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Sister Helen Prejean -- author of Dead Man Walking -- (donate at sisterhelen.org/donate ) joins Fairfax criminal lawyer / Virginia DUI lawyer Jonathan Katz and Severna Park, Maryland criminal defense attorney Christopher Flohr about defending those charged with capital crimes and other alleged offenses, humanizing the accused, abolishing the death penalty, pouring our caring and souls into helping criminal defendants, persuading through gripping storytelling, overcoming burnout, enlivening hope, and keeping the fire burning.

When Jon Katz first met Sister Helen over thirty years ago, walking up to her with a question about abolishing capital punishment, she drew his soul and forearm to her center and focused Jon on keeping our eyes on the prize of ending the death penalty.

Sister Helen has stayed with death row inmates right through the points of their state-sponsored killings. She knows the possibility of changing anyone to becoming a better person and to being persuaded to do right. She has been at this for decades.

This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMM6l1uu7ns

This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at info@KatzJustice.com, 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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Some remarkable people walk among us. One of them is sujatha baliga (spelling her name without capitalization), who greets people with "warm hellos." sujatha is a leader in restorative justice, a practitioner of mindfulness, and a self-described (at least at one point) survivor of childhood sexual abuse by her father. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz first learned about sujatha several years ago through her combination of being a lawyer involved with mindfulness and restorative justice.

As sujatha explains, with restorative justice, the focus is not on what law was broken, but who was harmed, what the harmed person needs, and who has the obligation to meet those needs. For instance, here sujatha movingly talks about an impasse broken when the subject of a car theft and attendant $4000 loss learned that the person who caused the theft was an artist, and she agreed to resolve the matter by his creating a Tinkerbell image for her.

Jon thanks his longtime friend and fellow criminal defense lawyer Christopher Flohr for suggesting asking sujatha about the effectiveness of restorative justice when sex offenses are alleged. The story sujatha tells of the transformation of a sexual assault victim participating in an intensive restorative justice proceeding, ultimately hugging her alleged assailant, is even more remarkable than the above Tinkerbell story.

sujatha's transformation away from anger is remarkable after her father sexually abused her as a child, and after she was beaten up in school when the only student of color in a small community. At one point, sujatha wanted to be a prosecutor, but her time in India and ultimate first meeting with the Dalai Lama transformed her to the path of being a public defender lawyer. (Listen to how she would effectively cross examine a child accuser in criminal court.)

You can meet and learn from sujatha at her in-person Spiritual Fitness program starting April 11-12, 2026. in Richmond, California. On various Monday evenings, she leads meditation gatherings. Stay tuned for sujatha's first book due for publication this year, Angry Long Enough, by One World/Penguin Random House.

This episode is also available on YouTube.

This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at info@KatzJustice.com, 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675

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In 1971, Mirabai Bush traveled to India, and found more than she bargained for. Fairfax criminal lawyer Jonathan Katz would hear about Mirabai over the years, through her being a devotee of the late Neem Karoli Baba / Maharaji, being among the teachers at the annual Maui retreats with Ram Dass, and finally by my meeting her at the 2015 Mindful Leadership conference.

In this Beat the Prosecution podcast episode, Jon Katz talks with Mirabai about her decades-long journey with mindfulness, love, service, empowering women, racial justice and much more, including discussing her 2025 book Almost Home: Dharma, Social Change, and the Power of Love. By the end of this one hour interview, Jon wanted to talk about much more with Mirabai, including such matters covered in her book Almost Home as the Seva Foundation, which was started to reverse blindness among millions of people; her role in developing Google's Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI); her involvement with Naropa University in its infancy; her connection to the Doors' John Densmore; and her involvement with The Well online community.

Many lawyers are involved with mindfulness, and Jon Katz has attended two long weekend mindfulness retreats, the last one being silent except for group discussions and question and answer periods, at the Garrison Institute. Mirabai's work has included bringing mindfulness to lawyers and law students.

Mirabai's initial view about how lawyers can help themselves is through genuinely listening, and through compassion. The listening part is a key to Jon's daily taijiquan martial art. The compassion is not only about compassion to opponents -- still necessitating being merciless to the opposition when needed in serving justice -- but also compassion for one's self.

This episode is also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSBB8UiPgo

This podcast with Fairfax, Virginia criminal / DUI lawyer Jon Katz is playable on all devices at podcast.BeatTheProsecution.com. For more information, visit https://KatzJustice.com or contact us at info@KatzJustice.com, 703-383-1100 (calling), or 571-406-7268 (text).

If you like what you hear on our Beat the Prosecution podcast, please take a moment to post a review at our Apple podcasts page (with stars only, or else also with a comment) at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beat-the-prosecution/id1721413675