Former federal prosecutor reflects on a flawed justice system | The Sound of Ideas

Laura Coates flourished in the criminal justice system as a federal prosecutor.

She achieved professional success and garnered accolades in a field where African American women like herself were woefully underrepresented.

But the further she got into her career, the more and more she began to question her actions in arguing to put people behind bars.

As a black woman, the looked at the sheer number of individuals of color that came into the courtroom, and that began to wear on her.

Laura Coates looks back at her time as a prosecutor, and those internal struggles, in a new memoir “Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor’s Fight for Fairness”.

She asks herself the difficult question of whether she was engaged in justice or whether she was guilty of “a complicity she did not intend.”

Coates recently spoke to Ideastream Public Media’s Jenny Hamel about our justice system, and why she decided to write the book, and today we hear that conversation.

But first up this hour, a conversation with Dr. Charles Modlin, Medical Director of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity at MetroHealth Medical Center.

He also has a new book out, which is a guidebook of sorts for young people. He speaks to the lessons he’s learned, and skills he’s developed and how they can be utilized to put achieve success.