Josh Dubin: Civil rights and wrongful-conviction attorney who runs the Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law and formerly worked with the Innocence Project. He specializes in post-conviction work, exonerations, clemency, and forensic-science integrity.
What this episode covers
Dubin recounts a string of harrowing cases: the Perlmutters' stolen-DNA defamation trial that won a $50M verdict, Nelson Cruz's 26 years served on a frame-up by notorious Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella, and an Albanian green-card holder facing deportation 51 years after a near-self-defense conviction. He details how corrupt cops and prosecutors enjoy qualified immunity while true killers go free, and how clemency is arbitrary, citing Governor DeSantis reversing on Michael Giles and Trump commuting Larry Hoover. The back half turns into a wide-ranging Rogan riff on the history of marijuana criminalization, drug legalization, and psychedelic and breathwork therapies. It closes with boxing talk about the Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul fight.
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Revenge of the Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
“Malcolm Gladwell just published a new book called Revenge of the Tipping Point, and I'm only like 15 pages in.”— Joe Rogan
Tell Your Children
Alex Berenson
“Alex Baronson wrote about this in a book uh called I think it's called tell your children um and he highlights the instances of people that have schizophrenic breaks”— Joe Rogan
Breath
James Nestor
“there's a bunch of different styles of breathing that um like James Neestor writes about some of these in his book Breath.”— Joe Rogan
Tylenol
Johnson & Johnson
“She kept taking Tylenol and didn't understand that you just you can't there's a an amount you can take and you should never take more than that.”— Joe Rogan
DraftKings
DraftKings
“one of our sponsors is DraftKings online gambling. Uh, I think you should be able to gamble. I don't have a problem with it.”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- Dubin won a $50 million defamation verdict for Ike and Lori Perlmutter after a neighbor secretly stole their DNA at a staged deposition.
- Nelson Cruz was framed by Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella, whose work has had 21 convictions vacated.
- The judge who ruled against Nelson Cruz resigned with advanced-stage Alzheimer's and never took the bench again.
- Nelson Cruz served about 26 years and is still trying to prove his innocence after parole.
- DeSantis told the family Michael Giles would get clemency, then reversed his decision at the last second for no stated reason.
- The prosecutor who tried Giles entered a DOJ agreement over a memo tying harsher punishment to being Hispanic.
- Larry Hoover, 75, had his federal sentence commuted by Trump but was immediately taken into Colorado state custody.
- Dubin reveals Jelly Roll received a full pardon from the Governor of Tennessee that same day.
Worth remembering
- Telling a forensic analyst who the suspect is can spike fingerprint error rates by over 80%.
- Once an exoneration identifies the true killer, law enforcement very rarely goes back to prosecute that person.
- A bill called the Safer Supervision Act reportedly has 80% support among MAGA voters per Trump's own pollster.
- Acetaminophen (Tylenol) is responsible for at least 500 deaths a year, often from overdose causing liver failure.
- Joe claims marijuana's LD50 is so high the only way to die from it is a 50-lb package falling on your head.
- Joe attributes US marijuana criminalization to a conspiracy by William Randolph Hearst protecting his paper mills from hemp.
- The Centennial Light, a bulb in a California firehouse, has burned continuously since 1901, about 120 years.
- DMT is produced naturally in the human body; ayahuasca pairs it with an MAO inhibitor to make it orally active.
- Anthony Joshua opened as a minus-10,000 favorite over Jake Paul (bet $1,000 to win $100).
- Dubin credits EMDR therapy with teaching him more about himself than any psychedelic and says it 'literally saved' him.