of this force justifiedin order to save the niece?
Your thoughts?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (41:44):
he was already dead, um, you know but.
But arguably he didn'tnecessarily know that she was on
the table and had a big syringesticking out of her, but he was
in his mind protecting her andusing force in order to remedy
(42:07):
the situation.
And as the title of the episodeis, was that force excessive in
order to remedy the situation?
And as the title of the episodeis, was that force excessive?
You know, I wasn't sure whetherhe beat the muse to death.
(42:28):
We can probably figure out thathe didn't, because when he
looked to see if muse was stillthere, muse was no longer there.
So muse probably escaped, so hedidn't kill him.
So he used an amount of forcethat was necessary to stop the
Muse from being able to finishhis plans with Denise.
It turned out that Denise hadin fact just expired and Matt
(42:53):
was able to resuscitate her,thankfully.
So I think he would have a verygood argument that he might
have, although he might havegone a little bit past the
excessive point, you know, notjust stopping but punishing the
muse.
I think he would have a verygood argument that his actions
(43:17):
were justified and in allhonesty, I would be very
surprised to see any courtconvict someone of beating a
serial killer too much.
Joshua Gilliland (43:30):
Yeah, I don't think someone's going to
prosecute that.
It would be.
Oh, how many times did you hithim?
Okay, I don't see that endingin charges.
Not that I'm encouraging anyoneto go out and do that, but if
you have over 60 people dead,that they can figure out and the
(43:50):
bad guy was stopped.
I don't see that ending in acriminal prosecution.
And I don't see a serial killerif they're caught, prosecuted,
then suing saying hey, he was alittle rough, beating me up
after I killed 65 people.
I don't see that civil case.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (44:14):
If that civil case does come out, I
think that would be in the nextseason of She-Hulk.
Joshua Gilliland (44:18):
Yeah.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (44:19):
Matt would have to hire her for for
his defense.
Joshua Gilliland (44:23):
Yeah, I just no, but they're just.
That's not going to go far.
I mean not that you're going tosee, is it possible to have
jury nullification in the civilcase?
I think so in this situationNot the norm, but definitely
plausible, with people going no,no and that'll be the end of it
(44:45):
.
These were exceptional episodesand parallel to Matt suiting up
and going out to save the dayas Daredevil, we see Mayor Fisk
going to beat the snot out ofAdam, telling him to come out of
(45:10):
the cell, saying here's an axe,come at at me.
And the fights are happening atthe same same time.
Storytelling wise I is.
This mutual combat.
Adam's still a prisoner.
It's not like he could justwalk out and go.
Thanks you open the door, I'mleaving.
(45:30):
He doesn't have that option.
How did you classify this?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (45:37):
Yeah, I love the way they juxtapose the
two fights because, you know,in some ways they're very
similar.
Both have issues with excessiveforce and it does show, really,
the two stars of the series in avery similar act, that of
(45:59):
attacking someone else in a very, very deadly fight.
And I had the same query, youknow, can I hand a gun to
somebody and then shoot thembecause they have a deadly
weapon?
And I'm now justified to usedeadly force to stop them
because they have a deadlyweapon?
And what Fisk does is Fiskgives him an axe, clearly a
(46:23):
deadly weapon, and he makes surethat Adam attacks him and from
that point on he is defendinghimself using deadly force
because it's apparent that hedoes kill Adam and thwarting
(46:46):
Adam's attack.
Now there is in the law ofjustification, you know, the
duty to retreat.
So if you have that opportunityand you don't take it, and
clearly before he gives him theaxe, fisk could have left and
(47:07):
Adam was of no danger to him,because Adam was in a cage and
had no weapon.
So I really don't see how hewould be able to avail himself
of the justification defense inthis situation.
To me, this was giving theother side a chance so that you
(47:31):
would be able to have a morecompetitive fight when you beat
him to death.
Joshua Gilliland (47:39):
And I could.
I was a little tired at the end.
Is Adam dead, or did he justput him back in the cell and so
they can repeat this dance overand over again?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (47:49):
It's probably to me it looked like he
he wasn't moving anymore.
I mean, with all things in tvthat no one's dead until they
actually have the funeral andyou see him buried, um, but but
I got the impression that that,uh, that he beat him to death.
Joshua Gilliland (48:05):
But yeah, it's very well that he beat him to
just unconsciousness yeah,because that way you can still
tell vanessa, no, I haven'tkilled him and and so he doesn't
end up lying to her, uh, butthis seemed to be.
I mean, he yelled mine likethat's primal and messed up on
(48:26):
all kinds of levels.
Uh, that's just uh super creepy.
So, yeah, yeah, was thisexcessive force A little in some
situations.
Muse I'm not sure about Muse isthe only one, I'm not sure
about the others, I think.
(48:48):
So, with that said, this seriesis just so good, it is so well
done.
Do you have?
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (49:00):
similar feelings?
Yeah, no, I do I.
I very much liked the series umwhen it was on netflix and I'm
very, very happy, uh, again,that they they really kept kept
the stars of the NetflixDaredevil series and are
continuing it's as good as thefirst season was, and the first
(49:23):
season of Daredevil was, to me,one of the best Marvel series
that Netflix was ever able to do.
So you know, we use that as thebenchmark.
You know, when we talked about,uh, january Jones and we talked
about, uh, the less successful,uh, iron Fist, um, you know, we
, we all compare it to that,that first season of Daredevil,
(49:47):
uh, the Defenders.
You know how did it compare tothe first season of Daredevil?
How did the second season ofDaredevil compare to the first
season of Daredevil?
It wasn't as good.
It was good, not as good.
This one, I think, is as goodas that first season.
Joshua Gilliland (50:01):
I actually think it's better.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (50:05):
Maybe Until we see that punchline at
the end, you know, because youcould really drop the ball at
the goal line, um with, withsome of these series that's
happened before.
But yeah, clearly it's, it's,it's, it's a very it's really
good.
I'm enjoying it that's good.
Joshua Gilliland (50:21):
That one of the the netflix model had too
many episodes and so there endedup being what I would call
filler episodes a lot of talkingthat it just seemed very
pronounced and disney has muchless of that.
Judge Matthew Sciarrino (50:35):
You know it's a very tight.
Uh, you know it.
The amount of episodes are justwhat you need.
There's very little dead space.
Uh, I think, yeah, I thinkdisney has done a better job on
that end.
Absolutely yes agreed.
Joshua Gilliland (50:50):
So with that, everyone, thanks for tuning.
We will be back next week onmore of our regular schedule
because of again we're going toWonderCon and for those going,
look forward to seeing you andif not, stay tuned, we'll be
posting on social media and,wherever you are, stay safe,
stay healthy and stay geeky,take care.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.