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.
The gist
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.
Big reveals
- 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.
Things 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.