Presiding Over Shadows: From Chaos to Order in the Court with Author and Judge Michael Randazzo.

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Okay, we are alive. How does William Ramsey. Welcome to
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William Ramsey Investigates on today's show. I have a very
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special guest. His full name is Judge Michael Brandazzos. Last
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name is called Ari N d a zz He's just
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published a book September twenty twenty five. Full full title
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of it is Presiding Overshadows from Chaos to Order in
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the Court and he is a judge and it's a
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really interesting book. I got about halfway through it. Highly
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recommend it. It just came out on Amazon in the US,
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so you can get a kindle, audiobook, paperback or hardcover.
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And there's a lot of information here that's pretty unique,
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pretty different trajectory as somebody who is still a lawyer
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inactive however, but it's kind of a unique. So we
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all a lot of lawyers have kind of a unique
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backstory getting all the way to the law and passing
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the bar practicing, so his is definitely unique, which he's
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going to share anyway. Welcome to the show, Judge Michael Randzzel.
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Thank you so much first for having me. I can
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appreciate that you're a lawyer but not in practice anymore.
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There are lots of lawyers.
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There's a lot of lawyers.
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Yeah, lots of lawyers, and lots of lawyers ended up
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that way.
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I'm sorry. I had a momentary lapse there where I
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couldn't didn't have a feed coming in.
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I'm sorry.
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And my path is absolutely unique to the bench, frankly,
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because I never should have been I think, against the odds,
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I even am alive today. But much more important, I've
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been able to thrive in not such great conditions and
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certainly conditions that if I had it, my way would
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have changed. Early in my life. A lot of struggles,
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lots of sort of personal torment, and frankly, a lot
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of things that I was I inherited that I had
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no control over, that I had to overcome.
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Right, And it goes back kind of like you or
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it's definitely a story of an attorney, your book, but
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it's also a memoir about your family history, going kind
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of pretty far back in your family tree, right.
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Absolutely, And I described the book not necessarily as a
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book about me, but it's our book.
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It's a book about us.
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Just going back to why this book even began or
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sort of how this project started. My grandpa, who was
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my hero, he died a couple of years ago. He
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was a great storyteller. He knew how to just really
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weave together a perfect story, and you would always take
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something away from that. And those stories were going to
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get lost, and I did the very best I could
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to preserve some of the things that he told me,
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some of the things I knew myself, and I wanted
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to preserve those in some form. Started out as just
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a word document on my computer. It was something I
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was going to leave to my children someday to say, Hey,
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these are some things about our family that you don't know,
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or that you might not know. Because I know that
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they remember my grandpa in one way. You know that
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he was just a larger than life guy that they
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just loved. But I also wanted to make sure that
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they knew that he wasn't perfect, and that really is
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was the genesis of this book. I just kept writing,
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writing and writing, writing things that I thought were important
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to our story, but more importantly, things that shaped my life,
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things that sort of shaped my trajectory, and also important
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lessons for them to learn that you can't overcome even
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sometimes the most dire circumstances.
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Right, would you be the same person that you are
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today without those challenges to overcome. Maybe as an important question,
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but you sat down. You were brought into the circuit
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court in Missouri in the beginning of twenty twenty one.
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Is that right?
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That's right. Prior to that, I'd worked as a prosecuting attorney.
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I'd worked as a public defender at one point, and
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built a reputation up sort of, I believe, a reputation
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for being ethical and doing the jobs that I was
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elected to do. And the judge that was in my
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position before me, he was leaving the bench. It was
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an open spot, and so I threw my name in
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the ring, worked really really hard during that election cycle.
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I was a lawyer, coming from the smallest county in
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our circuit, and so I had to not just be
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a you know, a politician, but I had to outwork
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everybody else that was working maintain a law practice and
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you know, I was a prosecutor at that time, and
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maintain all of those cases that I still had, you know,
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shuffling jury trials with election events and just a lot
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of time was spent really reaching voters.
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Gotcha. So, so you've been a judge for four years.
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This book started what ten years ago, you said.
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Really started in twenty twenty two. I had some stories
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written down before that, but the real start of this
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book was twenty twenty two. When I just started my
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grandpa died. It was a little therapeutic to me just
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writing down some of the third stories. They maybe laughed
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at times, they made me cry at times, and eventually
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this became something more than just some file I wanted
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to just hand over my kids.
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There were real lessons to be learned.
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I thought in this book, or what was going to
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be a book, and I let some people read it
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and they agreed. Frankly sent it to the only publisher
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that I knew of, and got an almost an immediate
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response from the CEO that said, we're going to publish this.
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Awesome. That's great, and you're kind of unusual, Like I
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don't think you come from a family of academics, Is
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that right?
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Not at all?
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In fact, I was the first person in my family
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to even graduate high school. Oh wow, No one had
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ever been to college. I had to do all that
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on my own. All of those things were going to
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be my projects, my things. My family had always done
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other things, usually breaking the law. If I'm being Frank.
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But I knew that I wanted something different in my life,
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and to be honest, education was my savior.
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That's great. So you got to I think you grew
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up in Missouri too, where you currently work. Right.
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Yeah, so I grew up about fifteen minutes from where
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I live right now. I've never lived anywhere further than
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that in my life. I commuted to undergrad in Saint Louis,
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which was about an hour and a half north of
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where I live, and commuted to law school in Saint
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Louis for a simple fact that I couldn't afford to
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live there. I had to live where I could live,
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where it was rent controlled. It was money that I
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knew I could at least make doing some side jobs
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or doing some things working for my grandfather, and made
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enough to get by. Struggled very mightily, but somehow graduated
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from undergrad and then went to law school. Struggled in
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law school. There are stories in the book about my
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struggles in law school. In fact, at one point I
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had made the decision to drop out. Oh wow, somehow
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completed law school, salvaged some grades, finished in the top
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half of my law school class, and I passed the
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Missouri Bar. On the first try.
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I didn't get to take.
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Any law review courses or any of the kind of
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commercial available sort of assistant devices to pass the bar.
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I got a Barbarie. I think Barbarie, Barbary. It was Barbarie.
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That's that's exactly the one that almost everyone took. I
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didn't have the money to take it. I found somebody
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who had taken it previously. They let me borrow their books.
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I borrowed, I used those books, I studied as hard
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as I could, did my own review, and somehow passed
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the bar the first time.
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That's always a relief, right when you get that relief
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that you actually passed. I remember that's a day that
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seered into my memory. It was a call in in California.
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This is art.
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Yeah, yeah, mine was a got. I did get to
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check a website that had all of the bar grads
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and I found my name. So I didn't really know
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what I was going to do after that. To be honest,
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I knew that I had a license now, and the
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only job offer I had was at the Public Defender's
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office at Locally, and so I accepted and began my
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law practice there.
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And that's kind of like getting right into the trenches.
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That's the equivalent of putting out a shingle, Like you
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really get dipped right into the profession right away.
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Right absolutely.
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And I want to say something about public defenders, especially
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in Missouri that I deal with. Public defenders get a
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really bad rap. I will tell you, in Missouri, the
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Public Defender's Office is the largest law firm by number
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of lawyers that exist in our state. It is also
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the best training that I've ever been through in my life.
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And I would say that those trial attorneys in the
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Public Defender's Offices offices in Missouri at least, are the
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best trial attorneys that exist in our state. And I
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will put them up against anyone you know that that
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we have and anybody that practiced in the state. And
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so I like to clear up any misconceptions that people
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might have. And there's there's not this great public you know,
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appreciation for public defenders, and I appreciate the work that
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they do.
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Yeah, they kind of get a bad rap. They shouldn't.
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And the one thing is is that job is like
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you're getting hands on training, You're being paid to train.
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Like so many cases, I mean, especially in busy jurisdictions.
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It's just how many cases can you take? Is my understanding.
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I never worked that job, but I heard a lot
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about it.
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No, you're exactly right.
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And that's the other thing I'd like to say is
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that while they are the most competent as a whole
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group of attorneys that I've worked with, they're also very
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much overworked, and so many times they don't get to
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do the necessary things that need to happen on cases.
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You're true, really kind of just putting out fires. What's
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the biggest fire that exists right now, and how do
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I put it out and then move on to the
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next one. In that way, I got to try, you know,
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my first jury trial as a public defender right out
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of the gate. I think I tried the case the
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very first case I tried. Graduated from law school in July,
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passed the bar in September. I found out I passed
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the bar, was hired on in November, and in November
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of that year, I was trying cases jury trials.
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Wow, that's amazing. How long were you with the public
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Defender's office?
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So I was at the Public Vender's office for about
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nine months.
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During that time, I realized that I which so just
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as a as a beginning, I always wanted to be
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a defense attorney. That's all I ever thought I was
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going to be. I was going to go fight for
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the people that had been wronged and you know, protect
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their rights under the Constitution. And that's that's really the
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only plan I had. In practice, it didn't work so well,
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and so my life had changed a lot. During that time.
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I had two young children at home, and I was
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representing a man through the Public Defender's office in a
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case where he had done some really bad things to
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a child, and.
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I was just completely split.
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I was doing things professionally that, to be real honest,
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could have affected my own children's safety at home. Had
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people gotten away with things that I was defending them for,
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they could have been returned to the streets and had
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potentially accessed even my own children. And my obligations as
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a father really took over, and I knew that I
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couldn't be a public defender any longer, and so now
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what do I do with my life? This is the
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only plan I had. I was lucky enough to get
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hired on as an assistant public or assistant prosecuting attorney,
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and I began working as a prosecutor, and against what
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I really thought I wanted to be.
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I found my niche.
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That was where I wanted to be at that point,
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and that where I think God kind of pulled me to.
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I got to help a lot of victims in those
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cases and and a lot of people through the worst
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times of their lives, and that experience was the most
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rewarding thing I've ever done in practice.
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That's interesting. So you've worked both sides of the criminal
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court system. Wow, that's probably your next book. That's probably like,
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I mean, that's seeing it from both sides too. It
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is probably something else. It must have been something else
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for you. I mean, if you go back into the
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kind of the earlier parts of your family, this was
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what was what was your What were your parents thinking
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that you would become? Not a judge? What were they
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what were would they expect? What were their expectations at you?
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Well, if they would have listened from the doctors from birth.
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So I was born about a month premature. I was
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in the nick you for about the first month of
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my life, and it was kind of touch and go
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with even whether I was going to survive. But there
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was a medical consensus that even if I did survive,
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that I was going to be severely disabled, that I
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would be behind my peers physically and mentally, and that
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I was going to have a really tough life. My mom,
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I think, just refused to believe that. That's the only
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thing that I can think of in my life that
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has been a consistent support from, you know, the day one,
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and she just i think refused to believe that I
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could not be something. She used to read to me,
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and she used to read to me often, and that's
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the only thing we really had. When I was little,
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we were very dirt poor. And when I say dirt poor,
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I mean I was literally homeless when I was born.
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Both my parents were sixteen year old high school dropouts
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and not much future. Neither one of them had a job,
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we didn't have a house, and they didn't know how
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we were going to survive. One thing my mom did
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know is that she needed to do everything she could
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to help me succeed. And she's she's never relented on that,
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and that's literally been her lifelong mission. I can't think,
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you know, it comes from a spot from of love,
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certain but I can't think that my life turns out
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the way it does without without her.
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Wow, that's great. And their parents' parents like you have
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the you have some uh, there's there's some criminal backgrounds
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in some of your descendants, right, yeah.
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And so before we start talking about those things, and
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I want to talk about those but I want to
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make sure that I'm not glorifying the things that they've done,
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because the last thing I wanted to do with with
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this book and this writing is to make it look
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like I condone their actions. I really feel like people
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did some horrible things in my family, and I feel
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like by talking about them and bringing them the light
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and letting people know that these things existed, we can
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become better people in the long run. I think that
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there's some proclivity to violence that's always existed in my family.
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I feel like it was passed down to me. I
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talk of in the book pretty extensively about stuff that
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I've done, fights that I've would get into frequently. I
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was I was all the time fighting as a as
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a teenager, I always had this chip on my shoulder
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and I thought that that's the way that you just
293
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had to handle yourself in disputes, and that was kind
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of bred into me. Certainly socialized that way. My dad
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was always getting into fights. Even after I I was
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an adult, my dad was still getting into fist fights
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in his forties.
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Wow.
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My grandfather was sort of the same way. In fact,
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one of the stories I tell, which which is a
301
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sort of a lighthearted story, and it, you know, it
302
00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:30.960
kind of portrays him in the way that he was
303
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not at all humble man. But my grandfather he fought
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a bear. He fought a grizzly bear, and you know,
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that's one of those stories that I'm really proud of.
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But in a way, you know, I was trying to
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show that he did he didn't even believe that there
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was a match for him in the animal kingdom, much
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less humor and uh, going back even a generation before that.
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So my great grandfather, my great grand grandfather, Joe Randazzo,
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who by all accounts was a great family manlater in
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his life people just adored him, but he was part
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of the Italian mafia. Him and my great uncle Mike
314
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That's who I'm named after, is Michael Binigno, that was
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his brother in law, and they were Mafioso's. One of
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the things that happened in our family though, was that
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there was stories going around about what they did. So
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my great grandfather Joe, he was gone in prison for
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some time, and the family story has always been that
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he got caught stealing apples and he went to prison
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for stealing apples. Now, you and I both know a
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little bit about the judicial system, and even before I
323
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went to law school, my undergrad was in criminology and
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criminal justice. So I started to really question some of
325
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these stories that had just been thrown about in my family.
326
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That was one that I questioned really heavily. Didn't make sense.
327
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The punishment didn't fit the crime, and so I just
328
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started doing some digging and I found some archives. I
329
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found some newspaper articles and some discussions about my great
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grandpa Joe, and he was he did steal some apples
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one time and got fine for it. That that was
332
00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:09.559
a true story. But he was also a heroin mule
333
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for the Saint Louis outfit, the Saint Louis Mafia, and
334
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you know, he he was actually excommunicated at one point.
335
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It was the only time that I know of personally
336
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that someone was actually let out of the mafia without dying,
337
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because it was it was death was the only way
338
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out and to them. He really died about as close
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to a physical death as he could. He was completely
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cut off from any communications. He couldn't discuss anything that
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had happened previously, couldn't even have any contact with any
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family members that still remained in and it really changed
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his life. Now that happened before my grandfather actually had
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a chance to join. And my grandfather, even on his deathbed,
345
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told me that that's one of his regrets of his
346
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life is that he never got to be a real mobster.
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That's what he thought was the family business, and he
348
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thought that he was the heir apparent, or he should
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have been, you know, invited in, and he never got
350
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a chance to Now. I will say also that one
351
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of the things that he also discussed with me is
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that even though he really desired to do that, he
353
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wouldn't have changed it because he knows that would have
354
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changed the way that I turned out. And so, amongst
355
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a lot of flaws that you know, he's had, my
356
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grandpa was very proud of the way that I ended up.
357
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Great story I tell in the book. You know, probably
358
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the most proud that I can remember him ever being
359
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of me was the day we got my election results
360
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and I became a judge, and this was the first
361
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time that I think that Randazo was actually we're going
362
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to stand on the other side of the law and
363
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really changed the trajectory of our of our family. And
364
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I think he felt that moment in the same way
365
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that I did. And that was you know, that was
366
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in and of itself, was the change that my family needed.
367
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But I think he felt it and I'm glad that
368
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he got to feel that before his death.
369
00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.160
It's kind of a long arc for your family because
370
00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:05.519
you trace your ancestry back to Sicily, right where like
371
00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:08.400
kind of the episode of a lot of stuff.
372
00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:11.279
Yeah, that's right, and that and even I, you know,
373
00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:13.279
I give a little bit of a history lesson about
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00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:16.880
how sort of the LaCOSA and Ostra, the Italian Sicilian
375
00:19:17.079 --> 00:19:19.720
mafia started and sort of how it was brought over
376
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to America, and it was really it was a necessity.
377
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It was all about protecting us, and it was actually
378
00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:31.519
the LaCOSA nostra the literal translation is our thing, So
379
00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:33.079
it was it was about us. It was how do
380
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:36.640
we protect ourselves? And that attitude sort of spilled over
381
00:19:36.680 --> 00:19:39.440
into my family. We didn't talk about these things openly.
382
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.079
All of the things that are discussed in this book
383
00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:46.839
are really sort of against the things that I've that
384
00:19:46.920 --> 00:19:49.599
have been brought the morals that I've been brought up with.
385
00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:51.759
You don't talk about family, you don't talk about the
386
00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:55.480
things that happened, You don't tell outsiders things. Family secrets
387
00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:59.519
remain family secrets. I've seen in practice, especially as a
388
00:19:59.519 --> 00:20:02.079
prosecutor and a judge, and even as a defense attorney,
389
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:05.319
I've seen in practice the horrible things that happen when
390
00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:08.839
you keep those secrets. And in a way, my belief
391
00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:10.960
is that if I get these things out there, it's
392
00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:14.119
in some way sort of washing this next generation of
393
00:20:14.119 --> 00:20:18.720
those sins. I want nothing more for my children than
394
00:20:18.759 --> 00:20:20.960
for them to be able to stand upon their own merit,
395
00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:24.240
and they succeed or fail not based upon their last name,
396
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.559
but based upon what they've done in their own lives.
397
00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:31.759
And that was really out of everything else, I hope
398
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:34.279
this book would be. That was my hope for it.
399
00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:38.200
Yeah, that's great. One of the interesting things about the
400
00:20:38.279 --> 00:20:40.720
Coast of Nostra is all that it's really almost comes
401
00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:45.440
out of medievalism, like it's because there's no outside force
402
00:20:45.559 --> 00:20:47.519
to protect you. You had to be tight, and it's
403
00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:51.960
almost feels like it's ancestral going back centuries, like reading
404
00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:55.160
not just your book, but other books too, like this tradition.
405
00:20:56.039 --> 00:21:00.240
But it's great that it's changed. So but you also
406
00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.960
they were involved in a lot of different things like
407
00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:05.000
counterfeiting heroine.
408
00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:06.519
Yeah.
409
00:21:08.079 --> 00:21:10.640
Yeah, lots of those stories are in the book. But
410
00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:13.839
absolutely all the things you just said, and even some
411
00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:17.119
worse things, not just the Randazo side of my family,
412
00:21:17.160 --> 00:21:23.440
who you know that they're the Sicilian Tiede portion, the
413
00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.559
other grandparents that I have, other ancestors that I have,
414
00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:29.400
even my own father. They've done some really bad stuff too.
415
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:35.240
My great grandfather, there's a story in the book about
416
00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:38.440
what I thought he was his whole entire life, and
417
00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:42.119
at the end of his life he was convicted for
418
00:21:42.599 --> 00:21:48.119
statutory asodomy on a child. Didn't see that coming, to
419
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:51.440
be frank, he was always a kind, gentle, nice man,
420
00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:54.000
and I think one of two things could have happened
421
00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:56.799
in his life. Either he was seventy nine years old
422
00:21:56.799 --> 00:21:59.400
when it happened, and either he was starting to have
423
00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:03.720
some mental line and he probably should have been institutionalized
424
00:22:03.759 --> 00:22:07.759
for that, or he was we call it usually a
425
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:10.039
wolf in sheep's clothing, and those are the worst type
426
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:12.240
of offenders. Someone that can that can be that on
427
00:22:12.279 --> 00:22:15.920
the outside but also be something different when no one's looking.
428
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:20.400
And it was one of those two things. And you know,
429
00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:22.119
I tried to portray that as best as I can
430
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.519
in the book. I know the prosecutor that prosecuted him,
431
00:22:25.319 --> 00:22:27.400
I found him would be an ethical and respectable guy.
432
00:22:28.400 --> 00:22:30.839
I don't think he made up a case against my
433
00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:33.880
grandfather or set him up in any way. I also
434
00:22:34.680 --> 00:22:37.839
an irony that exists is that I'm the Division two
435
00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:40.599
Circuit judge for the forty second Judicial Circuit, and that
436
00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:43.400
very division, literally the judge that said in my seat
437
00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:46.319
before me is the one who sent us into prison.
438
00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:52.799
So you know, the title is really fitting. Those are
439
00:22:52.799 --> 00:22:56.960
the shadows over which I preside, right and.
440
00:22:57.119 --> 00:22:59.039
Some of the cures in the violence too, Like it
441
00:22:59.079 --> 00:23:03.160
seems like you a lot of kind of culturally traditional,
442
00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:08.079
maybe more violent than the standard family. Would you agree
443
00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:08.240
with that?
444
00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:10.519
Absolutely? It's the way we settle disputes.
445
00:23:10.680 --> 00:23:13.559
If somebody messed with you, you handled it with your fists,
446
00:23:13.759 --> 00:23:16.960
and then that's just what happened. And in fact, I
447
00:23:18.279 --> 00:23:21.160
got myself into trouble a couple different times in my life.
448
00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:25.160
One time in high school, serious trouble, almost got kicked
449
00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.119
out of high school, got expelled for the whole year,
450
00:23:27.160 --> 00:23:31.240
almost and cost myself a chance of being the valedictorian
451
00:23:31.279 --> 00:23:35.839
for my class, may have cost myself some scholarships that
452
00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:39.839
I would have gotten otherwise. But I realized at some
453
00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:42.759
point that there was this pattern that existed in our family,
454
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:46.119
and it was there's this proclivity to not just commit violence,
455
00:23:46.119 --> 00:23:48.880
but to not have the restraint to not stop yourself
456
00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:54.960
from doing it. And I recognized that pattern, luckily soon enough,
457
00:23:55.119 --> 00:23:56.920
but I was headed down that same path.
458
00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:01.079
Your dad, like he seemed to get from a very
459
00:24:01.160 --> 00:24:04.079
early age, getting a lot of scraps, a lot of fighting.
460
00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:07.680
Him always always, and in fact I today, I will
461
00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:12.440
tell you just the honest opinion about him today, if
462
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:14.920
somebody challenges him, there's going to be a fight. He's
463
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:19.200
almost sixty years old, and I guarantee you if he
464
00:24:19.240 --> 00:24:21.720
feels like he's wrong, he's going to try to fight,
465
00:24:21.839 --> 00:24:24.160
even at sixty.
466
00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.759
Wow, it's just that mentality. I've seen it in other
467
00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:30.519
people too. It's really something else. What other kind of
468
00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:34.240
family dynamics do you think, like influenced you to kind
469
00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:36.759
of go that right way, go the straight and narrow path.
470
00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:43.240
Again, my mom was just this relentless force at times
471
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:47.799
in my life that she would not accept me becoming
472
00:24:47.880 --> 00:24:52.519
what all of those previous generations have became. And you know,
473
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:57.720
to the point where we had arguments about things that
474
00:24:57.799 --> 00:25:00.400
I was doing, and she was always right. I was not,
475
00:25:01.079 --> 00:25:03.119
but sure enough to realize that she was giving me
476
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:07.759
good advice. But the reality of the situation was she
477
00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:10.839
always wanted what was best for me. She shared some
478
00:25:10.880 --> 00:25:15.039
stories about her life at some points, she and I
479
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:17.319
share those in the book. And she's had a hard
480
00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:20.920
life too. I'm not trying to minimize, you know, her struggles.
481
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:23.319
In fact, I try to really put those on display.
482
00:25:23.720 --> 00:25:26.119
Shared some stories with her permission about things that she
483
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:34.759
went through, sexual assault, suicide, attempts, and just overall a
484
00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:38.200
lack of guidance in her own life. And somehow, and
485
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:40.000
I don't I don't know where, I don't know how
486
00:25:40.119 --> 00:25:42.559
where it came from. I want to believe that, you know,
487
00:25:42.599 --> 00:25:45.960
it's somewhat divine. I mean, I think it's God inspired.
488
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:47.559
She was in the right place at the right time
489
00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:50.240
in my life. And there's been multiple instances in my
490
00:25:50.279 --> 00:25:53.200
life that that's happened. People are brought into my life
491
00:25:53.240 --> 00:25:56.440
at certain times, and you know, for with no other
492
00:25:56.480 --> 00:25:58.160
reason to be there, no other reason to do the
493
00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:01.480
things that they did, and they did those things and
494
00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:05.039
it benefited me, And had it not been for those benefits,
495
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:06.920
I certainly don't end up where I'm at today.
496
00:26:08.519 --> 00:26:10.880
Right. And you kind of kept the family tradition about
497
00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:14.119
having children in your teens, right, that you were the
498
00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:17.359
offspring of teenage parents too, right, I didn't.
499
00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:21.119
So just going back at each generation, there's not a
500
00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:24.119
generation in my family that was not a teenage parent.
501
00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:25.039
Wow.
502
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.319
My wife had a child very young before I was
503
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:34.440
with her, and so when I really got serious in
504
00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:37.119
a relationship with her, I really became a father.
505
00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:37.680
At that point.
506
00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:39.519
I was seventeen years old and she had a son,
507
00:26:39.559 --> 00:26:42.039
and I was taking on really a step son at
508
00:26:42.039 --> 00:26:45.640
that point, and that was part of the package greatest
509
00:26:45.640 --> 00:26:49.160
decision I've ever made in my life. But it was
510
00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:51.279
a tough decision to make as a seventeen year old
511
00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:55.319
who wasn't too sure what I wanted in life, but
512
00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:59.200
knew that I needed something to ground me. And I
513
00:26:59.240 --> 00:27:01.559
found the right woman at the right time. She's the
514
00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:04.400
right kind of tough and tender. She calls me out
515
00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:08.279
whenever I need it. And even even with regard to
516
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:10.279
the book, you know, I was talking about the story
517
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:12.359
with my grandpa and about how he was not humble,
518
00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:14.839
and about how I always felt that I was pretty
519
00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:16.880
humble about the things that I've done in my life.
520
00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:18.839
And then she had to remind me that, you know,
521
00:27:18.920 --> 00:27:21.839
you did write a book about yourself, you know, while
522
00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:24.200
she's saying in your hum and you're so vain in
523
00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.519
the background, you know, I mean, she she has the
524
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:28.920
ability to do that, and I love her for that.
525
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:31.000
You know.
526
00:27:31.039 --> 00:27:33.519
It's interesting. My daughter's in college and two of her
527
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:36.880
roommates left and got married in their teens, and they
528
00:27:36.880 --> 00:27:42.160
were the offspring of teen you know romance. You know,
529
00:27:42.200 --> 00:27:44.240
parents who had who got married in their teens too,
530
00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:47.079
So it's still kind of happening today. It's pretty incredible.
531
00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:49.640
Yeah, I think that's cyclical.
532
00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:52.200
I think that that's that is something that it's either
533
00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:54.440
acceptable or it's not in a family, and when it is,
534
00:27:55.400 --> 00:27:57.359
you don't know any better, so you don't do any better.
535
00:27:57.400 --> 00:27:59.559
And that that's that's kind of this moral of a
536
00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:03.000
young part My life is I didn't know better, and
537
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.359
so if if I didn't know better, how could I
538
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:07.519
do better? And then at some point I did know
539
00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:10.640
better and I had to start making choices. I know
540
00:28:10.799 --> 00:28:14.200
better now, but these are the things my family say acceptable.
541
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:17.640
Do I believe it's acceptable? And I had to form
542
00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.839
my own opinions about those things. And luckily, you know,
543
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:25.160
for me, I started really independently thinking about life and
544
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:29.839
about choices, and it's done me well in my career
545
00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:30.279
so far.
546
00:28:31.319 --> 00:28:33.680
And you're kind of you were both kind of boosted
547
00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:36.799
in your life by influential kind of like sports and
548
00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:38.240
teachers too. Right.
549
00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:41.680
Absolutely, I have one teacher that she stood by me
550
00:28:41.759 --> 00:28:44.200
no matter what. I would have dropped out of high
551
00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:48.160
school had it not been for her, Miss Pinkly. She's
552
00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:51.440
you know, she's always kept me grounded as well, sort
553
00:28:51.480 --> 00:28:55.160
of like my wife. They have very similar personalities. She
554
00:28:55.240 --> 00:28:56.880
would call me out when I was out of line.
555
00:28:57.519 --> 00:28:59.880
One of the things that recently she even did is
556
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:02.720
I delivered her a book. It was something that I
557
00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:05.759
felt was very appropriate for me to do. She's talked
558
00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:08.680
about in the book a little bit, and I brought
559
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.400
her a book. I got to hand it to her
560
00:29:10.480 --> 00:29:12.319
and it was sort of this surreal moment and I
561
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:15.079
was just so looking forward to this. She gets her
562
00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:17.880
hands on it and she says, you know, Mike, I'm
563
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:20.240
proud of you, but I gotta be honest. You're the
564
00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:22.240
kid that I had that I least thought was likely
565
00:29:22.279 --> 00:29:26.000
to write a book. You were a terrible writer. And
566
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:27.440
you know, she was honest.
567
00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:27.880
Even then.
568
00:29:28.519 --> 00:29:30.480
She's given me a little feedback since she's read it,
569
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:34.160
and I think that she's somewhat impressed, although I still
570
00:29:34.160 --> 00:29:36.680
don't know if she'll admit it to me. She always
571
00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:39.880
had my best interest in mind. She got me into college.
572
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:42.640
She actually helped me get a full ride scholarship to
573
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:46.440
where I wasn't out of pocket, which would all been
574
00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:49.599
impediments to me doing anything in life. I didn't even
575
00:29:49.640 --> 00:29:51.519
know how to get into college, much less write an
576
00:29:51.599 --> 00:29:55.000
essay to try to get a scholarship, or what those
577
00:29:55.039 --> 00:29:57.839
scholarships might mean, or where to apply or how to apply,
578
00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:01.440
or how to get the cost way for those scholarship applications,
579
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:03.720
because I didn't have the money to pay for And
580
00:30:03.799 --> 00:30:06.119
she did all those things at a time in my
581
00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:07.720
life where I needed the most.
582
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:12.880
Help getting out of college or graduate school debt free
583
00:30:12.960 --> 00:30:15.559
is a huge benefit these especially these days.
584
00:30:16.279 --> 00:30:18.200
So well, I didn't get out, I didn't get out
585
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:19.799
of law school debt free, but I did get through
586
00:30:19.799 --> 00:30:20.640
college debt free.
587
00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:25.359
Because kudos to miss Pinkley or wherever you are, Miss Pinkley.
588
00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:28.880
What a personal question is, what's it like running for
589
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:31.319
a judge ship? But you have to be elected into
590
00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:34.000
that position? Like what was that campaign? Like how did
591
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:36.960
you get started? And can you tell the audience a
592
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:37.799
little bit about them?
593
00:30:38.119 --> 00:30:40.440
Yeah, so I was. I was a prosecuting attorney before that.
594
00:30:40.519 --> 00:30:42.640
I had ran in a couple elections that I had
595
00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:45.839
to run to become a prosecutor. Those elections were different.
596
00:30:45.920 --> 00:30:48.359
You could take positions on issues. You could say, this
597
00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:50.240
is the way I'm going to prosecute crimes, these are
598
00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:52.359
the type of things I'm going to do. But running
599
00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:56.880
a judicial election is just different because of the nature
600
00:30:56.920 --> 00:31:00.400
of what they do. You can't really take positions ones
601
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:03.440
because if you do, it's going to prohibit you from
602
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:05.519
hearing those type of cases. Our potentially could prohibit you
603
00:31:05.559 --> 00:31:07.640
from hearing those type of cases on the bench because
604
00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:10.480
your mind's already made up about those things. And so
605
00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:13.039
there are some judicial ethics that we have to follow
606
00:31:13.079 --> 00:31:17.240
when we're running for judicial office. Missouri's weird because they
607
00:31:17.240 --> 00:31:19.880
say you should not be political whatsoever, but you have
608
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:22.799
to declare a political party to run as a judge.
609
00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:25.920
And it's really counterintuitive you think about it, because you
610
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:27.920
have to be affiliated with the party to really get
611
00:31:27.920 --> 00:31:30.119
your name on the ballot, and then after you do,
612
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:32.680
you have to basically say, I promise to be fair
613
00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:35.759
and impartial. That's the party line that you have to follow,
614
00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:40.039
regardless of what party has endorsed you. You have to
615
00:31:40.319 --> 00:31:43.559
literally just be probot with regard to how you're going
616
00:31:43.640 --> 00:31:48.119
to behave yourself on the bench. And that's kind of
617
00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:50.720
a struggle because voters want something to vote for, and
618
00:31:50.799 --> 00:31:53.680
when everyone's saying the same thing, they don't have a
619
00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:57.039
whole lot to go by. I kind of ran an
620
00:31:57.039 --> 00:31:59.160
election based upon the things that I had accomplished at
621
00:31:59.160 --> 00:32:03.559
that point, and basically, you know, the the way that
622
00:32:03.640 --> 00:32:07.400
I prosecuted cases was a victim centered approach. Victims had
623
00:32:07.480 --> 00:32:10.359
voices in those cases and voices in the courtroom, and
624
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:12.680
I promised I was going to bring that approach to
625
00:32:12.759 --> 00:32:15.960
the bench. I think that that separated me from the
626
00:32:15.960 --> 00:32:20.000
remainder of the candidates in my election and ultimately that
627
00:32:20.240 --> 00:32:22.839
and knocking on a lot of doors. We knocked over
628
00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.759
knocked on over ten thousand doors during that election. And
629
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:28.039
I say we, it was a very small group of people.
630
00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:33.519
It was my people, my brother Kevin, my wife, his wife,
631
00:32:33.839 --> 00:32:37.000
our kids, My mom helped, my dad helped, and my
632
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:43.160
grandpa who, even in his just failing stage of his health,
633
00:32:44.039 --> 00:32:46.279
he figured out a way to help. And even when
634
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:48.359
he wasn't held helping, you know, we get him into
635
00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:49.880
the truck and he'd drive around with us and we
636
00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:52.240
put up signs and kind of just be there for
637
00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:56.000
guidance and to bark whatever orders he could from the truck.
638
00:32:56.160 --> 00:32:56.480
And so.
639
00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:02.039
They were huge. There's no way I could have accomplished
640
00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:05.160
what I accomplished without having them during the election. That
641
00:33:05.200 --> 00:33:07.480
election was really kind of a full circle moment for
642
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.240
us too, because we were not necessarily too united as
643
00:33:11.240 --> 00:33:14.480
a family at that point. It gave us something to
644
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.720
unite around and give us something to kind of come
645
00:33:16.759 --> 00:33:20.880
back together and really to start accepting everyone's flaws. All
646
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:24.079
of us are flawed. Everyone in that group was flawed
647
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:26.759
in some way, and despite all of those things, we
648
00:33:26.759 --> 00:33:28.799
were able to work together and accomplish something that I
649
00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:30.240
think was remarkable.
650
00:33:31.799 --> 00:33:35.079
How many people voted in that election for the forty
651
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:37.599
second Circuit division.
652
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:42.039
So there's about thirty or forty five thousand voters circuit
653
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:47.359
wide in the general election that year. I want to
654
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:50.839
say that it was in the thirty thousands somewhere, and
655
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:55.519
that number actually ended up voting in the election. That
656
00:33:55.720 --> 00:34:02.440
was a big election as well for some statewide offices,
657
00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:06.039
excuse me, and there was a great turnout for especially
658
00:34:06.079 --> 00:34:08.880
for Missouri elections and rural counties. There was a great
659
00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:12.880
turnout in those counties. So lots of voters, lots of
660
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:15.440
doors we had to knock on, most of them friendly
661
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:19.360
and most of them receptive. Got to also, remember this
662
00:34:19.400 --> 00:34:21.719
was during twenty twenty and the pandemic was going on,
663
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:25.239
and so we were being discouraged with you about even
664
00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:28.639
making personal contacts with people, much less knocking on people's doors,
665
00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:32.000
and so it was a real struggle to figure out
666
00:34:32.119 --> 00:34:34.920
how we could do this. We utilized technology a lot.
667
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:37.239
I think that that's sort of the wave of the
668
00:34:37.280 --> 00:34:40.400
future anyway, but we utilized technology in the election. I
669
00:34:40.440 --> 00:34:43.400
put out some campaign videos, I put out some radio stuff,
670
00:34:44.599 --> 00:34:47.360
and really made lots of Facebook posts and posted to
671
00:34:47.400 --> 00:34:51.199
Twitter at that time and tried to just meet people
672
00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:51.800
where they were.
673
00:34:51.679 --> 00:34:58.159
At right, And so that's interesting. How long is your
674
00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:00.599
term then as a circu judge?
675
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:03.119
So circa judges are six year terms in Missouri, it's
676
00:35:03.159 --> 00:35:05.320
the longest term out of any of the offices. I'm
677
00:35:05.320 --> 00:35:08.400
thankful for that coming back up on an election next
678
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:10.840
year so I get to do it all again.
679
00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:14.599
Good fingers crossed, good luck. And also you kind of
680
00:35:14.599 --> 00:35:17.000
found out that you have kind of a rare, kind
681
00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:21.079
of modern tickborn disease. Do you mind sharing about that?
682
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:23.239
I would love to share about it.
683
00:35:23.239 --> 00:35:25.559
It's in fact, it's impact in my life enough that
684
00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:28.880
it's a whole chapter of the book, sort of some
685
00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:31.840
this divine timing that I feel like in that as well.
686
00:35:32.639 --> 00:35:36.599
But I have a disease that's called alpha gal disease
687
00:35:36.679 --> 00:35:39.639
or alpha gal syndrome. It's caused from a tick bite
688
00:35:40.280 --> 00:35:43.960
and you become allergic to the carbohydrates in mammalion meat.
689
00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:47.159
And so it sounds very bizarre, very weird. In fact,
690
00:35:47.159 --> 00:35:49.760
I didn't believe it existed whenever I was told about
691
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:53.239
it the first time. Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
692
00:35:53.360 --> 00:35:54.920
And it's a reason for to get people to not
693
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:58.320
eat red meat. Well, I was having some health issues
694
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:00.719
in my life. In fact, i'd in a full blown
695
00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:05.079
and anaphyleaxis a couple of times in front of my children, nonetheless,
696
00:36:05.239 --> 00:36:07.519
and that was one of the most devastating days of
697
00:36:07.559 --> 00:36:08.119
my life.
698
00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:11.719
I can't remove those memories from their brains.
699
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:13.679
Although if I could, I would absolutely do whatever I
700
00:36:13.719 --> 00:36:14.519
had to to do it.
701
00:36:15.800 --> 00:36:19.880
But went really really.
702
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:22.840
Downhill with my health, and in a lot of ways,
703
00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:25.320
they started questioning my own sanity. I was told by
704
00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:27.360
a lot of doctors that it was something that was
705
00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:29.440
in my own mind, that it was caused from anxiety
706
00:36:30.199 --> 00:36:36.840
are different mental disorders possibly, but that it was within
707
00:36:36.880 --> 00:36:39.920
my own mind and I was the one causing the
708
00:36:39.960 --> 00:36:43.960
health issues that I was having. For someone that earns
709
00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:47.760
their living with their brain, that that sounds devastating, and
710
00:36:47.800 --> 00:36:49.880
it was to me. I always just felt like there
711
00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:52.960
was something else missing or something else going on. I
712
00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:56.199
got assigned to a case and I served as a guardian.
713
00:36:56.199 --> 00:36:57.960
I'd lied them a guardian, I'd led them in cases
714
00:36:58.199 --> 00:37:00.480
is appointed to represent the best interests of the children.
715
00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:03.800
And I got a pointed to represent some children in
716
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:04.320
this case.
717
00:37:05.199 --> 00:37:06.000
Dad shows up.
718
00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:10.000
He tells me Mom in this case is crazy, that
719
00:37:10.280 --> 00:37:13.880
she believes that her kid was bit by a tick
720
00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:17.360
or a bug I think, he said, and that he
721
00:37:17.599 --> 00:37:20.480
can't eat red meat now, and that she's got some
722
00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:23.400
mental disorder. And to be frank, I agreed with Dad.
723
00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:26.800
At first. Mom shows up. She's very well put together.
724
00:37:26.920 --> 00:37:29.800
Mom gives me information about this. I was very skeptical
725
00:37:29.880 --> 00:37:32.239
about it the entire time. And at the end of
726
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:35.239
the conversation, she goes, they're being treated by this by
727
00:37:35.320 --> 00:37:38.440
the doctor, and she gave the doctor's name and you
728
00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:40.039
can call him if you'd like to talk to him
729
00:37:40.039 --> 00:37:43.920
about this, And so I called him, started having a
730
00:37:43.960 --> 00:37:46.519
discussion and he described it to me. He gave me
731
00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:51.880
really a really in depth understanding of the disease, and
732
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:53.960
it sounded a whole lot like what was going on
733
00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:56.519
in my life. And so I asked him about that.
734
00:37:56.679 --> 00:37:58.519
I asked him about the symptoms that I have, and
735
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:03.039
he said he invited me to come in for a visit.
736
00:38:03.320 --> 00:38:03.760
I went in.
737
00:38:03.880 --> 00:38:07.840
We did some testing and I had the same disease
738
00:38:07.840 --> 00:38:09.639
as this child did. That was in my office, and
739
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:12.679
so Mom was not crazy, and we had to have
740
00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:15.760
I had to have a conversation with Dad about the
741
00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:17.000
realities of the disease.
742
00:38:17.159 --> 00:38:19.920
And you know the.
743
00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:24.199
That to me, there there's no other way that I
744
00:38:24.239 --> 00:38:28.840
can describe that. But that's God's timing there if God
745
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:31.599
put me or or maybe those that family in the
746
00:38:31.679 --> 00:38:33.159
right place at the right time. And I think it
747
00:38:33.239 --> 00:38:35.119
saved my life because there was two times I went
748
00:38:35.159 --> 00:38:37.960
in a full blown a a A fleaxis. I discussed
749
00:38:37.960 --> 00:38:41.079
it in the book, but I believe that I was
750
00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:42.760
pretty close to checking out.
751
00:38:43.079 --> 00:38:45.880
Wow, So are you unable to eat red meat to
752
00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:48.840
this day? Is that it? That's the only thing that's it?
753
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:51.920
Still to this day, I can't eat red meat, and
754
00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.760
and and it wouldn't I would absolutely return to eating
755
00:38:54.800 --> 00:38:57.559
red meat today if I could. I don't want it
756
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:00.800
to be like people to think that it's because I
757
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:03.639
have some aversion to it or some some reason, you
758
00:39:03.679 --> 00:39:05.719
know that I don't believe people should eat it, because
759
00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:08.199
that's not the case. In fact, I still a hunter,
760
00:39:08.360 --> 00:39:13.440
I'm a fisher, and I've lived on wild game most
761
00:39:13.480 --> 00:39:17.159
of my life, large portion of my childhood. Had it
762
00:39:17.199 --> 00:39:21.159
not been for wild game and for not filing the
763
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:24.119
Wildlife Code the wildlife violations, my family wouldn't have ate.
764
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:28.679
We we survived on, you know, animals that were killed
765
00:39:28.679 --> 00:39:31.239
out of season and poached or whatever we could get
766
00:39:31.239 --> 00:39:33.599
our hands onto to make sure that we were fed.
767
00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:36.239
Do you think that you got the tick bite while
768
00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:37.280
you were hunting and fishing?
769
00:39:38.760 --> 00:39:39.599
I would say yes.
770
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:42.320
The doctor asked me when I went there if I
771
00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:44.239
had ever been bitten by a tick, like it was
772
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:49.039
some unique circumstance, and I was honest and said, doc,
773
00:39:49.079 --> 00:39:51.960
I've probably been bit by a tick today, and if
774
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.519
you want to look, you can probably find one on
775
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:57.639
me at this point. And so I'm I'm certain that
776
00:39:57.679 --> 00:40:00.159
it was something I was doing outdoorsy. I live in
777
00:40:00.199 --> 00:40:04.199
a very rural area surrounded by lots of forests, state
778
00:40:04.280 --> 00:40:08.800
parks and trees. Have dogs that are you know, come
779
00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:10.360
in and out of the house, and so there are
780
00:40:10.400 --> 00:40:13.239
ticks that their ticks are all over. It's just that's
781
00:40:13.239 --> 00:40:15.239
the reality of life for us. There's no way for
782
00:40:15.280 --> 00:40:18.400
me to stay away from them. But in my specific
783
00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:21.480
area of southeast Missouri, I think that we have the
784
00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:25.559
greatest concentration of alpha gal syndrome or alphagal disease of
785
00:40:25.960 --> 00:40:28.400
anywhere in the world at this point. As far as
786
00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:31.920
the concentration and ticks continue to test for it and
787
00:40:31.920 --> 00:40:35.000
continue to spread it here, so it's it's something that's
788
00:40:35.039 --> 00:40:35.840
not going away.
789
00:40:36.079 --> 00:40:39.039
Yeah, they're acknowledging a lot of these tickborn illnesses like
790
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:42.800
lyme disease and these other things that people get diagnosed.
791
00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:45.480
It's like you have mental problems or something, or you're
792
00:40:45.519 --> 00:40:48.920
making it up, or it's an off set of anxiety,
793
00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:52.039
or I don't know, but it is interesting. You are
794
00:40:52.119 --> 00:40:55.480
one of many stories I've heard recently just chatting around.
795
00:40:55.519 --> 00:40:59.039
But Judge, we are at the forty minute mark. Thanks
796
00:40:59.039 --> 00:41:01.440
for sharing your story, Andrew Book. Is there anything you'd
797
00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:03.079
like to add or anything I missed before we wrap
798
00:41:03.119 --> 00:41:04.760
it up? Uh?
799
00:41:04.840 --> 00:41:08.280
Not really, I just I I appreciate you, you know,
800
00:41:08.400 --> 00:41:11.159
giving me the outlet and coming on and discussing my
801
00:41:11.360 --> 00:41:14.079
life that you know, really the bad stuff, mainly about
802
00:41:14.079 --> 00:41:16.559
it and about how really I should have never been
803
00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:20.079
where I'm at. And I still believe that there was
804
00:41:20.519 --> 00:41:22.559
something divine, There's some reason that God put me in
805
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:25.239
the place that he did and gave me the ability
806
00:41:25.280 --> 00:41:28.119
to even accomplish anything because it looked pretty brief bleak
807
00:41:28.159 --> 00:41:32.880
from my birth throughout my childhood. But I also appreciate
808
00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:36.079
sort of your philosophy on things, at least my understanding
809
00:41:36.119 --> 00:41:38.960
of your philosophy on a lot of things is we
810
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:43.920
need to bring these bad acts to light, not glorifying them,
811
00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:47.760
not not showing, but to learn from them. And when
812
00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:49.719
we the things we do in the shadows, they always
813
00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:55.239
come to light. And I think being honest and transparent
814
00:41:55.320 --> 00:41:57.840
about those things can go a long way for us
815
00:41:57.840 --> 00:41:59.119
as as humans.
816
00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:02.320
But it's actually, you know, for judges. I'm a judge.
817
00:42:02.360 --> 00:42:05.840
I'm a young judge actually in the judiciary, and while
818
00:42:05.880 --> 00:42:09.360
our system's not perfect, I think it's the greatest one
819
00:42:09.360 --> 00:42:11.599
that's ever been created. And I think we have some
820
00:42:11.679 --> 00:42:13.960
things that we do need to change. I'm young enough
821
00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:17.000
to not only affect those changes, but see the results
822
00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:17.760
of those changes.
823
00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:19.400
And that's really what I intend to do.
824
00:42:20.599 --> 00:42:22.679
Hey Man, thanks so much for writing the book. Again,
825
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:25.559
the full title of the book is Presiding Overshadows From
826
00:42:25.599 --> 00:42:29.039
Chaos to Order in the Court, just published September twenty
827
00:42:29.119 --> 00:42:31.960
twenty five. Get it now Amazon. Like I said at
828
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:35.079
the beginning, you can get a kindle, audiobook, paperback, hardcover.
829
00:42:35.519 --> 00:42:38.679
There's a lot more in there. And again the author
830
00:42:38.840 --> 00:42:43.960
is Judge Michael Brendozzo, Ri N. D. Az CEO. So, Michael,
831
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:45.679
thank you so much for Tom really appreciate it.
832
00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:46.840
Thank you so much.
833
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:49.400
All right, stay there, stay there. Let me just try