First Chair
Conversations with women prosecutors who are the firsts in the justice system. First chair is that seat in the courtroom where you are the lead lawyer, the decision maker, and the voice of the voiceless. In every episode you will hear from women prosecutors and their path to triumph in the courtroom, in their offices, and in their lives. Hosted by Cynthia Nakao.
First Chair
Antonella
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Antonella is a prosecutor in the Major Crimes Division of a large, metropolitan city. She is a child of immigrants who focuses on each trial as a chance to help victims gain justice.
In this episode, Antonella expands on what motivated her to become a prosecutor. She also reflects on cases throughout her career that have touched her soul. Antonella also speaks about advice for younger or aspiring prosecutors, her experience working with co-counsel, and what motivates her.
Antonella also talks about the importance of understanding humanity in every case. Hear more about Antonella’s journey as a prosecutor in this episode.
Storyteller of human drama, child of immigrants, inspiration through the pursuit of justice. Join us in the first chair. Hello, everyone. Welcome to First Chair, where I converse with women prosecutors who are the first in the justice system. I am your host, Cynthia Nickow, a prosecutor currently in a district attorney's office where I have spent decades as an advocate, leader, and educator. First chair is that seat in the courtroom where you are the lead lawyer, the decision maker, and the voice for the voiceless. In every episode, we will hear from women prosecutors and their path to triumph in the courtroom, in the office, and their lives. I recently chatted with Antonella, a deputy district attorney in a large metropolitan city. She has been a prosecutor for over 17 years. She has been and is the first chair of many complex and violent crime prosecutions. Her success stems from her unwavering commitment to preparation and persistence. We started with why she became a prosecutor.
SPEAKER_02I think that dates back to my family coming here as immigrants. So my parents defected along with me at a very young age from a communist country. So my parents had to start their lives over essentially twice by the time we got to the United States. My dad was managing an apartment in a lower-income area that had a good amount of crime. And by virtue of him being the apartment manager and where we lived, I think I was exposed to a lot of criminal activity. And that included things like people's cars getting vandalized, burglaries, and some more serious, more violent crime, predominantly the kind of low-level crime that affected particularly low-income immigrant families, which is what most of our, you know, neighbors were. And that disdain, I think, is where my interest in criminal law came from, because it seemed like such an injustice, particularly for the community we were in. And then by the time I ended up becoming a DA, I realized that that was a fact of life for so many communities. So that's where I think it all stems from.
SPEAKER_00She then shared her career path as a prosecutor. You were previously assigned to the gang division, right? Correct. What was your next assignment after that?
SPEAKER_02So after the gang division, I worked in CAPOS, which is crimes against peace officers, a unit that does primarily attempted and murders and murders of peace officers, primarily on duty, but sometimes also off.
SPEAKER_00And after you left COPOS, where did you go?
SPEAKER_02Where I am now, where I have been for the last two years, which is the major crimes division, which handles, I would say probably the most violent cases that happen to be high profile in some way. So often it will be things like most of our cases involve multiple murders, or murders committed in particularly horrific ways, like torture cases, or they will involve victims who, for one reason or another, are high profile, uh, or defendants who, for one reason or another, are high profile.
SPEAKER_00Antonella shared the need for teamwork in the prosecution of cases. Are you normally just one prosecutor on a case in major crime?
SPEAKER_02No. A lot of it is based on what you need and to some extent what your preference is. Right now, I have some cases where I am the only prosecutor, and other cases where I have co-counsel on the case. Sometimes the co-counsel in our cases will be someone else from our unit, but often it will also be another DA from another unit. And that is encouraged so that other units can get exposure to our cases and so that we can work beyond our unit, which is a very small unit. I find them extremely beneficial and rewarding, but not for the reasons that someone would expect necessarily. It's always great to have an extra head, extra hands on a case, resource-wise, that's helpful. I think that having co-counsel allows you to have somebody on the case who has a different style than you do. You want the yin and the yang. And that's just not true for style, but also for expertise. So in one of my last cases, I had a co-counsel who is very good at basically prepping mental health expert witnesses and particularly cross-examination of defense mental health witnesses. And that was wonderful because I saw him basically prep that testimony and learned a lot of new ways to approach that and also learned by watching. And I found that that was the case every single time I did a case with another DA, I always learned something, whether it be from their style, from the way that they prep the case. I would say that I almost prefer having co-counsel now because of that.
SPEAKER_00I asked Antonella about the benefits of working with a less experienced co-counsel.
SPEAKER_02I think the key to doing a case with a younger attorney is not to treat them like a glorified law clerk. When I was first doing felony trials, one of the things that was pretty consistent with being underestimated, whether it was by the defense or sometimes even more senior DAs in the office. And I think that young attorneys who are willing and eager have a lot to offer, especially in terms of their fresh eyes on a case. I think their perspective a lot of times is probably closer to what a juror's perspective would be because you know they don't have the same years and years and years of buildup of whatever it might be. Fresh eyes make a huge difference because it can sometimes make you realize that a certain approach to a witness might be, for example, too aggressive, or, you know, that you need to be looking at some evidence in a way that you hadn't thought of before. So I love working with younger DAs, and I would love it if there was more of an opportunity to do that. And I also have worked with people who were right at my experience level, and I've worked with people who were senior to me. When I first got, for example, to the gang unit. My first case was a co-chair case, and I was by far the more inexperienced DA on it. And I was very lucky to have a senior DA who basically tried ended up trusting me and letting me take on some big responsibilities in the case. And I would say that that was probably one of the crucial aspects to basically building my confidence as a trial attorney.
SPEAKER_00We then talked about her very first trial.
SPEAKER_02The first time I was in court doing a trial would have been a DUI case.
SPEAKER_00DUI, you mean driving under the influence, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Alcohol. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It was, I remember a case where the defendant had an incredibly high blood alcohol content. The case came down to basically the presentation of expert testimony with regard to that blood alcohol content and the specifics of when that test was taken. The defendant was a very wealthy man who had private counsel, and I had no experience during trials. But going back to what I said about young DAs being eager, I prepped my case. I took my time with my forensic experts, and the case ended up having the defendant actually testified. And it was an incredible experience. The jury convicted him. It was rewarding because I got a lot of experience prepping a case, putting on expert witnesses, crossing a defendant. All in my first felony trial. And it was particularly wonderful to be thrown in the deep end of the pool and realize you can swim.
SPEAKER_00Because that's exactly what being a DA is. Antonella recalled her father's feelings about becoming a prosecutor.
SPEAKER_02You know, my parents spent every penny trying to get me the best education possible, the best opportunities possible. So when I became, when I went to civil litigation, my parents couldn't have been happier, but particularly my dad, because financially, you know, in his mind I was set. When I called my dad about, what was it, four years later to tell him I was going to the DA's office? His first question was, how much do they pay? And I tried to skirt around that question as much as I could, but inevitably had to basically tell him that I was taking essentially a 65% pay cut. And his immigrant mind could not even comprehend why I would do this. I think he feared that I would have to like live at home for the rest of my life or move back in with them. So he came to watch my first felony trial. And my dad, who's a very old school Eastern European guy who did not wear his heart on his sleeve. We walked out together after the end of the last day of trial, which lasted a whole three days. And my dad just very, you know, simply said, I get it. I get it now. And what he meant is that he understood why I made the switch. I think that speaks volumes about trials because even a spectator can understand the wealth of unique experience that you get being a criminal prosecutor that you would never see, for example, in civil litigation. And, you know, here I was leading the charge on a trial. And I think that made him incredibly proud.
SPEAKER_00And I'm sure your dad could see the passion that you've talked about being in trial, being a prosecutor, being that public servant.
SPEAKER_02Right, exactly. I I think it was a moment where tangibly some of the sacrifices paid off.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. We've talked about being in trial for the first time or whether you're in trial, you know, next week or so. Do you still get nervous?
SPEAKER_02Every single time. Every single time. I have that feeling in my stomach. It would be super strange to me if I wasn't nervous. I don't understand people who don't get nervous. I think the nerves, I when they go away, I should stop doing trials. Because I think the nerves are what keep you on your toes. The idea of did I do everything? Did I turn every stone? What are my witnesses going to say on the stand? Because no matter how much you prep, no matter how many times you've interviewed your witnesses, inevitably it never goes exactly as you expect. So yes, I I get nerves from the minute we start. And then of course, as we're waiting for a verdict, the entire time.
SPEAKER_00Yes. What is your favorite part of the trial?
SPEAKER_02I would say that it is directing witnesses, particularly, I think, civilian witnesses. Almost every case that I've had, whether it be back in the gang unit, whether it was attempted murders or more murders involving gang association, whether it was in Kapos, whether it's now in major crimes, almost every single case involves an element of human drama. And that always, inevitably, ends up reflecting in the testimony of the civilians. So directing them involves listening. Because even if you've interviewed, even if you've interviewed them many times, because what they're relaying is information related to a human drama, you cannot just have a script and expect that you can just stick to that script because they're not robots. They're people who experienced usually an incredibly traumatic event. You have to listen and adapt based on what they're saying. You know, taking the stand as a witness in a case that was an extremely traumatic event a lot of times basically brings out in people emotions that they didn't expect they were going to have.
SPEAKER_00She described the importance of listening.
SPEAKER_02And so you have to be ready for those moments and you have to be a good listener. And I think that is a skill that I, for example, really had to understand that I needed to use because I think some prosecutors, and I'll speak for myself, we're used to talking, right? We're used to talking and having people listen to us. Being a good listener means you adapt to what they're telling you, and you have to figure out when you want them to tell you more or explain more or describe more. You also have to figure out how you are going to basically ask for that. All of that, I think, is critical because you have a human on the stand relaying events that were traumatizing, and you have humans in the box, your jury, who are listening. And I think jurors make up their minds about, for example, whether somebody's credible or not based on how they feel, more so than exactly what they're hearing. I think jurors want to feel that somebody's being forthcoming. They want to feel as if they're getting to hear the real version of what happened. So I've had cases where my witnesses were people with criminal records, people with criminal cases pending, people who had themselves, for example, in some of the gang cases been involved in the crime, committed crimes.
SPEAKER_00That's a unique perspective because if you ask some most prosecutors will say closing argument or cross-examination, you are making it about the witness, allowing that witness, that civilian, to just unfold what happened to them.
SPEAKER_02My opinion is that by the time you get to closings, most jurors have a sense and a feeling about the case. And I think even the best closing is not going to change jurors' minds. Testimony like what I've just described, I mean, jurors just I think have a feeling about it, that they believe it, that it is rooted in truth. We have to get out of our own ways sometimes as prosecutors. And it took me, you know, it's not like I realized this immediately, but with every case, I realized, okay, the best moments in these cases come from civilian witnesses. Let them be the ones that have those moments with the jurors as it should be.
SPEAKER_00Antonella then described a case where a father and son were shot at a birthday party. The son, a young child, died. The facts reveal that a vital witness was the intended target of the shooting. Let's hear how Antonella dealt with this witness.
SPEAKER_02I made a strategic decision that this witness had to basically lay out his entire existence in terms of yes, he's a gang member. Yes, he has a criminal history. He basically had to base lay himself bare, and that was the only way this was going to work. His history informed so much of why he was credible. And when he got up there and basically talked about his years of membership and the things he had done, and eventually started talking about what it meant that he was taking this stand and what ramifications that would have. His testimony about the ramifications by the time he was talking about it was incredibly authentic. And so the jurors understood that he was up there basically doing this at the cost of potentially getting killed for doing it. With all of that grittiness, right? This is not a witness wrapped in a perfect bow and presented to the jury. He was the most credible he could have ever been. As opposed to the kind of testimony that is a little less dramatic, a little less human, which is like, for example, your typical gang expert, which is usually an officer who's very familiar with the gang, but that is more of a historic recitation and a little bit more robotic, as opposed to having somebody who's lived it, living it, making decisions based on that lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00You talked about this one case. Is there another case or a case that just resonates with you that you will always remember?
SPEAKER_02First of all, in the case that I was talking about, I want to go back to it for just a second with the little boy. The reason that case I will never forget is because the little boy's mom, she was very hesitant to even be involved with the case. She had had some disheartening experiences when the co-defendant had been tried. She begrudgingly agreed to come in and meet in person. And the background is that she and the father of this boy who was at the party and also got killed, they had been divorced. And so they had joint custody. And the day of the party, she had dropped off her little boy with his dad. So she came in and we met in person, and she asked if she could show me some pictures. And I didn't know exactly where she was going with this, but I, of course, said yes. And she first took out a picture of her smiling, then nine-year-old. She said, I took this picture of him before I dropped him off. And she said, This is how I saw my son when he was last alive. And then she put out a second picture, which was her little boy in the casket at the funeral. And she said, And this is the next time I saw my son. And you can't ever relate to victims of crime unless you you have somehow experienced something equally horrific. So most of us are very fortunate and have not. But there will never be another moment like that in terms of understanding the everlasting impact that violent crime has on a human being. I understood in that moment that there was nothing on earth that would ever make this right. But the reason this case stands out is because she agreed to come to the trial, even though that was incredibly difficult for her. The gang member who I had mentioned before, who had been involved and who testified, she was there for that testimony. And during his testimony, he basically had to concede that he was the target and the reasons he was the target. And after his testimony, because he was in custody, he had to be walked out of the courtroom. He had to walk basically behind where the little boy's mom was sitting observing. And he is walking behind her and he leaned over and he said, Simply, I'm sorry. And I know, because I ended up talking to her, of course, afterwards, that that moment brought her some amount of closure. You know, that acknowledgement on his part that he had some responsibility, and the fact that anyone with some responsibility took accountability, right? That moment was one of the few moments I think that she had that brought closure.
SPEAKER_00Antonella reflected on the most significant moments of her cases.
SPEAKER_02And so carrying on with that notion of a human drama, I mean, it literally unfolds so many times right there in the courtroom. And that moment, I think, is probably one of the most significant moments I've ever seen in a trial. We deal with a lot of darkness. The more serious the cases that you do are, the more violent that they are, the darker that they are by their very nature. And one of the things I've noticed is that even in the darkest cases, there are moments of light. That was a moment of light. It's not the only time I have seen that. One of the other cases that stands out to me was a case where two young men who were best friends, and when I say young, by this point they were both basically high school age. One of them was a young man whose family were immigrants, who worked, you know, his parents worked multiple jobs. His mom had started a tiny party supply business. He became really good friends with another young man from his neighborhood. And that young man did not have the same great fortune in terms of his family being very loving and involved. And so he basically ended up getting adopted for all purposes by his best friend's family. He was always over at their house. They basically considered him like a second son. And one day, these two young men are walking across a very busy intersection in their neighborhood. And at the same time, there happened to be members of a gang that claimed territory there who were looking for rivals in order to retaliate in the form of a shooting for a prior shooting. And they saw these two young men crossing the street. They presumed the young man to be a gang member. He was not. Young man multiple times. His friend managed to basically run fast enough to get away and was not shot. The young man from that immigrant family ended up basically paralyzed. He had had a scholarship waiting for him at a college in San Diego, I believe. He no longer was able to take advantage of that. His family to pay for his medical costs ended up spending so much money. I think they ended up having to close the small business that they had and so forth. By the time we went to trial, I knew that the victim's best friend was very hesitant about testifying. And the reason for that was that regardless of whether he was a gang member or not, it was very frowned upon to come to court to testify whether you're a gang member or not, basically when what's perceived to be testimony against members of any gang. And there can be retaliation for it. And so he had a very fear that's based in reality because he knew he could get hurt or killed. So one of the last times that I met with him prior to trial, it became clear to me that he was not going to be cooperative. We would be able to get him to court, but he wasn't going to testify. And he was the only eyewitness to that shooting. It was a very eye-opening thing for me because, you know, this family had taken him in. This was his best friend. And despite all of that, there didn't seem to be any tug at his heartstrings from his bond with his best friend and their family. The last time I had seen him was also, I had also seen the victim and his family. Yeah, on that date, the victim was wearing a particular sweater that just stands out in my mind now, and I'll explain why.
SPEAKER_00And then I'll explain what happened on the day the best friend testified.
SPEAKER_02So that was, let's say, like a week or two before the trial. And then the trial comes along the day that the young man's supposed to testify. And so I'll I am sitting outside the courtroom waiting for him to walk up. And prior to that day, he wasn't even coming to court with his best friend or his family. He would come in separately. He didn't even want to basically be seen in their company because of this fear that he had. And so I'm waiting and I'm waiting. And all of a sudden, I'm standing outside the courtroom and I look down the hallway and I see the man who was now paralyzed in the wheelchair, but the person pushing him is his best friend. And I noticed that his best friend, who previously had always come to court in very like super casually, right? Like a white t-shirt, jeans. He is wearing a sweater. And I recognize that as being the sweater that the victim had been wearing like two weeks before. And all of that captured everything you would need to know about the strength of their bond. There was also an element of continuity in terms of this family providing for this young man, you know, like that sweater. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he probably didn't have a sweater to wear. It was such a, again, in a very dark case that had so much negativity around it in terms of the consequences to this victim, to his family, and so forth, there was this moment of light. That young man, he ended up testifying and he testified truthfully. And it was an incredibly brave thing to do because the consequences to him were potentially very real. And so those two moments particularly stand out to me. And I think the work in the gang unit basically shows you some of the darkest aspects of life for people in communities where gang crime exists, but also shows you that there is room for and humanity and the good traits of humanity prevail despite all of that.
SPEAKER_00Those are amazing stories that just focus on human relationships, the interaction, the fear. How do you not let this get to you?
SPEAKER_02Well, you don't. I mean, it gets to you. If it didn't get to you at all, that would mean you're somehow, I don't know, robotic and completely desensitized. And then I think there's no way that you can effectively present cases that are about human drama. So it's a matter of you feel it, you allow it, you have to allow yourself to feel it, but then you you tuck it away. Right? You feel it and you tuck it away. Sometimes it's part of what drives you, right? To get justice for these people who have been so unjustly victimized. But you have to tuck it away somewhere because you don't want it to make you ineffective, right? I mean, you don't want to be overcome by it. So somehow I think you build a little space in your heart and in your mind where you tuck those stories and you call them out, you know, if you need to be reminded about why you do this, for example, um when you're sitting up at 2 a.m., you know, editing transcripts. Um and knowing you get paid incredibly less than other people with your same law degree, right? Like you, there's those are the reasons you do it. I mean, you know, those are the perks, is that you're actually involved in and making a difference in people's lives in the hardest moments of their lives. But absolutely it does, it does get to you.
SPEAKER_00Who inspires you as a prosecutor?
SPEAKER_02So going back to, you know, my parents, based on the sacrifices that they made so that I could even have the opportunity to, you know, have been in this country, gone to law school, and so forth, I think are my first inspiration. And also because of their experiences defecting from a communist country where there was effectively no such thing as a justice system, right? The way that they educated me about what a system, what that system was and why it completely failed in terms of justice, and the juxtaposition to our system, which is not perfect, but does achieve justice, I would say more often than not, I think being able to be part of a system that can always use improvement, but that is effective at achieving justice. Having come from a country and a society where that didn't exist, I think I have a huge respect for it. And that's all based on my parents. And then it's gotta be the victims in the cases, because I don't understand, in especially in some of the cases I've talked about, the very violent cases we have where mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends lose people or they themselves are victimized. I don't understand how they put one foot in front of the other, you know, for the rest of their lives. And yet I see the mom who decided to gather the strength to come to the trial and expose herself to hearing about the details of her son's death. That's inspirational. You know, if if she can gather the strength to do that, then you bet I'm going to do everything to get some justice for her, her son, you know, his father. So experiences with victims' families, I would say, are the most inspirational.
SPEAKER_00And Tonella talked about another case that touched her soul.
SPEAKER_02I had a case that involved a mom who basically had her husband killed in front of her very, very young daughters. And she was an incredibly intelligent woman, a doctor, who had never had, you know, any kind of exposure to the world we practice in, criminal law at all, um, violent crime at all. And then she had the most horrific exposure to it one can imagine. And in terms of being inspirational, you know, again, this was somebody who was very skeptical about the system when the case started, very angry, understandably. Inevitably, we slowly basically communicated, met, and through the process of the trial, we ended up talking, probably, I would say first once a month. In the month leading up to the trial, we probably talked three times a week. She ended up deciding to come to the trial, and she wasn't sure she was going to stay for more than the openings, but she stayed for every single day of that trial, even though she did not live locally. Not only was she in the courtroom, but we would talk at night. And she just wanted to process and talk about what she saw and ask questions. This incredibly strong woman basically immersing herself in this case, hearing some horrific testimony, taking the approach of, okay, I've exposed myself. Now I'm going to expose myself further. Again, completely inspirational. It is tiring to be prepping your case at night and then be on the phone till midnight. But so what? It was a no-brainer. If she called, I was going to pick up the phone and we were going to talk as long as she needed to talk. At the end of the trial, after the verdict, we were saying goodbye, and she pulled out her phone. And this was someone who, even though obviously we had made leaps and bounds in terms of our relationship, there had never been a kind of personal aspect to it, in terms of, you know, she she still, you could tell, held a distance for her own sake. And at the end of the trial, as she was literally about to get in an elevator to go take her cab to get to the airport, she said, Oh, let me show you. And she pulls out her phone. And we had talked about her daughters, who of course were not part of the trial. They were far too young. But she said, This is what they look like today. Like she and she just showed me a picture. And there's this theme of, you know, the things that matter most to people. And so when you do these cases, they start mattering the most to you too.
SPEAKER_00You have shared a perspective that that we just don't hear about in this conversation about how we approach our relationships with victims, how we uh put these cases on in court and how we stand tall every single time. Antonella, there's a prosecutor out there listening who's newer to the office, wherever he or she may be, and wants to do what you're doing, wants to do these murder cases, complex litigation. How can they get ready for that experience you've been having?
SPEAKER_02First and foremost, don't be intimidated. The beauty of this job, the whole sink or swim, get thrown in a deep end of the pool aspect of it, is that if you prepare, you're going to be okay, no matter what. You just have to prepare and then just dive in. It's a luxury to be able to do what we do and go to court. And more and more so these days, younger prosecutors are getting to do really serious cases. And so that can be a double-edged sword. You know, it can be an incredible experience, unless, of course, you don't prepare. So, what I would say is if a serious case lands on your lap, open up that file and just start digging. Interview everyone, ask all the questions, go to the crime scene if you have the opportunity. You may think that everyone's so busy and there's no way the detectives are going to take me. You don't know until you ask. And what I would say is beyond not being intimidated and preparing is persist. Time and time and time again, I have found that persistence pays off in this job. So if you think there's something you need, or if you think there's something you need to do for the case, and you initially get told no, never accept the first no. I have found that 99% of the time you can turn that no into a baby and then a yes. I have also found that most of the time that persistence will be appreciated. Some of the time they'll just find it annoying, but that's fine. Most of the time it will be appreciated and it will pay off.
SPEAKER_00She followed up with an example of persistence.
SPEAKER_02I can think of one particular example. So there was a case that I basically was given to review to see if there was any way that we could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Its greatest challenge was that it was a very old case. And long story short, a man had been shot, basically ambushed and shot to death. The area where he was shot was basically a sidewalk. And the question of whether there was enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt was based on the fact that there a lot of the case relied on eyewitness testimony, some of which was conflicting. So I worked with an incredible detective. And I remember going out to the crime scene, I asked my detective to go. And he said, Well, you know, I don't know if it's going to look exactly the same, but we went. And, you know, a sidewalk is a sidewalk. It may have a tree that wasn't there or may a tree might be gone. But we noticed that the area where the victim fell after the initial shots was onto basically one of those kind of grassy patches along a sidewalk. And we knew based on some witness testimony that he had been shot, had fallen, and then the suspect had come up and shot him some additional times while he was on the ground. So what I asked is for the metal detector crew to come out. Because my guess is that that sidewalk had not been unearthed. It had not. We had the all the crime scene pictures and the same little grassy patch would have been there, you know, years back. And so my detective luckily was somebody who appreciated persistence because initially I don't think he thought I was sane. But we get the metal detector crew out. They start doing their thing. Eventually, they dig up some metal objects, and lo and behold, some of those metal objects were, I believe it was two casings and a spent bullet. Now we send those to the lab, and we were lucky enough that they had not been deformed or so corroded that they were no longer suitable for examination. And sure enough, because we had had some ballistic evidence, they were able to match the ballistic evidence that we unearthed to the other ballistic evidence to corroborate one of the critical witnesses who had given accounts of the shooter basically executing this man after he fell to the ground. If that doesn't tell you that you should dig and always keep digging and be persistent, I don't know what would. You know, I'm not saying you're gonna unearth sidewalks every day, but if you think that there is a way to get more facts, to get to more evidence, digging literally and figuratively, I think is part of our job. So be persistent, keep digging, and don't be intimidated. Even when people look at you like you might be a little crazy for your suggestions.
SPEAKER_00Lightning round, Antonella. First thing that comes to your mind sweet or savory? Sweet. Morning or night? Night text or calling. Calling. Hence your persistence. You call them, right? You don't text them. And our final question, Antonella, what does justice mean to you?
SPEAKER_02Writing a wrong. There's probably no way to completely right the wrong when you're talking about, for example, violent crime, and particularly, you know, things like murder. In our profession, it's not like we are going to bring people back. We are not going to be able to restore victims or their families to where they were before the violent act. But I think you can achieve a measure of accountability, which I think is an aspect of righting the wrong.
SPEAKER_00Antonella, my gratitude for this conversation. On a daily basis, you work with real victims, see real harm, and seek real consequences. You are more than an advocate. You are a fact-finder, truth seeker, you're a prosecutor. But more importantly, Antonella, you inspire others to be the first chair in their courtroom. I thank you. And to our listeners, until next time, do yourself justice.
SPEAKER_01Your host, Cynthia Nikau, has been a prosecutor for several decades and has a notable career of being the first chair. Within her office, Cynthia served as the first designated Asian gang prosecutor and the founding deputy in charge of a multidisciplinary database for child abuse. She was also the first appointed professional responsibility advisor. Her colleagues nicknamed her the ethics guru for her caring nature and unparalleled professionalism in providing sound, professional, and ethical advice. She is now in a leadership position and oversees felony and misdemeanor prosecutions. Cynthia has become a prominent mentor and role model, not only to many young prosecutors, but students and non-lawyers as well. She lectures extensively on ethics and trial advocacy to prosecutors on national and international platforms. Cynthia has received national recognition as a distinguished assistant prosecutor from the National District Attorneys Association, where she has been a longtime faculty member. At home, Cynthia is first chair to her rescue dogs and yoga mat.
