Ideas PT 2 | An injustice system where 'you can buy your way out'
Jan 30, 2026
Guest
Joshua Seeley Harrington
Guest
DiNardo (Donato) Jones
Guest
Crystal Lehman
Guest
Marcel Wilson
Guest
Ed Hertrick
Guest
Mitchell Stewart
Joshua Seeley Harrington, law professor who studies how legal institutions preserve inequality. DiNardo Jones, criminal defence lawyer and law professor on legal aid and prosecutorial power. Crystal Lehman, Beaver Lake Cree Nation advisor on treaty-rights litigation barriers. Marcel Wilson, community organizer who left organized crime. Ed Hertrick, formerly incarcerated author sharing lived justice-system experience. Mitchell Stewart, investigative reporter and narrator. They discuss unequal access to lawyers, plea pressure, cost barriers to litigation, and limits of colonial courts.
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From Regent Park To Decades Behind Bars
- Ed Hertrick grew up in Regent Park and entered drug dealing as a teenager to survive poverty and hunger.
- He spent decades cycling through arrests, long incarcerations, and violent prisons that hardened him rather than rehabilitated him.
Pretrial Detention Forces False Pleas
- Donato Jones shows how pretrial detention pressures accused people into guilty pleas even when innocent.
- Limited legal aid hours and denied bail create a system that trades fairness for expediency and finality.
Privilege That Buys Legal Immunity
- Marcel Wilson left home young, learned violence as survival, and rose into organized crime using street skills and connections.
- Despite dozens of charges, Marcel rarely faced convictions because he could afford high-end lawyers who repeatedly got him off.
