Ronald Sullivan: The Ideal of Justice in the Face of Controversy and Evil | Lex Fridman Podcast #170

Lex Fridman 0:00 The following is a conversation with Ronald Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School known for taking on difficult and controversial cases. He was on the head legal defense team for the Patriots football player, Aaron Hernandez, in his double murder case. He represented one of the Jena Six defendants and never lost a case during his years in Washington, DC's Public Defender Services office. In 2019, Ronald joined the legal defense team of Harvey Weinstein, a film producer facing multiple charges of rape and other sexual assault. This decision met with criticism from Harvard University students, including an online petitioner by students seeking his removal as faculty dean of Winthrop House. Then, a letter supporting him signed by 52 Harvard Law School professors appeared in the Boston Globe on March 8th, 2019. Following this, the Harvard Administration succumbed to the pressure of a few Harvard students and announced that they will not be renewing Ronald Sullivan's dean position. This created a major backlash in the public discourse over the necessary role of universities in upholding the principles of law and freedom at the very foundation of the United States. This conversation is brought to you by Brooklyn in Sheets, Wine Access online wine store, Munk Pack low carb snacks, and Blinkist app that summarizes books. Click their links to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the free exchange of difficult ideas is the only mechanism through which we can make progress. Truth is not a safe space. Truth is humbling, and being humbled can hurt, but this is the role of education not just in the university, but in business and in life. Freedom and compassion can co-exist, but it requires work and patience. It requires listening to the voices and to the experiences unlike our own. Listening, not silencing. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast, and here is my conversation with Ronald Sullivan.

Lex Fridman 2:14 You were one of the lawyers who represented the Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, in advance of his sexual assault trial. For this, Harvard forced you to step down as faculty deans, uh, you and your wife of Winthrop House. Can you tell the story of this saga from our first deciding to represent Harvey Weinstein to the interesting complicated events that followed?

Ronald Sullivan 2:39 Yeah, sure. So, I got a call one morning from a colleague at the Harvard Law School who, uh, asked if, uh, I would consent to taking a call from, from Harvey. Uh, he wanted to meet me and, um, and chat with me about representing him. I said, "Yes," and, um, one thing led to another, uh, I, uh, drove out to Connecticut, uh, where he was staying and met with him and some of his advisors, and then, uh, a day or two later, I decided to, to take the case. This would have been back in, uh, January of 2019, uh, I, I believe. So, the sort of cases I, I have a very small practice. Most of my time is, is teaching and, and writing, uh, but, uh, I tend to take cases that most, uh, deem to be, uh, impossible. Uh, uh, I take the challenging sorts of cases and, and this was, um, uh, fit the bill. It was quite challenging (laughs) in a sense that, uh, everyone had, uh, pre-judged the case. When I say everyone, I just mean the general sentiment in the public, uh, uh, had the case pre-judged. Uh, even though the specific allegations did not regard, uh, the, any of the people in the, um, in the New Yorker. That's the New Yorker article that sort of, uh, um, exposed, uh, everything that was going on, um, allegedly with, with Harvey. So, I decided to, uh, to take the case and, uh, I did.

Lex Fridman 4:17 Is there a philosophy behind you taking on these very difficult cases? Like, is it a set of principles? Is it just your love of the law or is it... Or is there like set of principles why you take on the cases?

Ronald Sullivan 4:29 Yeah, I, I do like to take on... I like to take on hard cases and I like to take on the cases th- uh, that, uh, are with unpopular, uh, defendants, unpopular clients. Um, and with respect to the latter, that's where Harvey Weinstein fell.

Lex Fridman 4:47 Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 4:47 Uh, it's because, uh, we need lawyers and good lawyers to take the unpopular cases, uh, because that... Those sorts of cases determine what sort of criminal justice system we have. Um, if we don't protect the rights and the liberties of those whom the society deems to be the least and the last, the unpopular client, then that's the, the camel's nose under the tent. If we let the camel's nose under the tent, the entire tent is gonna collapse. That is to say, if we short circuit the rights of a client like Harvey Weinstein, then the next thing you know, someone will be at your door knocking it down and violating your rights. There's a, there's a certain creep there with respect to, um, the way in which the, the state will respect the civil rights and civil liberties of people and, and these are the sorts of cases that, that, that test it. So-You know, for example, um, there's a, there, there was a young man many, many years ago named Ernesto Miranda. Um, by all accounts he was not a likable guy. He was a, you know, three-time, uh, knife thief, and n- not a likable guy. But lawyers stepped up and took his case, and because of that we now have the Miranda, uh, warnings, "You have the right to remain silent," th- those, those warnings that, um, officers are, are, are forced to give to people.

Lex Fridman 6:15 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 6:15 So, it is through these cases that we express oftentimes the best values in our criminal justice system, so I, I, I proudly take on these sorts of cases in order to vindicate not only the individual rights of the person whom I'm representing, but the rights of citizens, uh, writ large, uh, who, um, most of whom do not experience the criminal justice system. And it's partly because of lawyers who take on these sorts of cases and establish rules that protect us, um, average, everyday, ordinary, concrete citizens.

Lex Fridman 6:53 As... From a psychological perspective, just you as a human, is there f- is there fear? Is there stress from all the pressure? 'Cause if you're facing... I mean, the whole point, a difficult case, especially in the latter that you mentioned of the going against popular opinion, you have the eyes of millions potentially looking at you with anger, uh, as you try to defend, uh, you know, this, the set of laws that this country is built on.

Ronald Sullivan 7:20 No, it doesn't stress me out particularly.

Lex Fridman 7:22 (laughs) Okay.

Ronald Sullivan 7:23 It, uh, you know, it, it sort of comes with the, the territory. I try not to get, uh, too excited in either direction, so a big part of my practice is, uh, wrongful convictions, and I, um, I've gotten, uh, over 6,000 people out of prison who've been wrongfully incarcerated and s- a subset of those people have been convicted and, you know, there are people who've been in jail 20, 30, uh, years who have gotten out, and those are the sorts of cases where people, uh, praise you and, and that sort of thing. And so look, I, I, I do, uh, the work that I do, I'm proud of the work that I do, and in that sense I'm, um, sort of a part-time Daoist. You know, the expression, "Reversal was the movement of the Dao."

Lex Fridman 8:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 8:11 Uh, so I don't get too high, I don't get too low, uh, I just try to do my work and, and represent people to the best of my

Ronald Sullivan 8:18 ability.

Lex Fridman 8:18 So, one of the hardest cases of recent history would be the Harvey Weinstein in terms of popular opinion or unpopular opinion. So, what w- if you continue on that line, uh, what was the... Where does that story take you of taking on this case?

Ronald Sullivan 8:33 Yeah, so I, I, I took on the case and then there was some, uh, some, uh, a few students at the college. So, let me back up.

Lex Fridman 8:41 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 8:41 I had an administrative post at Harvard College, which is a separate entity from the Harvard Law School. Harvard College is the undergraduate portion of Harvard University and the law school is obviously the law school, and I, um, w- uh, initially was appointed as master of one of the houses. We did a name change five or six years into it and, and were called faculty deans.

Lex Fridman 9:04 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 9:04 Uh, but the houses at Harvard are based on the college system of Oxford and, and, and Cambridge, so when, uh, students go to Harvard after their first year, they're assigned to a particular house, uh, or college, and that's where they live and eat and so forth.

Lex Fridman 9:19 And these are undergraduate students?

Ronald Sullivan 9:20 These are undergraduate students, so I was responsible for one of the (laughs) the, the houses as, as its faculty dean.

Lex Fridman 9:27 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 9:27 Uh, so it's an administrative appointment at the college and some students who didn't, clearly didn't like Harvey Weinstein began to, uh, protest, uh, about the, uh, representation, and from there it, um, just mushroomed into one of the most craven, cowardly, uh, acts by, uh, any university in modern history. It's a c- just a complete and utter repudiation of, uh, academic freedom, uh, and it is a decision that, uh, Harvard certainly will live to regret. It's... Frankly it's an embarrassment. Uh, we expect students to do what students do, and, uh, and I have encouraged students to have their voices heard and to protest. Uh, I mean, that's what students do. Uh, what is vexing are the adults, um, uh, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, uh, Claudine Gay, uh, absolutely craven and cowardly. The Dean of the College, same thing, Rakesh Khurana, craven and cowardly. Um, they, um, capitulated to the loudest voice in the room and ran around afraid of 19-year-olds, "Oh, n- 19-year-olds are upset that I, I, I need to, I need to do something."

Lex Fridman 10:49 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 10:49 And, uh, it appeared to me that they so, so desired the approval, uh, of students that they were afraid to make, uh, the tough decision and the right decision. It really could've been an important teaching-

Lex Fridman 11:03 Exactly.

Ronald Sullivan 11:04 ... moment at Harvard.

Lex Fridman 11:04 A teaching moment, yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 11:06 Very important teaching moment.

Lex Fridman 11:07 So they, they forced you to step down from that, uh, faculty dean position at the house?

Ronald Sullivan 11:12 It, um... I would push back on the description a little bit.

Lex Fridman 11:16 Oh, ƒ (00:06:55) .

Ronald Sullivan 11:16 So, so, so, so I, so I, I don't write the, the, uh, y- y- you know, the references to the op-ed I did in the New York Time-

Lex Fridman 11:23 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 11:23 ... "Harvard made a mistake by making me step down," or-

Lex Fridman 11:26 Well, yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 11:26 ... or something like that, so I, I don't write those things. Uh, I did not step down and, and refuse to step down. Uh, Harvard declined to renew my, my, my, my contract.

Lex Fridman 11:37 Okay.

Ronald Sullivan 11:37 And, you know, and I made it clear that I, I was not, uh, going to resign as a matter of, of, of principle and, and force them to, um, do the, the cowardly act that they in fact, uh, did. And you know the, the, the, the worst thing about this, um, they did, um, the college, uh, uh, Dean Gay and Dean Khurana, uh, commissioned this survey. They've never done this before, a survey from the students, you know, "How do you feel at Winthrop house?"

Lex Fridman 12:06 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 12:06 And the funny thing about the survey is they never released the results.

Lex Fridman 12:10 Uh-huh.

Ronald Sullivan 12:11 Why did they never release the results? They never released the results because I would-...bet my salary that the results came back positive for me, and it didn't fit their narrative because most of the students were fine.

Lex Fridman 12:25 Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 12:26 Most of the students were fine. It was the, the loudest voice in the room, so they never released it, and then, you know, I challenge them to this day, release it-

Lex Fridman 12:33 Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 12:33 ...release it. Yea- but no, but, you know, they wanted to, um, uh, create this narrative, uh, and, um, when the data didn't support the narrative, then they just got- got silent. "Oh, we're- w- w- w- w- we're not gonna release it." The students demanded it, I demanded it, and they wouldn't release it because I am... I- I- I just- I just know in my heart of hearts that it- it was, um, uh, it came back in my favor that most students at Winthrop House said they were fine. Um, there, there was a group of students that weaponized the, uh, a term, uh, unsafe. They said, "We felt unsafe," and they, uh, they, uh, bantied, uh, this term about. Uh, but I'm, again, I'm confident that m- that the majority of students at Winthrop House said they felt completely, uh, fine and the, uh, felt safe and so forth. And the supermajority, I am confident, either said, "I feel great at, at Winthrop," or, you know, "I don't care one way or the other." And then there was some minority who had a- had a different view. But, um, eh, you know, uh, lessons learned, uh, I, um, it was a, a wonderful opportunity at Winthrop. I met some amazing students over the, uh, my 10 years as master and then faculty, uh, dean, and I'm still in touch with a number of students. Um, some of whom are now my students at the, at- at the law school. So, uh, in the end, uh, I thought it was a, uh, it- it ended up being a great, uh, experience. Uh, the national media was just wonderful in this, just wonderful. They, uh, people wrote such wonderful articles and accounts and wagged their finger appropriately at Harvard. Uh, uh, compared me to John Adams, which-

Lex Fridman 14:26 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 14:26 ...I don't think is an apt comparison, but it's always great to- to read something like that.

Lex Fridman 14:30 (laughs) Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 14:31 Uh, but- but any rate, that- that- that was the Harvard, uh, the Harvard, uh, versus Harvey, uh, situation.

Lex Fridman 14:37 So that- that seems like a seminal mistake by Harvard and Harvard is one of the great universities in the world. And so sort of its successes and its mistakes are really important for the world, uh, as a beacon of, like, what, how we make progress. So what lessons for the bigger academia that get, that's under fire a lot these days, uh, what bigger lessons do you take away? Like, how do we make Harvard great? How do we make, uh, other universities, Yale, MIT, great I- in the face of such mistakes?

Ronald Sullivan 15:12 Well, I think that we have moved into a model where we... The- the- we have the consumerization of education. Uh, that is to say, we have feckless administrators, uh, who make policy based on what the students say. Um, now, this comment is not intended to suggest that students have no voice in governance, but it is s- to suggest that the faculty are there for a reason. They are among the greatest minds on the planet Earth in their particular fields at schools like Harvard and, and Yale, Stanford, the schools that you mentioned, MIT, quite literally the greatest minds on Earth. They are there for a reason. Uh, things like, uh, curriculum and so forth, uh, are rightly in the province of faculty. And while you take input and critique and so forth, ultimately the grownups in the room have to be sufficiently responsible to take... uh, to- to take charge and to, uh, direct the course of a student's education. And, um, you know, you know, my situation is one example where it really could have been an excellent teaching moment about the value of the Sixth Amendment, about what it means to treat, um, what it means to treat people who are in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system. But rather than having that conversation, um, eh, it's just this consumerization model. Uh, well, there's a lot of noise out here, so we're going to react in this sort of way. Higher education as well, unfortunately, has been commodified in other, uh, sorts of ways that has reduced or- or impeded, hampered, uh, these schools' commitments to, uh, free and robust and open dialogue. So to the degree that academic freedom, uh, doesn't sit squarely at the center of the academic mission, uh, any school is gonna be in trouble. And I really hope that, uh, um, that we weather this current political moment where, uh, 19-year-olds without degrees are running universities and get back to a- a system where, um, faculty, where adults make decisions in the best interests of the university and the best interests of the student, even to the degree those, some of those decisions may be, uh, uh, unpopular. And that, um, is going to require a certain, uh, courage, um, and hopefully in time, and I'm confident that in time, um, administrators are gonna begin to push back on these current trends. Uh, Harvard's been around for a long time. It's been around for a long time for a reason, and one of the reasons is that it, uh, understands itself not to be static. So I have every......um, view, um, that, uh, Harvard is, is, is going to adapt and get itself back on course and be around another 400 years. At least, that's my hope.

Lex Fridman 18:52 (laughs) So, I mean, what this kind of boils down to is just having difficult conversation, difficult debates. Uh, when you mentioned sort of 19-year-olds, and it's funny I've seen this even at MIT, it's not that, uh, they shouldn't have a voice. They shou- sh- they, they do seem to... I guess you have to experience it and just observe it. They have a strangely disproportionate power.

Ronald Sullivan 19:17 Right, right. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 19:17 It's very interesting to, uh, to basically... I mean, you say, yes there's great faculty and so on, but, you know, uh, it's not even just that the faculty is smart or wise or whatever, it's that they're just silenced.

Lex Fridman 19:33 So the terminology that you mentioned is weaponized as sort of safe spaces, or that certain conversations make people feel unsafe. What do you think about this kind of idea? You know, is it, is, is there some things that are unsafe to talk about in the university setting? Is there lines to be drawn somewhere? And, uh, just like you said, on the flip side with a slippery slope, is it too easy for the lines to be drawn everywhere?

Ronald Sullivan 20:06 Yeah. I... That's a great question. So this idea of unsafe space, uh, at least the vocabulary derives from some research, uh, academic research about feeling psychologically, uh, unsafe. And so the notion here is that there is, uh, there are forms of, uh, uh, psychological disquiet that impedes people from, uh, experiencing the educational environment to the greatest degree, uh, possible. And that's the, uh, argument. Uh, I... And, and assuming for a moment that, uh, people do have these feelings of, of, of disquiet, um, at elite universities like MIT and like Harvard, that's probably the safest space people are gonna be in for their, their, their lives, because when they get out into the, the quote unquote "real world," uh, they won't have the, um, the sorts of, uh, nets that these schools provide, safety nets that these schools provide. Uh, so to the extent that research is descriptive of a psychological feeling, I think that the duty of the universities are, are to challenge people. It seems to me that it's a shame to go to a place like Harvard or a place like MIT, Yale, any of these, uh, great institutions, and come out the same person that you were when you went in. Uh, that seems to be a horrible waste of 4 years and, and, and money and, and, and resources. Rather, uh, we ought to challenge our students that they grow, um, uh, challenge some of the, uh, their most deeply held assumptions. Um, they, they may continue to hold them, but the point of an education is to rigorously interrogate, um, these fundamental assumptions that have guided you, uh, thus far, and to do it, uh, fairly and, and civilly, so that to the extent that there are lines that should be drawn, uh, there's a long tradition in the university of civil discourse, so you should, uh, draw a line s- somewhere between civil discourse and uncivil discourse. The purpose of a university is to talk difficult conversations, tough issues, uh, talk directly and frankly, uh, but do it civilly. And, you know, so to, um, yell and cuss at somebody, uh, and that sort of thing, well, you know, do that on your own space, but observe the, the norms of civil discourse at, at, at the university. Uh, so l- look, I think that the presumption ought to be that, uh, the most difficult topics are appropriate to talk about at-

Lex Fridman 22:58 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 22:59 ...a univer- that, that ought to be the presumption. Now, you know, uh, should, uh, um, MIT, for example, give its prom- im- impromoter to someone who is espousing, uh, the flat earth theory, you know, the earth is flat, right? So there... I- if, if certain ideas, uh, are, are so, uh, contrary to scientific, uh, and, and, and cultural thinking of the, of, of the moment, yeah, there, there's space there to draw a line and say, "We're not gonna, uh, give you this platform to, uh, tell our students that the earth is, is, is flat." Uh, but, you know, it's a topic that's controversial, but contestatory.

Lex Fridman 23:51 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 23:52 Th- that's what universities are, are for. If you don't like the idea, present better ideas. And articulate them.

Lex Fridman 23:58 And I, I, I think there needs to be a mechanism outside of the space of ideas of humbling. Like I... I've done martial arts for a long time. I got my ass kicked a lot. I think that's really important. I mean, the... In the space of ideas, I, I mean, even just in engineering, just all the math classes, my memories of math, which I love, is, is kind of pain, (laughs) is basically coming face-to-face with the f- with the idea that I'm not special, that I am much dumber than I thought I was, and that anything... Accomplishing anything in this world requires really hard work. That's really humbling.... that makes you, that, that puts you... 'Cause I remember when I was 18 and 19 and I thought o-, I was gonna be the smartest, the best fighter, this, the Nobel Prize winning, uh, you know, all those kinds of things. And then you come with, face-to-face with reality and it hurts. And it feels like there needs to be efficient mechanisms from the best universities in the world to, without abusing you, it's a very difficult line to, to walk, without like, uh, mentally or physically abusing you, be able to humble you. And that's what I felt was missing in these very difficult, very important conversations, is the 19-year-olds, when they spoke up, the mechanism for humbling them with ideas was missing. Uh, it got, kind of got bro-, broken down because, as you say, there does... Like, I sensed fear. Every- everything was permeated with fear, and fear is, uh, paralyzing, fear is destructive, especially in a place that's supposed to be all about freedom of ideas.

Ronald Sullivan 25:49 Right.

Lex Fridman 25:50 And

Lex Fridman 25:51 I, I mean, I don't know if you have anything, um, any thoughts to say on this whole idea of cancel culture, where people, um... A l- a lot of people use it as become political, so s- staying maybe outside of the world of politics. I- is, is this, uh, uh, do you have, do you have thoughts about it? Does it bother you that people are sort of put in this bin and, uh, labeled as something and then, uh, thereby you can ignore everything they say? I mean, Steven Pinker, there's a lot of Harvard folks that are fighting against, against these set of ideas, but d- do you have, do you have thoughts?

Ronald Sullivan 26:27 I think that we as a culture are way, way, way too quick to cancel, uh, people. And it, it, it's become almost reflexive now. Uh, you know, someone, uh, says something or makes an, an, an offhand comment, uh, even a mistake, uh, yet there's, there's a move to simply, uh, uh, cancel, uh, folks. So I, I think that this, uh, quote unquote cancel culture, um, has really gotten out of control at, at, at, at this point. It, it's forcing people to be robotic, uh, in many ways. Uh-

Lex Fridman 27:09 No offense-

Ronald Sullivan 27:09 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 27:10 ... to robots.

Ronald Sullivan 27:11 I was gonna say, now, now I know I'm venturing into your, um, intellectual domain.

Lex Fridman 27:15 (laughs) For future robots watching this, no offense. (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 27:18 (laughs) And there are many... And it's discouraging a lot of good people from, um, getting into public life in any sort of way, because, you know, who needs the, who needs the stress, uh, of it?

Lex Fridman 27:29 Well, th- uh, in some sense, you're an inspiration that you're able to withstand the, the pressure, the pressure of the masses. But it is, is, it's a sad, it's a sad aspect of human nature that we kind of get into these crowds and we get, we start chanting and it's fun for some reason, and then you forget yourself and then you sort of wake up the next day not, m- not having, uh, anticipated the consequences of all the chanting.

Ronald Sullivan 27:56 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 27:57 And we get ourselves in trouble in that. I mean, there's some responsibility on the, uh, on social networks and the mechanisms by which they make it more frictionless to do the chanting, to do the canceling, to do the outrage, and all that kind of stuff. So I actually, on the technology side, have a hope that that's fixable. But yeah, it, it does seem to be, um... W- you know, it almost like, uh, the internet showed to us that we have a lot of broken ways about which we communicate with each other, and we're trying to figure that out. Same with the university. The, this mistake by Harvard showed that we need to reinvent what the university is. And, I, I mean, all of this is, it's almost like we're finding our baby deer legs-

Ronald Sullivan 28:42 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 28:42 ... and trying to, uh, strengthen the institutions that have been very successful for, for, for a

Lex Fridman 28:48 long time. You know, the really interesting thing about Harvey Weinstein, and you choosing these exceptionally difficult cases, is also thinking about what it means to defend evil people, wha- what it means to defend these, w- we could say unpopular, and you might push back against the wo-, the word evil, but bad people in society. Um, first of all, do you think there's such a thing as evil, or do you think all people are good and it's just circumstances that create evil? And also, is there somebody too evil for the law to defend?

Ronald Sullivan 29:28 Uh, so that's a, so the first question, that's a deep, uh, philosophical question, whether the category of evil, uh, does any work, uh, for me.

Lex Fridman 29:38 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 29:38 Uh, it, it does for me. I, I do think that, uh, I do subscribe to that category that there is, uh, evil, uh, in the world as conventionally, uh, understood. So, uh, so there are many who will say, "Yeah, that just doesn't, doesn't do any work for me." Uh, but, uh, the category evil, in fact, does intellectual work for me, and I, I understand it as, as, as something that, uh, that, uh, exists. Um-

Lex Fridman 30:08 Is it genetic or is it the circumstance? Like wha- what kind of work does it do for you intellectually?

Ronald Sullivan 30:13 I think that it's, uh, it's highly contingent, that is to say that the conditions in which one grows up and so forth, uh, uh, uh, begins to create this category that we may think of as evil. Now, there are, um, studies and, and whatnot that show that, uh, certain, um, uh, brain abnormalities and so forth are, are more prevalent in, say, serial killers, so there may be a biological predisposition....to certain forms of conduct, but, um, uh, I don't, uh, I don't have the, uh, biological evidence to make a statement that someone is born evil and, and, you know, I- I- I'm not a determinist thinker in that way. So you come out the womb evil and you're destined to be that way, um, to the extent there may be biological, uh, determinants, uh, that still require some, um, uh, nurture, uh, as well, um, so-

Lex Fridman 31:22 But do you still put responsibility for the- on the individual?

Ronald Sullivan 31:26 Of course, yeah. We all make choices and so some responsibility, uh, on the individual indeed. (smacks lips) We live in a culture, unfortunately, where a lot of people have a constellation of bad choices in front of them.

Lex Fridman 31:46 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 31:46 And that makes me very sad.

Lex Fridman 31:48 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 31:49 Um, that, that people grow up with, with predominantly bad choices in, in front of them and that's unfair and that's, that, that's on all of us. Uh, but yes, I do think we make, we make choices.

Lex Fridman 32:01 Wow, that's so powerful, s- the constellation of bad choices. I... That's such a powerful way to think about sort of equality, which is the s- the set of trajectories before you that you could take if you just rolled the dice. There's a... You know, life is, is a kind of optimization problem, sorry to take us into math, over a set of trajectories under imperfect information. Uh, so you're gonna do a lot of stupid shit, (laughs) to put it, uh, in technical terms.

Ronald Sullivan 32:39 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:39 Uh, but, uh, the, the, the fraction of the trajectories that take you into, into bad places or to good places is really important and that's ultimately what we're talking about. And evil might be just a little bit of a predisposition biologically, but the rest is just trajectories that you can take.

Lex Fridman 32:58 I've been studying Hitler a lot-

Ronald Sullivan 33:00 Mm.

Lex Fridman 33:00 ...recently. I've been reading, uh, probably way too much and it's, it's interesting to think about all the possible trajectories-

Ronald Sullivan 33:07 Right.

Lex Fridman 33:07 ...uh, that, uh, could have avoided the, this ind- particular individual developing the hate that he did, the following that he did, the, the actual final... Uh, there, there's a few turns in him psychologically where he went from being a leader that just wants to conquer and to al- uh, somebody who al- allowed his anger and emotion to take over, to where he started making mistakes for, uh, in terms of militarily speaking-

Ronald Sullivan 33:41 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 33:41 ...but also started doing, you know, evil things.

Ronald Sullivan 33:45 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 33:46 And, uh, all the possible trajectories that could have avoided that are fascinating, including he wasn't that bad at painting, at, at drawing-

Ronald Sullivan 33:54 Right, right. (laughs) That's, that's true. That is true.

Lex Fridman 33:56 (laughs) From the very beginning. And, uh, and his time in Vienna. Just all these possible things to, to think about. And of course there's millions of others like him that never came to power and all those kinds of things. Uh, so but that goes to the second question on the, on the side of evil. Do you think... Uh, and, and Hitler's often brought up as, like, an example of somebody who is, like, the epitome of evil. Do you think you would, if you got that same phone call after World War II and Hitler survived. Uh, during war- you know, uh, at the trial for war crimes, would you take the case defending, uh, Adolf Hitler? If you don't want to answer that one, is there a line to draw for evil for who to not to defend?

Ronald Sullivan 34:46 No, I think, I think everyone... I'll do the second one first. Everyone has a right to a defense if you're charged criminally in, in the United States of, of America. So, uh, no, I, I do not think that there's someone so evil that they do not deserve a, um, defense. Uh, process matters. Um, process helps us get to results, um, more accurately than we would otherwise. So it is important and it's vitally important and indeed more important for, uh, someone deemed to be evil to receive the same quantum of process and the same substance of process that anyone else would. It's vitally important to the health of our criminal justice system for that to, uh, happen. So yes, uh, everybody, uh, Hitler included, um, were, uh, he charged in the United States for a crime that occurred in the United States, um, uh, yes, um. Um, whether I would do it-

Lex Fridman 35:45 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 35:46 ...if I were a public defender and assigned a case, uh, yes, I started my career as a public defender. I represent anyone who was, uh, assigned to me. Uh, I think that is our, uh, our duty. Uh, in private, um, (smacks lips) uh, practice, uh, I have choices, uh, and I, I likely, based on the hypo you gave me, and I would tweak it a bit because it would have to be a, a, a US crime-

Lex Fridman 36:13 United States, yeah, yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 36:14 ...and, and so... But, but I get the broader point and don't want to bog down in technicalities. I'd, I'd likely, uh, pass, uh, right, right now as I, I see it, unless, um, you know, it was a case where no- nobody else would, would, would represent him. Um, y- you know, then, uh, I, I would, I would think that I have some sort of duty and, and, and obligation, uh, to, to, to do it. Uh, but yes, everyone, uh, absolutely deserves a, a right to competent counsel.

Lex Fridman 36:46 That is a beautiful ideal. It's difficult to think about it in the face of public pressure. It's just... I mean, um-It's kinda terrifying to watch the masses during this past year of 2020, to watch the power of the masses, to make a decision before, uh, any of the data is out, if the data is ever out, any of the details, any of the processes and I... And there's an anger to the justice system. There's a lot of people that feel like even though the ideal you describe is a beautiful one, it does not always operate, uh, justly. (laughs) It does not operate to the best of its ideals. It operates unfairly.

Lex Fridman 37:34 Can we go to the big picture of the criminal justice system? What do you, given the ideal, works about our criminal justice system and what is broken?

Ronald Sullivan 37:48 Well, there's a lot broken, uh-

Lex Fridman 37:50 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 37:51 ... (laughs) right, right now and I usually focus on, on that. Uh, but, uh, in truth, a lot, uh, works about our criminal justice system. So there's a, there's an old joke, uh, and it, uh, it, it, it's funny but it carries a lot of truth to it. And the joke is that, um, in the United States we have the worst criminal justice system in the world except for every place else.

Lex Fridman 38:19 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 38:20 And, um, and yes, we certainly have a number of problems, um, and a lot of problems based on race and class and economic station, uh, but we have a process that privileges liberty and that's a good feature of the criminal justice system. So here's how it works, the idea of the relationship between the individual and the state is such that in the United States, uh, we privilege, uh, liberty over and above very many values so much so that a statement by increase Mather not, you know, terribly far from where we're sitting right now has gained traction over all these years and it's that better 10 guilty go free than one innocent person convicted. Now that is an expression of the way in which, uh, we understand liberty to operate in our collective consciousness. We would rather a bunch of guilty people go free than to, than to, um, impact the liberty interest of any, uh, individual person. So that's a guiding principle in our criminal justice system. Uh, liberty. Um, so we set, uh, a process that makes it difficult to convict people. We have rules of procedure that are cumbersome and that slow down the process and that, um, exclude otherwise reliable evidence and this is all because we place a value on, uh, liberty. And I think these are good things and it, uh, and it says a lot about our criminal justice system. Some of the bad features have to do with the way in which, uh, uh, this country sees color as a proxy for criminality and, and treats, uh, people of color in radically different ways in the, in the criminal justice system, uh, from, uh, arrests to, uh, charging decisions to sentencing. Uh, people of color are disproportionately, uh, impacted, uh, on all sorts of registers. Um, uh, one example and it's a popular one, uh, that, uh, although there appears to be no, uh, distinguishable difference between, uh, drug use by whites and blacks in the country, um, uh, blacks though only 12% of the population, represent 40% of the, uh, the drug charges in the, in the country. There's, there's some disequities along, uh, race and class in the criminal justice system that we really have to, have to, have to fix and they've grown to more than, than bugs in the system and have become features, unfortunately, of our system.

Lex Fridman 41:17 Features, oh, to make it more efficient to make judgments so the racism makes it more efficient?

Ronald Sullivan 41:22 It, uh, it, it, it efficiently, uh, moves people, uh, from society to the streets, uh, and that's, uh, um... And a lot of innocent people get caught up in that.

Lex Fridman 41:35 Well, let me ask in terms of the innocence. So you've gotten a lot of people who are innocent. Uh, you def- uh, I gue- I guess (laughs) revealed their innocence, demonstrated their innocence. What's that process like? What's it like emotionally, psychologically, what's it like legally to fight the system in, uh, through the process of revealing sort of, uh, the innocence of a human being?

Ronald Sullivan 42:06 Yeah, emotionally and psychologically it can be taxing. Uh, I follow a model of, uh, what's called empathic representation and that is I get to know my clients and their family, I get to know their strivings, their aspirations, their fears, their sorrows. Uh, so that, uh, certainly, uh, sometimes can do psychic injury, uh, on one, uh, if you, you know, you get really invested and really sad and, or happy and it, uh, it, it, it does become emotionally, uh, taxing about the idea of, uh, someone sitting in jail for 20 years completely innocent of a crime. Can you imagine sitting there every day for 20 years knowing that you factually did not do the thing that you were convicted of by a jury of your peers. It, it, it's got to be the most incredible thing in the world, um, what...... the, but the people who do it and the people who make it and come out on the other side as productive citizens are folks who say, uh, they've, they, they, they've come to an inner peace in their own minds.

Lex Fridman 43:16 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 43:16 And they say, "These bars aren't gonna define me. Uh, that my, my humanity is, uh, i- i- is there and it's, it's immutable." And they, uh, are not bitter, which is amazing.

Lex Fridman 43:30 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 43:30 I w- I, I, I would tend to think that I'm not that good of a person.

Lex Fridman 43:33 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 43:33 I would be bitter for every day-

Lex Fridman 43:35 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 43:35 ... of 20 years (laughs) -

Lex Fridman 43:36 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 43:36 ... if I were in, in jail for something. But, you know, but, but people tell me that, you know, that they can't survive, like, that one cannot survive like that.

Lex Fridman 43:44 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 43:44 And you have to come to terms with it and, uh, and, uh, the, the people whom I've exonerated, I mean, they, they come out, uh, most of them, uh, come out and, and they just, uh, really just take on life with a vim and, and, and vigor without, uh, bitterness. And it's, it's a beautiful thing to see.

Lex Fridman 44:04 Do you think it's possible to eradicate racism from the judicial system?

Ronald Sullivan 44:10 I do. I think as, uh, I think that race insinuates itself in all aspects of our lives and the judici- ju- the judicial system is not immune from that. So, to the extent we begin to eradicate, uh, dangerous and deleterious race thinking from society generally, then it will, uh, be e- eradicated from the, uh, criminal justice system. I think we got a lot of work to do and I think it'll be a while, but, uh, but I think it's, it's doable. I mean, you know, um, the country... So historians will look back 300 years from now and take note of the incredible journey of, uh, diasporic Africans in the, in, in, in the US. An incredible j- journey from, uh, you know, slavery, uh, to the, the heights of politics and business and the judiciary and the academy and so forth. It not a lot of time.

Lex Fridman 45:15 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 45:15 It actually not a lot of time. And if we can have that sort of movement historically, uh, let's think about what the next 175 years will look like. I'm not saying it's gonna be short, um, but I'm saying that if we keep at it, uh, keep getting to know each other, uh, a little better, uh, keep enforcing laws, uh, that prohibit, uh, the, the sort of race-based discrimination that people have experienced and provide, uh, as a society, opportunities, uh, for people to thrive in this world, then I think we can, we can see a better world. And if we see a better world, we'll see a better judicial system.

Lex Fridman 45:58 So, I think it's kind of fascinating if you look throughout history, and race is just part of that, is, uh, we create the other and, uh, treat the other with disdain through the legal system, but just through human nature. I tend to believe, we mentioned offline that I work with, uh, robots. It sounds absurd to say, especially to you, especially 'cause we're talking about racism and it's so prevalent today. I do believe that there will be almost like a civil rights movement for robots because, uh, with the... I think there's a huge value to society of having artificial intelligence systems, uh, that are, uh, that interact with humans and are, and are human-like.

Ronald Sullivan 46:47 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 46:48 And the more they become human-like, you will s- they will start th- th- they will start to ask very fundamentally human questions about freedom, about suffering, about justice. And they will, will have to come face-to-face, like look in the mirror and asking the question, "Just because we're biologically based, just because we're sort of, uh, well, just because we're human, does that mean we're the only ones that deserve the rights?" Again, giving, forming another other group, which is robots. And I'm sure there could be, along that path, different versions of other that we form. So racism, race is certainly a big other that we've made, uh, as you said, a lot of progress on throughout the history of this country. But it does feel like we always create, as we make progress, create new other groups. And of course the other pe- the other group that, uh, perhaps is outside the legal system that people talk about is the essential... Now, I eat a lot of meat, but the torture of animals, you know, the people talk about when we look back from, you know, a couple centuries from now, look back at the kind of things we're doing to animals, we might regret that. We might see that in a very different light. And it's kind of interesting to see the future trajectory of what we wake up to about the injustice in our, uh, i- i- in our ways. Um, but the robot one is the one I'm especially focused on 'cause, uh, but at this moment in time, it seems ridiculous, but I'm sure most civil rights movements throughout history seemed ridiculous at first.

Ronald Sullivan 48:31 Well, it's interesting. Uh, sort of out- outside of my, uh, int- intellectual, uh, bailiwick, uh, robots, as, as I understand the development of, um, artificial intelligence, uh, though the, um, the aspect that, uh... still is missing is this notion of, of consciousness, uh, and that it's co- it's consciousness that is the, the thing that, uh, will, uh, will move f-...um, if it were to exist, and I'm not saying that it can or will, but if it were to exist, would move robots from, uh, machines to, um, something, uh, different, uh, that ex- something that experienced the world in a way analogous to what, how we experience it. Um, and also as I understand the science, there's a, um, unlike what you see on, on television, that we're not, we're not, uh, there yet in terms of, uh, this notion of, uh, the machines having, uh, a consciousness. Um, uh, and-

Lex Fridman 49:46 Or, or a great general intelligence, all those kinds of things.

Ronald Sullivan 49:49 Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:50 A huge amount of progress has been made, and there is... it's fascinating to watch, so I'm, I'm on both minds. As a person who's building them, I'm realizing how sort of "dumb" they are. (laughs) But also looking at human history and how poor we are predicting the progress of innovation and technology, it's obviously that we have to be humble by our ability to predict, coupled with the fact that we keep, uh, to, to use terminology carefully here, we keep discriminating against the intelligence of, uh, artificial systems. The smarter they get, the more ways we find to dismiss the, their intelligence. Uh, so this, this has just been going on throughout, where I... (laughs) it's almost as if we're threatened in the most primitive human way-

Ronald Sullivan 50:43 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 50:44 ...uh, animalistic way, we're threatened by the power of other creatures, and we want to lessen, dismiss them. So consciousness is a really important one, but the one I think about a lot in terms of consciousness, the very engineering question, is whether the display of consciousness is the same as the possession of consciousness. So if a robot tells you they are conscious, if a robot looks like they're suffering when you torture them, if a robot is afraid of death and says they're afraid of death, and are legitimately afraid... Like, for, in terms of just, uh, everything we as humans use to determine the ability of somebody to be their own entity, they're the one that loves, one that fears-

Ronald Sullivan 51:37 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 51:38 ...one that hopes, one that can suffer, i- if, if the robot, like, in the dumbest of ways, is able to display that, we... it, it change, it starts changing things very quickly. Uh, I'm not sure what it is, but it does seem that there's a huge component to consciousness that is a social creation.

Ronald Sullivan 52:00 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 52:01 Like, we together create our-

Ronald Sullivan 52:03 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 52:03 ...consciousness. Like, we believe our common humanity together. Alone, we wouldn't be aware of our humanity, and the law, as it protects our freedoms, seems to be a construct of the social construct, and when you add other creatures into it, it's not obvious to me that, like, you have to build... There will be a moment when you say, "This thing is now conscious." Uh, I think there's going to be a lot of "Fake it until you make it," and there'll be a very gray area between "Fake" and "Make"-

Ronald Sullivan 52:37 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 52:38 ...that, uh, is going to force us to contend w- with what it means to be an entity that deserves rights-

Ronald Sullivan 52:45 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 52:45 ...where a- all men are created equal. The, the "men" part might have to expand in ways that we s- are not yet anticipating. It's very interesting. I mean, my favorite... The fundamental thing I love about artificial intelligence is it gets smarter and smarter. It challenges to think of, uh, what is right, the questions of justice, questions of freedom. It basically challenges us to, uh, to understand our own mind, to understand, uh, what, uh, like... almost from an engineering first principles perspective, to understand what it is that makes us human that is at the core of all the rights that we talk about and all the documents we write.

Ronald Sullivan 53:30 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 53:31 So even if we don't give rights to artificial intelligence systems, we may be able to construct f- more fair legal systems to protect us humans.

Ronald Sullivan 53:40 Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, interesting ontological question, uh, between the, the performance of consciousness and, and, and actual consciousness to the extent that it's, um, that actual consciousness is anything beyond some contingent reality, uh, but you've posed a number of, of, of interesting philosophical questions. And then there's also, it strikes me that, uh, that, um, philosophers of religion would pose another set of questions, uh, as well when you, um, deal with, uh, uh, issues of, uh, of structure versus soul, body versus soul, and, and, uh, it, it would be a, it, it will be a complicated mix, and I suspect I'll be, uh, dust by the time those questions get, get worked out.

Lex Fridman 54:33 And, uh, so yeah, the soul, the soul is a fun one. There's no soul. I'm, I'm not sure, maybe you can correct me, but there's very few discussion of soul in our legal system, right?

Ronald Sullivan 54:44 Right, correct. None.

Lex Fridman 54:46 So, so, (laughs) so, uh-

Ronald Sullivan 54:47 But there is a discussion about what constitutes a, a human being. And, I mean, you gestured at the notion of, uh, the potential of the law, uh, widening the domain of, uh, so o- o- of human beings. So i- in, in, in that sense, right? Uh, you know, people are very angry because they can't, uh......uh, get, uh, sort of pain and suffering damages if someone negligently kills a pet. Because a pet is not a, a human, uh, being. And people say, "Well, I love my pet."

Lex Fridman 55:20 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 55:20 But the law sees, uh, a, a pet as chattel, as property like this, this water bottle. Uh, so the, the current legal definitions, um, trade on a definition of humanity that may not be worked out in any sophisticated way, but certainly, um, there's a, there's a share... Broad and shared understanding of what, what it, what it means. Uh, so it probably doesn't, uh, explicitly contain a definition of something like soul, uh, but it's, it's more robust than, you know, a carbon-based organism. Uh, that there's something, uh, a little more distinct about what the law thinks a human being is.

Lex Fridman 56:07 So if we can dive into, uh... (laughs) We've already been doing it, but if we can dive into more difficult territory. So, uh, 2020 had the tragic case of George Floyd. When you reflect on the protests, on the racial tensions over the death of George Floyd, how do you make sense of it all? Uh, what do you take away from these events?

Ronald Sullivan 56:32 Look, the George Floyd moment occert- occurred at, at, at an historical, um, moment where people were, uh, in, um, quarantine for COVID, um, and people, um, have these, uh, cell phones to a degree greater than we've ever had them before, and this was a... sort of the straw that broke the camel's back. After a number of these sorts of cell phone videos, uh, surfaced, people were fed up. Uh, they... There was unimpeachable, uh, evidence of, um, a form of, of mistreatment, whether it constitutes murder or manslaughter. They're... The trial is going on now and jurors will figure that out, but, but there was widespread appreciation that, uh, a fellow human being was, was mistreated, that, uh... We were just talking about humanity, that there was, um, not a sufficient recognition of this person's, uh, humanity.

Lex Fridman 57:45 The common humanity of this person, yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 57:46 The common humanity of this person, well, well said. And people were fed up. So we were already in this COVID space where we, uh, were exercising care for one another, uh, and it... uh, there was just an explosion the likes of which this country hasn't seen since the, you know, civil rights, um, uh, protests of the 1950s and 1960s. And people, uh, simply said, "Enough. Enough, enough, enough. This has to stop. We cannot treat, uh, fellow citizens in, in this way and we can't do it with impunity." And the young people said, "We're just, we're just... We're not gonna stand for it anymore," and they took to the streets.

Lex Fridman 58:29 But

Lex Fridman 58:31 with the millions of people protesting, there is, nevertheless, taking us back to the most difficult of trials. You have the trial, like you mentioned, that's going on now of Derek Chauvin, of one of the police officers involved. Uh, what are your (laughs) thoughts? What are your predictions on this trial where the law, the process of the law is trying to proceed in the face of so much racial tension?

Ronald Sullivan 59:02 Yeah. It's... Uh, it's gonna be an interesting trial. I've, I've been keeping an eye on it. They're in jury selection now, today as we're, we're talking. Uh, so a lot's gonna depend on what sort of jury gets selected. Uh-

Lex Fridman 59:14 Yeah, how the... uh, sorry to take a-

Ronald Sullivan 59:16 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 59:16 Sorry to interrupt, but... Uh, so one of the interesting qualities of this trial, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but, uh, the cameras are allowed in the courtroom, at least during the jury selection. So, uh, so you get to watch some of this stuff and, uh, the other part is the jury selection, again, I'm very inexperienced, but it seems like selecting a... what is it? Unbiased jury (laughs) is really difficult for this trial. It's... It almost, like... I mean, I... I don't know. Uh, me as a listener, like, lis- you know, listening to people that are trying to talk their way into the jury kind of thing, trying to decide, "Is this person really unbiased or are they just trying to hold on to their, like, deeply held emotions-"

Ronald Sullivan 1:00:05 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:00:05 "...and trying to get onto the jury?" I mean, it's incredibly difficult process. I don't know if you can comment on a case so difficult, like the ones you've mentioned before, how do you select a jury that represents the people and doesn't... and, and carries the, sort of the ideal of the law?

Ronald Sullivan 1:00:22 Yeah. So a couple things. So first, yes, it is televised and it will be televised, as they say, gavel to gavel. So the entire trial.

Lex Fridman 1:00:30 The whole thing.

Ronald Sullivan 1:00:31 So the whole thing is gonna be televised. So, uh, people are getting, uh, a view of how, uh, laborious jury selection can be. Uh, I think as of yesterday, they had picked six jurors and it's, it's taken a week and they have to get to 14. Uh, so, uh, they've got, you know, uh, probably another week or, or more to, to, to do. I've been in jury trials where it took a month to choose a, a jury. So that, that's the most important part. You have to... You have to choose the right, uh, sort of jury. So unbiased in the criminal justice system has a particular meaning. It, it means that, um, that, uh... Uh, let me tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that a person, uh, is not aware-...of the case. Uh, it also does not mean that a person hasn't formed an opinion about the case. Those are two popular misconceptions. Um, what it does mean is that notwithstanding whether, uh, an individual has formed an opinion, notwithstanding whether an individual knows about the case, uh, that individual can set aside any prior opinions, can set aside any notions that they've developed about the case and listen to the evidence presented at trial in conjunction with the judge's instructions on how to, uh, understand and view that evidence. So if a person can do that, then they're considered unbiased. Um, so, you know, as a longtime, uh, defense attorney, uh, I... You know, I would be hesitant in a big case like this to pick a juror who's never heard of the case or anything going around 'cause I'm thinking, "Well who is this person and what, what, what in the world do they do?" Uh, uh, so, uh... Or, or are they lying to me? I mean, how can you not have heard about, uh, this case? Um, so they may bring other pro- (laughs) problems. So I... You know, I don't mind so much people who've heard about the case or folks who've formed initial op- o- opinions. Uh, but you, you... What you don't want is p- people who, um, have tethered themselves to that opinion, uh, in a way that, um, you know, they can't be convinced, uh, otherwise. So, um... But you also have people who, uh, as you suggested, who just lie because they wanna get on the jury or lie because they wanna get off the jury.

Lex Fridman 1:02:54 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:02:54 So sometimes people come and say-

Lex Fridman 1:02:56 Ah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:02:56 ...you know, the most-

Lex Fridman 1:02:57 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:02:57 ...ridiculous, outrageous, offensive things, uh, to know... Because they know that they'll get excused-

Lex Fridman 1:03:03 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:03 ...for cause. And others who, um, you can tell, uh, really badly wanna get on the jury.

Lex Fridman 1:03:11 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:11 So they're, you know... They're just... They pretend to be the, the, the most, uh, neutral, unbiased person in the world, uh, what the law calls the reasonable person. We have in law the reasonable person standard.

Lex Fridman 1:03:23 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:24 And I would, uh, tell my class the, uh... You know, the, the reasonable person in, in real life is the person that you would be least likely to wanna have a drink with.

Lex Fridman 1:03:34 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:34 They're the most boring, uh, neutral, not interesting (laughs) sort of-

Lex Fridman 1:03:38 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:38 ...person in the world. And so a lot of jurors, uh, e- engage in the performative act of presenting themselves as the most sort of even keeled, rational, reasonable person 'cause they really wanna get on the jury.

Lex Fridman 1:03:53 Yeah, there's an interesting, uh, question. I apologize that I haven't watched it a lot 'cause it is very long.

Ronald Sullivan 1:03:58 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:03:58 I- I've watched (laughs) ... Uh, you know, the- there's, there are certain questions you've asked in the jury s- uh, you ask in the jury selection. It... I remember, uh, I think one jumped out at me, which is, uh, you know, something like, uh, "Does the fact that this person is a police officer make you f- feel any kind of way about them?" So trying to get at that... You know, I- I don't know what that is. I guess that's bias.

Ronald Sullivan 1:04:25 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:04:27 And that's such a difficult question to a-... Like I ask myself of that question. Like how much... You know, we all kinda wanna pretend that we're not racist, we don't, uh, judge, we don't have... We're like these per-... (laughs) We're the reasonable human but, you know, legitimately asking yourself like are you... What are the... What are the prejudgments you have in your mind? Uh, is that even possible for a human being? Like when you look at yourself in the mirror (laughs) and think about it, is it possible to actually answer that?

Ronald Sullivan 1:05:01 Yeah. I... Look, I, uh, I do not believe that people can be completely unbiased. We all have baggage and bias and bring it wherever we go, including to court. What you want is to try to find a person who can at least recognize-

Lex Fridman 1:05:22 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:05:22 ...when a bias is working, and actively try to do the right thing. That's the best we can, we, we can ask. So if a juror says, "Yeah, you know, look, I grew up in a place where I tend to believe what police officers say. That's just how I grew up. But if the judge is telling me that I have to listen to every witness equally, then I'll... You know, I'll, I'll do my best and I won't weigh that testimony any higher than I would any other testimony." If you have someone answer a question like that, that sounds more sincere to me. Uh, it sounds more honest. And if you want a person... You want a person to try to do that. And then in closing arguments, right, as the lawyer, right, I'd say something like, "Ladies and gentlemen, you know, we chose you to be on this jury because you swore that you would do your level best to be fair. That's why we chose you, and I'm confident that you're gonna do that here. So when you heard that police officer's testimony, the judge told you, you can't give more credit to that testimony just because it's a police officer. And I trust that you're gonna do that, and that you're gonna look at witness number three." You know, John Smith. "You're gonna look at John Smith. John Smith has a different recollection."

Lex Fridman 1:06:43 Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 1:06:43 "And you're duty-bound, duty-bound to look at that testimony and this person's credibility, you know, the same degree as that other witness, right?" And now what you have is just a he-said-she-said matter, and this is a criminal case. That has to be reasonable doubt. And... Right. So, you know... So you j-... And, and really someone who's trying to do the right thing, uh, it's helpful. But no, you're not going to just find 14 people with no biases. That's, that's absurd.

Lex Fridman 1:07:12 Well, that's, that's fascinating that, uh... Especially the way you're inspiring, the way you're speaking now is, uh... I mean, I guess you're calling on the jury. That's kinda the whole system, is you're calling on the jury-... each individual on the jury to step up and really think. You know, to, to step up and be their, uh, most thoughtful selves actually.

Ronald Sullivan 1:07:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:32 Most introspective like, you're trying to basically ask people to, uh, be their best selves and that's, and they... I, I guess a lot of people step up to that. (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:07:45 Yeah, a lot of people do.

Lex Fridman 1:07:46 That's why the system works.

Ronald Sullivan 1:07:47 I'm very, I'm, I'm very pro-jury. Uh, juries, they, they get it right-

Lex Fridman 1:07:52 It works.

Ronald Sullivan 1:07:52 ... a lot of the time, most of the time, and they really work hard to do it.

Lex Fridman 1:07:58 So, (sighs) what do you think happens? I mean, maybe, uh... (sighs) I'm, I'm not so much on the legal side of things, but on the social side, it's like with the OJ Simpson trial. Do you think it's possible that Derek Chauvin does not get convicted of the, what is it, second-degree murder? Um, how do you think about that? How do you think about the potential social impact of that? The, the riots, the protests, the e- either, either direction. Any words that are said, the tension here could be explosive, especially with the cameras.

Ronald Sullivan 1:08:38 Yeah. Yeah, and so, yes, there's certainly a possibility that he, he'll be acquitted, um, for homicide charges, um, for the jury to convict, uh, they have to make a determination as to Officer Chauvin's, former officer, uh, Chauvin's state of mind. Uh, whether he intended to cause some harm, whether he was grossly reckless in causing harm, so much so that he disregarded a known risk of death or serious bodily injury. And as you may have, um, read in the papers, yesterday the judge allowed a, a third-degree, uh, murder charge in Kentucky, which, uh, is, uh, cons- it's the mindset, the state of mind, uh, there is not an intention, uh, but it's a depraved indifference. Uh, and what that means, is that the jury doesn't have to find that he intended to do anything, uh, rather they could find that he was just indifferent-

Lex Fridman 1:09:47 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:09:47 ... to a, a risk, um-

Lex Fridman 1:09:50 That's dark. (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:09:51 Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:52 I'm not sure what's worse, uh, but-

Ronald Sullivan 1:09:55 Yeah, well, that's, that's a good point, but, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:09:57 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:09:57 ... but, but it's a, it's another basis for the jury, uh, to convict. But, but look, uh, you never know what, what happens when you go to a jury trial, so there could be a, um, an acquittal, and if there is, I imagine there would be massive, uh, uh, protests, uh, if he's convicted. I, I, I don't think that would happen, uh, 'cause I just don't see, at least nothing I've seen or read suggests that there's a, a big pro, uh, Chauvin camp out there-

Lex Fridman 1:10:30 Okay.

Ronald Sullivan 1:10:30 ... ready to protest.

Lex Fridman 1:10:31 Well, there could be a se- is there also, uh, potential tensions that could arise from the sentencing? I don't know how that exactly works. Sort of not enough years kind of thing.

Ronald Sullivan 1:10:41 Yeah, could be.

Lex Fridman 1:10:42 All that, all that kind of stuff.

Ronald Sullivan 1:10:43 Could be. I mean, it's, A, a lot could happen. So, it depends on what he's convicted of. Uh, you know, one count, I think, is like up to 10 years, another count's up to 40 years. Uh, so it depends what he's convicted of, and yes, it depends on how much of the, how much time the judge gives him if he is convicted. Uh, th- th- there's a lot of space for people to be very angry, and so we will, (laughs) we will see what, what happens.

Lex Fridman 1:11:07 I just feel like with the judge and, and the lawyers, there's an opportunity to have really important long-lasting speeches. I don't know if they think of it that way, especially with the cameras.

Ronald Sullivan 1:11:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:11:22 It, it feels like they have the capacity to heal or to divide. Um, do you ever think about that as a, as a lawyer, as a legal mind, that your words aren't just about the case, but about they, they'll reverberate through history potentially?

Ronald Sullivan 1:11:42 Um, that is, that is certainly a possible consequence of things you say. I don't think that most lawyers think about that, uh, in the context of a case. Uh, your role is much more narrow. Uh, you're the partisan advocate, as a defense lawyer, partisan advocate for, uh, that client. As a prosecutor, you're a minister of justice, um, attempting to prosecute that particular case. But the reality is, you are absolutely correct, that sometimes the things you say, uh, will have a, a shelf

Ronald Sullivan 1:12:20 life and you mentioned OJ Simpson before, you know, "If the glove doesn't fit, uh, you must acquit," is gonna be, you know, just in, in our lexicon for probably a long time now.

Lex Fridman 1:12:30 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:12:30 So, so it, it, it happens, but that's not, uh, and, and it shouldn't be, uh, foremost on your mind.

Lex Fridman 1:12:36 Right. What, what do you make, uh, what do you make of the OJ Simpson trial? Do you m- do you have thoughts about it? He's, uh, he's out and about and on social media now.

Ronald Sullivan 1:12:46 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:12:46 He's a public figure. Is there, uh, lessons to be drawn from that whole saga?

Ronald Sullivan 1:12:52 Well, you know, that was an interesting case. I was a young public defender, I wanna say in my first year-

Lex Fridman 1:12:57 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:12:57 ... uh, as a public defender when that verdict came out. So, that case was important in so many ways. One, um, it was the first DNA case, um, major, uh, DNA case, and there were significant lessons learned from that. One, um, mistake that the prosecution made was, uh, that they didn't present the science in a way that a lay jury could understand it.

Lex Fridman 1:13:23 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:13:24 Um, and, uh, what Johnny Cochran did was he understood the science and was able to, uh-... uh, translate that into a w- uh, into a vocabulary that he bet that that jury, uh, un- understood. Uh, so he, uh, so Cochrane was dismissive of a lot of DNA. They said, you know, he said something like, "Oh, you know, they say they found, you know, uh, such and such amount of DNA, that's just like me, you know, wiping my finger against my nose and, and, and, and just that little bit of DNA." And, uh, that was effective because the prosecution hadn't done a good job of establishing that, yes, it's microscopic.

Lex Fridman 1:14:08 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:14:09 You don't need that much.

Lex Fridman 1:14:10 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:14:10 You're not just swiping your hand on your nose and touching something. You can transfer a lot of DNA and that gives you good information.

Lex Fridman 1:14:16 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:14:17 But, you know, it was the first time that the public generally and that jury maybe since high school science had heard, you know, you know, nucleotide.

Lex Fridman 1:14:25 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:14:25 I mean, it was just all these terms getting thrown at them and, and but it was not weaved into a, a, a narrative. So, uh, Cochrane taught us, um, that no matter what type of case it is, no matter what science is involved, it's still about storytelling.

Lex Fridman 1:14:42 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:14:42 It's still about a narrative and he was, uh, and he was great, uh, at that, at that, uh, at that narrative and was consistent, uh, with his narrative all the way out. Um, another, uh, lesson that, uh, was relearned, uh, is that, you know, you never ask a question to which you don't know the answer. That's like, um, trial advocacy 101.

Lex Fridman 1:15:09 Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 1:15:09 And so when they gave, uh, OJ Simpson the glove and it wouldn't fit, you know, you don't, you, you don't do things where you just don't know how it's gonna turn out. It was way, way too risky. And then, and, and I think that's what acquitted him.

Lex Fridman 1:15:24 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:15:24 'Cause that glove-

Lex Fridman 1:15:25 The glove.

Ronald Sullivan 1:15:25 ... the glove just wouldn't fit and he got to do this and ham in front of camera and, and all of that and, uh, and it was big.

Lex Fridman 1:15:33 Do, do you think about, do you think about representation as storytelling? Like you, yourself in your role?

Ronald Sullivan 1:15:37 Absolutely, absolutely. We tell stories. It is fundamental. We, uh, since time immemorial, we have told stories to help us make sense of the world around us. So, um, as a scientist, you tell a different type of story, uh, but we as, uh, a public have told stories, um, uh, from time immemorial to, to, to help us make sense of the physical and the natural, uh, world. And, uh, we are still a, a, a, a, a species that is moved by storytelling, so that, that's first and, and last in trial work. You have to tell a good story. Um, and you know, the basic introductory books about trial work, uh, teach young students, young students and young lawyers to, to start in opening with, "This case is about ... This case is about ..." and then you fill in the blank. And, you know, that's your narrative. That's the narrative you're gonna, you're gonna tell.

Lex Fridman 1:16:41 And of course-

Ronald Sullivan 1:16:41 Bible story.

Lex Fridman 1:16:41 ... you can do the ultra dramatic, the glove doesn't fit kind of, uh, the climax and all those kinds of things.

Ronald Sullivan 1:16:49 Yes, yes, those are-

Lex Fridman 1:16:49 But that's the best of narratives-

Ronald Sullivan 1:16:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:16:51 ... the best of stories.

Ronald Sullivan 1:16:52 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:16:53 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:16:55 Speaking of other really powerful stories that you were involved with is the Aaron Hernandez trial and the whole story, the whole legal case. Can you maybe overview the big picture, uh, story and legal case of Aaron Hernandez?

Ronald Sullivan 1:17:09 Yeah, so Aaron, whom I miss a, a, a lot, um, so he was charged with, uh, a double murder in, in, in the case that I tried, and this was a unique case and one of those impossible cases, uh, in part because Aaron had already been, uh, convicted of a murder. And so we had a client who was on trial for a double murder after having already been convicted of, uh, a separate murder. And we had a jury pool, uh, just about all of whom, uh, knew that he had been convicted of, (laughs) of a murder because he was a very popular football player in Boston, uh, which is a big football town, with the, with the Patriots. Uh, so, you know, and so everyone knew that he was a convicted murderer and here we are, uh, defending for, uh, in a double murder case. Um, so that was the, that was the context. It was an odd case in the sense that the, this murder had gone, gone unsolved for a couple of years and then a nightclub bouncer, uh, said something to a cop who was working at a club, uh, that, uh, Aaron Hernandez was somehow involved in that, in that murder that happened in the theater district. That's the district where all the clubs are in Boston and where the, the homicide occurred. And once the police heard Aaron Hernandez's name, then it was, you know, they went, uh, all out in order to, to, to, to do this, so they found a guy named Alexander Bradley, uh, who, uh, was a, a, a very significant, uh, uh, uh, uh, drug dealer in the, uh, sort of, uh, Connecticut area. Uh, very, very significant, very powerful, um, and, uh, he essentially in exchange for a deal, uh, pointed to Aaron, said, "Yeah, I was with Aaron and, um, and Aaron, uh, was the, um, was the murderer." Uh, so that's how the case came, came to court.

Lex Fridman 1:19:26 Okay, so that, that sets the context. What was your involvement in this case, like legally, intellectually, psychologically?...uh, when this particular, uh, s- second, uh, charge of murder.

Ronald Sullivan 1:19:40 So a f- a friend, uh, called me, uh, Jose Baez, uh, who is a defense attorney and he, uh, comes to, uh, a class that I teach every year at Harvard, the Trial Advocacy Workshop, uh, as one of my, um, uh, teaching faculty members. Uh, it's a class where we teach students how to try cases. Uh, so, uh, Jose called me and said, "Hey, uh, I got a call from Massachusetts, (laughs) Aaron Hernandez, uh, you wanna go and, and talk to him, uh, with me?" And that's when I said, "Sure." So we went up to the, to the prison and, um, uh, and met, uh, Aaron and, uh, spoke with him for two or three hours that first time and before we left he said he, he wanted to, uh, retain us. Uh, he wanted to work with us and, and that started the representation.

Lex Fridman 1:20:35 What was he like? Uh, what w- i- in that time, what... Was he worn down by the whole process? Was there still-

Ronald Sullivan 1:20:42 He, he was-

Lex Fridman 1:20:43 ...a light in that-

Ronald Sullivan 1:20:44 He, he, he was not. He, he had, I mean, more than just a light, he was luminous almost. Uh, he had um, a radiant million-dollar smile, uh, whenever you walked in. Um, my first impression, I distinctly remember was, "Wow, this is what a professional athlete looks like." When he walked in and he's just, just bigger and more fit than, you know-

Lex Fridman 1:21:06 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:21:06 ...than anyone-

Lex Fridman 1:21:07 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:21:07 ...you know, a- anywhere and it's like, "Wow, this..." And, you know, when you saw him on television he looked kind of little and I was like, so... I was... remember thinking, "Well, what, what do those other guys look like (laughs) in person?" Um, and, um, and he's extraordinarily polite, uh, uh, young, uh, uh, it was... I, I was surprised by how young, uh, he, he was.

Lex Fridman 1:21:32 Both in mind and, uh, and body? (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:21:35 Well, chro- chronologically I was, you know, thinking he was in his, you know, in his early 20s I believe. Uh, he was, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:21:42 But there seemed to be like an innocence to him, uh, in terms of just the way he saw the world. Uh-

Ronald Sullivan 1:21:47 I think that's right.

Lex Fridman 1:21:47 Did I pick that up from the, from the documentary, just taking that in?

Ronald Sullivan 1:21:50 I, I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:21:53 Uh, so, there is a Netflix documentary titled Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez. What are your thoughts on this documentary? I don't know if you got a chance to see-

Ronald Sullivan 1:22:04 I, I, I did not... I have not seen it. I, I did not participate in it. I know I was in it because of, uh, there was news footage, uh, there but I did not participate in it. I had not talked to Aaron about, uh, about, uh, press or anything, uh, before he, he died. Uh, my strong view is that the attorney-client privilege survives death and so I was not inclined to talk about anything that Aaron and I talked about, so I just didn't, uh, participate and, and, and have never watched it.

Lex Fridman 1:22:34 Not even watch, huh?

Ronald Sullivan 1:22:35 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:22:35 So the... Do you... Is that... Does that apply to most of your work? Do you try to stay away from the way the press perceives stuff?

Ronald Sullivan 1:22:43 Um, during, uh, yes, I try to stay away from it. I, I will view it afterwards.

Lex Fridman 1:22:48 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:22:48 Uh, I just hadn't gotten around to watching, uh, Aaron 'cause it's kind of, it's kind of sad, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:22:53 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:22:53 ...so I just hav- haven't watched it, but I definitely stay away from the press during trial. Uh, and, you know, there are some lawyers who watch it religiously to see what's going on but, you know, I'm, I'm confident in my years of training and so forth that... and that I can, uh, actively sense what's going on in the courtroom and, and that I, I really don't need advice from joe476@gmail, uh, you know, some random-

Lex Fridman 1:23:26 Right.

Ronald Sullivan 1:23:26 ...guy on the internet telling me how to try cases, so-

Lex Fridman 1:23:29 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:23:29 It just... To me it's just confusing and I just... I keep it out of my mind.

Lex Fridman 1:23:33 And, and, and even if you think you can ignore it, just reading it will have a, uh, a little bit of an effect on your mind that-

Ronald Sullivan 1:23:39 I thi- I think that's-

Lex Fridman 1:23:39 ...o- o-

Ronald Sullivan 1:23:39 ...I think that's right, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:23:40 ...over time might, might, uh, accumulate. Uh, so the, the doc- documentary but in general, uh, it mentioned or kind of, uh, emphasized and talked about Aaron's sexuality or sort of they were discussing basically the idea that he was a homosexual and some of the trauma, some of the suffering that he endured in his life had to do with the sort of fear given the society of, uh, of what his father would think, of what others around him, sort of, especially in, uh, sport culture and football and so on. So, I don't know, in your interaction with him was, uh, do you think that maybe even leading up to his suicide, do you think his, uh, struggle with coming to terms with his sexuality had a role to play in much of, uh-

Ronald Sullivan 1:24:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:24:42 ...his difficulties?

Ronald Sullivan 1:24:43 Well, I'm not gonna talk about my interactions with him-

Lex Fridman 1:24:47 Right. Yeah, I imagine.

Ronald Sullivan 1:24:47 ...and anything I derive from, from that, um, uh, but, you know, what I will say is that, um, a story broke on the, on the radio, uh, eh, eh, eh at some point, uh, during the, the, the trial that, uh, Aaron had been in a same-sex relationship with someone and some sport- local sportscasters, local Boston sportscasters, I mean, really, uh, mushroomed uh, the, the, the story. So, um, uh, he and everyone, uh, was aware of it. Um, you'll... You also may know from the court record that the, uh, prosecutors floated a, uh, specious theory, um-...for a minute, but then backed off of it, that, you know, that Aaron was, um... That there was some sort of, um, I guess, gay rage at work with him and that might be a, a cause, a motive, uh, for the killing. And, uh, luckily, they, they really backed off of that. That was quite an offensive, uh, claim in, in, in, in theory. So, um... But, um, to answer your question more directly, I mean, I have no idea why he, he, he killed himself. It was a, a surprise and a shock. Um, I was scheduled to go see him like a couple of days after it happened. I mean, he was anxious, uh, for, um, Jose and I to come in and do the appeal from the murder which he was convicted for. He wanted us to take over that appeal. Um, he was talking about going back to football. I mean, he said, well, you talk about this... Or you, earlier, you talked about the sort of innocent aspect of him. He, he said, you know, "Well, Ron, maybe not, maybe not the Patriots, but, you know-

Lex Fridman 1:26:40 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:26:40 ...I'm gonna get back in the league." And I was like, "You know, Aaron, that's, that's gonna be tough, man." Uh-

Lex Fridman 1:26:46 (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:26:46 But, uh... But he really, you know, he really believed it. And, um, and then, you know, for a few days later of that to happen, it was just, it was a real shock to me.

Lex Fridman 1:26:57 Like when you look back at that, at, at his story, um, does it make you sad?

Ronald Sullivan 1:27:03 Very, very. Uh, I, I thought, uh... So, so, one, I, I believe he, he absolutely did not, uh, commit the, the crimes that we could... Acquitted him on. Uh, I think that was the right answer, uh, for, for, for that. Um, uh, I don't know enough about Bradley, the first case, I'm sorry, to make a, make an opinion on. But, but in our case, uh, you know, uh, it was just he had the misfortune of having a famous name.

Lex Fridman 1:27:37 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:27:37 And the police department just really, just, just, just really got, got on him there. So, um, uh, it'd be... Yes, it's, it's... I miss him a lot. It was very, very sad, surprising.

Lex Fridman 1:27:51 Yeah, and, and, I mean, just on the human side, of course, we don't know the full story, but just everything that led up to suicide, everything led up to, uh, an incredible professional football player, you know, that whole story, if, uh-

Ronald Sullivan 1:28:06 He was a remarkably talented athlete, remarkably talented athlete.

Lex Fridman 1:28:10 And it's... It has to do with all the, all the possible trajectories, right, that we can take through life, as we were talking about before. And some of them lead to, uh, to suicide, sadly enough, and it's, it's always tragic when you have-

Ronald Sullivan 1:28:26 Unfortunately, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:28:27 ...some, you know, somebody with, uh, with great potential, uh, re- result in, in the things that happen.

Ronald Sullivan 1:28:34 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:28:35 People love it when I ask about books. I don't know if, uh, whether technical like legal or fiction, non-fiction books throughout your life have had an impact on you, if there's something you could recommend or something you could speak to about something that inspired ideas, insights about this world, complicated world of ours.

Ronald Sullivan 1:28:58 Oh, wow. Uh, yeah. So, uh, I'll, I'll give you a, a couple. Uh, so one is, uh, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity by Richard Rorty. He's, uh... He's passed away now, but was a, uh, philosopher at some of our major institutions, Princeton, uh, Harvard, um, Stanford. Um, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, at least that's a book that really helped me work through, um, a series of thoughts. So it, it stands for the proposition that, uh, that our most deeply held beliefs, uh, are contingent, that there, there's nothing, uh, beyond history or prior to socialization that's definatory of the, the, of the human being. That's Rorty. Um, and he says that, uh, our most deeply held beliefs are received wisdom and highly contingent along, uh, a number of registers. And he does that, uh, but then goes on to say that, uh, he nonetheless, uh, can hold strongly held beliefs, recognizing their contingency, but still believes them to be true and accurate, and he helps you to work through, um, what could be an intellectual tension-

Lex Fridman 1:30:21 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:30:21 ...uh, of the world. So, so you don't delve into... One doesn't delve into relativism, "Oh, everything is okay," but it gives you a vocabulary to think about, uh, uh, how to negotiate these, these, these realities, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:30:38 Do you share this tension? I mean, there, there is a real tension that it seems like even like the law, the legal system is all just a construct of our human ideas, and yet, it seems to be, uh... Almost feels fundamental to what a, uh-

Ronald Sullivan 1:30:55 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:30:56 ...what a-

Ronald Sullivan 1:30:56 You know-

Lex Fridman 1:30:56 ...just society is.

Ronald Sullivan 1:30:57 Yeah, I, I definitely share, share the tension and, and, and love the, the, uh, his, his vocabulary and the way he's helped me resolve the, the, the tension, so... Right? I mean, yeah, yeah, so like, you know, uh, infanticide, for example, perhaps it's, uh, socially contingent, perhaps it's received wisdom, perhaps it's anthropological, uh, you know, we need to propagate the species, and I still think it's wrong. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:31:27 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:31:27 And, uh, and, and, and, and Rorty, uh, has, has helped me develop the category to say, to, to, to say that-...know I can't provide any, in Rorty's words, non-circular theoretical backup-

Lex Fridman 1:31:40 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:31:41 ...for this proposition. At some point, it's gonna run me into s- into a circularity problem. But that's okay. I'm, I, I, I, I hold this nonetheless, in full recognition of its contingency. But what it does is, is, is, is makes you humble.

Lex Fridman 1:31:56 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:31:57 And, and when you're humble, that's good because, you know, this notion that ideas are always already in progress, never fully formed, uh, I think is, is, is the sort of intellectual I strive to be. And if I have a, a, a sufficient degree of humility that I don't have the final answer, capital A, then that's gonna help me to get to better answers, lowercase A. And, and, and Rorty does that and, and he talks about, uh, uh, in, in the solidarity part of the book, he has this concept of imaginative i- uh, uh, the imaginative ability to see other different people as we instead of they.

Lex Fridman 1:32:43 Mm-hmm.

Ronald Sullivan 1:32:43 And I just think it's a beautiful concept, but he talks about this imaginative ability and it's this active process. So I mean, so that's a book that's done a lot of work, uh, (sighs) uh, for me, uh, over the, the, the years. Um, uh, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, uh, was absolutely pivotal, pivotal in my intellectual development, um, uh, one of the, uh, premier, uh, set of essays in the, uh, Western literary tradition, and it's a, a deep and profound sociological, uh, philosophical, uh, and historical analysis of the, uh, predicament of Blacks in America from, um, one of our country's greatest polymaths. Uh, it, uh, it's just a, it's, it's a beautiful text and, uh, and I go to it, uh, yearly, um-

Lex Fridman 1:33:40 So, for somebody like me, so growing up in the Soviet Union, the struggle, the civil rights movement, the struggle of race and all those kinds of things, uh, that, that is, you know, it's universal, but it's also very much a, a journey of the United States. It was kind of a foreign thing that I stepped into.

Ronald Sullivan 1:33:59 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:34:00 Um, is that something you would recommend somebody like me to read or is there other, uh, things about race that are good to connect be- 'Cause my, my, my flavor of suffering injustice... I'm a Jew as well.

Ronald Sullivan 1:34:14 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:34:15 My flavor has to do with World War II and the studies of that, you know?

Ronald Sullivan 1:34:19 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:34:19 All the injustices there.

Ronald Sullivan 1:34:20 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:34:20 So I'm now stepping into a new set of injustices-

Ronald Sullivan 1:34:23 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:34:23 ...and trying to learn the, (laughs) the landscape.

Ronald Sullivan 1:34:26 I would, I, I would say y- uh, uh, anyone is, is, uh, a better person for having read, uh, Du Bois. It's just, uh, he's just a remarkable writer, uh, and thinker, and it, uh, uh, I mean, and t- to the extent you're interested in, in learning another history, he does it in a way that is, uh, quite sophisticated. So it's, uh, uh... So, um, uh, I, it, it's interesting, I was gonna give you, uh, three books. Uh, I, I, I noted the accent whe- when I met you, but I didn't know exactly where you're from.

Lex Fridman 1:35:00 Yes.

Ronald Sullivan 1:35:00 But the oth- the other book I was gonna say is, uh, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Um-

Lex Fridman 1:35:05 Oh, great. (laughs)

Ronald Sullivan 1:35:06 And, um, I mean, I've always wanted to go to St. Pete's, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:35:09 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:35:09 ...just to, to sort of see with my own eyes what, uh-

Lex Fridman 1:35:13 Yeah.

Ronald Sullivan 1:35:13 ...the word pictures that, uh, Dostoevsky created in, uh, Crime and Punishment. And, you know, I love others of his stuff too, The Brothers Karamazov and so forth. But, uh, Crime and Punishment, I first read in high school as a junior or a senior, and it is a, um, uh, a deep and