Watch the video above from John Oliver’s Las
PART A
Watch the video above from John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on the public defenders of this country and answer the following prompts.
1. While watching the video, did any of the fact presented by John make you question the “facts” or how they were presented? That is to say, did anything he mentioned make you think “wait, what?” if so, what and why? If nothing he said sounded questionable, why do you think that is?
2. Assuming the information presented is accurate, is this the best way to disseminate these issues to the general public? Why or why not?
3. If you were the spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, how would you spin these numbers to make it look like this is not an issue and everything is fine? To put it another way, how would you make some of these damning statistics about public defenders being overworked look like a positive thing for the criminal justice system?
PART B
What is the old mindset? Who is the “We” and “Them” and what differentiates the two?
Did his video change your mindset on viewing the world in terms of “We” and “Them”?
Does that concept still apply or has it changed? How and why?