"We are still dealing with a system which tolerates rampant abuse of accused people." — Emily Galvin Almanza

Back in April 2024, we interviewed Thelton Henderson, one of the first African American federal judges in America. What disturbed me about our conversation was that even though Henderson grew up in the late Jim Crow era, he didn't seem to think that America is a profoundly more just place now than it was back then. Today's guest clerked for Judge Henderson, and her new book suggests he's right.

Emily Galvin Almanza is a public defender turned activist, and The Price of Mercy is her data-driven indictment of a criminal justice system that, as she puts it, "tolerates rampant abuse of accused people, tolerates the blatantly racist application of the law, and tolerates a total lack of transparency." According to Almanza, the numbers are damning: 80% of cases are misdemeanors. 80% of people prosecuted are poor enough to need a public defender. 70% of people in jail haven't been convicted—they just can't afford bail. California's gang database was 99% people of color, she says, and famously included literal babies listed as having "admitted their gang affiliation."

And here's both the good and bad news: crime is actually down. If you're under 50, she notes, you're living through the safest period of your lifetime. The solutions aren't mysterious either—housing reduces arrest rates by 80%, after-school programs cut youth violent crime in half. That's all good news for us. But it remains bad for those being unjustifiably prosecuted. We just lack the political will to implement what works. And as Galvin Almanza points out, this isn't a federal issue: 87% of prisoners are in jail on state charges. Change happens at the local level—DAs, sheriffs, state legislatures. The fixes, she says, are realizable. We just need the collective political will. That's the price of mercy in America today.

About the Guest
Emily Galvin Almanza is Executive Director of Partners for Justice and teaches at Stanford Law School. A former public defender, she clerked for Judge Thelton Henderson. Her new book is The Price of Mercy: Unfair Trials, a Violent System, and a Public Defender's Search for Justice in America (2026).

References
Thelton Henderson, pioneering African American judge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelton_Henderson
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
Partners for Justice: https://www.partnersforjustice.org/
Clara Shortridge Foltz, pioneer of public defender system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Shortridge_Foltz

About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/keen-on-america/id1448694012 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4MvPXVxAI8u5LtMJIr4S1b

Chapters:
00:00:00 Introduction: Thelton Henderson
00:02:22 Has anything changed since the 1960s?
00:03:31 Why isn't there more outrage?
00:05:46 Michelle Alexander and the New Jim Crow
00:08:52 Why is the system this way?
00:10:49 Democrats vs. Republicans on criminal justice
00:13:14 Breaking the cycle of poverty and criminalization
00:16:53 Crime is actually going down
00:19:15 Peeing on your stoop is a sex crime
00:19:59 Women in the system: failure to protect
00:23:09 Moving past punishment
00:26:06 Nobody wants to marginalize the police
00:28:16 Black Lives Matter and the march toward justice
00:29:32 The Minneapolis killings
00:33:04 Two Americas: Epstein and cash bail
00:39:10 Can technology help?
00:41:20 The price of mercy