Episode 38 - Astroworld, Rittenhouse, & Mandate Mashup

Welcome to the top Texas Lawyers podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the law firm Abercrombie and Sanchez PLLC. You can find us on the internet at www.www.aswlawoffice.com or by calling 1-888-981-7509. Your hosts are Bryan Abercrombie and Samuel Sanchez. Bryan has been practicing law for 18 years, and he’s board certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization in the area of Family Law. Sam has been practicing for 13 years, is licensed in both Texas and Florida, and is a Certified Mediator. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and represent the opinions of the hosts. It’s not designed to provide legal advice for your particular legal matter, and it should not replace the advice of competent counsel. Welcome. We hope you enjoy the top Texas Lawyers podcast.

Good morning and welcome to the Top Texas Lawyers Podcast. I’m your host, Bryan Abercrombie, and with me, as always, is my co-host — the stuffing to my Thanksgiving turkey, Sam Sanchez. Sam, how are you doing?

I’m not doing too bad — the gravy to your roll.

Yes. Yes. The gravy to my mashed potatoes. That’s right.  Or maybe I’m your sidekick.

No way, dude. I’m like the onion strings on your green bean casserole.

Okay. So anyway, we’ve been we’ve been out for a while. We haven’t recorded one in a while, so we thought we would make this the megalodon episode because you know how a shark is. You know you got a great white and that’s a big shark, right? This is true, but a megalodon. Now you see that movie, right?

I have. That’s a pretty big shark.

Yes. So we’re going to make this the megalodon episode. So we’ll hit a wide range of topics so we can cover a lot of stuff, so hopefully it’ll make it worth it since we’ve been on hiatus for a little while. I mean, not without good reason. I mean, we’ve all had a lot going on. So I’ve had two trials. You’ve had a trial or two. We’ve been doing some stuff and making it making it rain in the legal world.

We have definitely tried to anyways.

All right. So let’s get this going. First, let’s talk about Britney Spears.

You’ve been covering Britney Spears a while, right? Oh yeah, our favorite hottie naughty!

Yes. So, OK, let’s talk Britney. All right, Brittany.

I mean obviously so much has transpired since we last covered her case. We’ve talked, we’ve touched on guardianship a bunch and the effects that it can have the restrictions. And obviously, you know, I know she put out a thank you video to her fans, which was well deserved because obviously without these people bringing that much needed attention to her case, it probably would be a different outcome right now.

Yeah, the conservatorship, if you’re if you’re if you don’t know, the conservatorship for Britney Spears is over 14 years later, she’s now free and she’s stronger than yesterday, Sam.

That’s right. Yeah. So I think one of the funny quotes that she had was, you know, I can finally have cash and have my debit card back, which is, you know, we’ve talked about the restrictions of guardianship. And obviously, Britney was in a very restrictive guardianship. She had people that controlled what type of medical treatments you could receive

Reproductive or reproductive rights even. Yes. But what thing I thought was interesting in an article I read on it was now her attorneys just kind of talking about potentially going back and seeing if there’s been any mishandling or malfeasance going on within the guardianship, because apparently the California law is

Changing to the effect

Of if there was some malfeasance going on and they misled the court, usually they can’t go back, apparently from what I understand from the reading of of of the article. They can’t typically go back and ask for, I guess, maybe expungement of fees or damages or whatever for malfeasance that occurred in the past. However, if they if they find that they misled the court. So if they if they misled the court on the annual accounting and all of that, then then then they can open the open the can of worms and go back and see if there’s damages or things. And additionally, I think her father is petitioning for additional costs and there’s a hearing coming up. I think next month or the month after that will be decide whether or not the lawyers get paid and the and the conservator gets paid.

Yeah, I mean, I think they said like total total for the 14 year period, it was some insane number, like twenty two million dollars. So, you know, that’s that’s a tremendous amount. The funny thing is it’s not funny, but I mean, you know, obviously there’s a lot of documentaries out there who knows whether they got the information right. But her estimated net worth over that time period was around two hundred and fifty million dollars. Her current estimated net worth is about 60 million, so that’s a lot of hands in the cookie jar to take two hundred million dollars or give or take.

So it’s probably pretty smart right for net worth is increased. And and or, you know, and you’re managing a lot of assets and a lot of Britney. I mean, you’ve got all kinds of intellectual property, their brand, the whole thing. You know, you could you could amass probably a serious amount of fees during that time. But the problem, I guess, is when you’re in a conservatorship like we talked about before, you’re paying for your lawyer, you’re paying for that for conservators, lawyers, you’re paying for any experts, lawyers, you know, you’re paying a lot of lawyers there. Yeah. And then a lot of potential of professional accountants or professional auditors to look at this stuff and then that just starts sucking money.

Well, you know what, a lot of people don’t understand when they, you know, let’s say as an example, you really have a legitimate reason. I’m not saying Britney’s wasn’t. But you know, let’s say that you have a parent who is suffering from dementia and you’re trying that or starting to get into that stage of dementia or Alzheimer’s. You want to get a guardianship, you get it in place and you’re their trustee. There’s a tremendous amount of exposure for you as a trustee, and you really have to be very diligent and very aboveboard on what you’re doing and what you represent to the court because you don’t just you open yourself up to some criminal liability as well, depending on how you’re behaving and manage managing. Do you say

If you mistreat a, you know, an elderly person who has no, you know, obviously in a vulnerable position, then you can be held accountable for it, which may lead us to our celebrity divorce de jour of the of the of the week, right? I want to talk about the Erika Jayne divorce. Oh yeah. Yeah, that all housewife pop star. Whatever she is.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

I know you’re a big fan of Erika Jayne and. Girardi and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Can’t say I haven’t watched it, I can’t say I haven’t watched it, you know, I have a wife and she she definitely encouraged me to.

We’ve seen many of them. But apparently, I don’t know if you’re a fan of her pop star career, but apparently that was being being financed by some alleged malfeasance on the part of her attorney husband, Tom Girardi.

Yeah. You know, and the difficulty obviously that she’s facing is, you know, and obviously they’re involved in a divorce proceeding as well. So she’s got a whole lot

Of frickin irons in the fire. But, you know, this opens up a

Great question that we kind of mentioned in different podcasts, which is, you know, culpability or exposure that a spouse has for another spouse’s actions during a marriage right prior to divorce. You got to understand, especially in Texas, is we’re going to kind of like focus in on this moment because California law is a little different. But, you know, it’s community property state. And when people hear that they always want to say, Well, you know, that means we split stuff 50 50, that’s not what it means. It means that you own what they’re doing. One hundred percent. And they own what you’re doing. One hundred percent. That’s income. That’s encumbrances. And sometimes even that type of behavior. So, you know, she she wants to say, Hey, you know, my money is my money. But he did. He did with his money, you know, and that’s going to be a really interesting case when it happened. What did she know? I know there’s a lot of questions still outstanding. She’s got to ask.

And I know he did. You know a ton of stuff that are big no no’s in the lawyer game, which is, you know, keeping clients trust money, keeping their settlement money, you know, all the things that are potentially going to get him obviously disbarred. The next question I have is OK. He’s battling Alzheimer’s in a living assisted living facility. He’s not going to recover, obviously, from that. So I guess the question is, can she divorce him one and two, you know? Does the liability fall to her after he’s gone, I mean, he’s clearly not going to have he has no ability to defend himself. He’s got no ability to make the potential victims whole. So what happens? Does do they come after? Did they come after her? I mean, I don’t know if she had a pre-nup or anything like that or no prenup.

They didn’t have a prenup at all. That was one of the big things that she was like, Why would I get a prenup? He’s got all the money. I don’t have anything. I think they met. She was like a waitress or something. This guy was like a super powerful attorney in California, made millions and millions of dollars with these big landmark personal injury cases, supposedly. But I honestly, I think she does. Or at least her estate is going to have some substantial exposure because if you

Look she’s being, she’s being sued by the bankruptcy trustee handling the bankruptcy case for the law firm for 25 million, and she currently makes around six hundred thousand for the for the Housewives and all of all of what she’s doing. So that’s that’s a lot of years of work.

Well, not only that, but this is a long term marriage. And so you’ve got to figure if he really is incapacitated. And let’s say, you know, in California, divorces can take a frickin long time. She’s on the hook for spousal maintenance. This guy is no longer employed, can’t practice law. He’s in assisted living. You know, if he lacks capacity at the heart of marriage laws, contract law, right? So when you look at the marriage? Yeah. And you look at it and you say, I like the capacity to be able to really have this contract and understand what’s happening. She could be on the hook for lifetime support. Know, so if he’s living in assisted living, whether they’re divorced or not, she could be footing his bill for quite some time.

Yeah, she’s going to she’s in she could be in a in for a rough haul.

Yeah. And watching the show, Bryan, I guess one of the things that was really kind of concerning to me as a lawyer, first of all, look, when you’re in a divorce, everything that you say, everything that you post, everything that you show can potentially be used against you. And so that somebody would let her and I get it. Look, she’s like, This is the only way I make money. I got to do the show. But it was just some of the craziest stuff I’ve ever seen to be in a divorce proceeding and have additional litigation and participate in that type of an environment.

I mean, you go on a show where you’re answering questions about it. It’s one thing to be on the Housewives show, and they flit from cocktail party at a cocktail party or charity event to charity event. And they’re all having their altercations and they’re all

Drunk at each other

And whatever they’re doing, shopping or complaining about how what somebody was wearing or how they acted. But another thing to go on the after the show show where they interview and ask everybody questions and then start getting into it. I mean, I think she she tried to avoid the tough questions and didn’t answer a lot of stuff, but at least from the one that I saw. But. I mean, she could be in a very, very bad way, I mean, there’s the scary thing for her is that obviously she had nothing to do with this law firm. She doesn’t practice law. She’s not an attorney. She had no idea what. Probably had no idea what the financial dealings with with with the firm were. I mean, I’m sure she’s looking at it well. I got this big baller husband who’s making all this money, and he’s financing my pop singer career or whatever, and then come to find out the Bloom’s off the rose, and it was all financed with smoke and mirrors. Yeah, so well

And other people’s money. And you know, that’s the real. The big challenge is. So if you look at it and she says, Hey, I have some assets, which I would be surprised if the bankruptcy court doesn’t currently have all of those assets tied up. But, you know, based on that, she’s just trying to salvage anything she can really from that. And it may all be exposed based on the fact that she was married when all this happened. I mean, how do you see what a person is?

And I think she represented a number of plaintiffs in a plane crash, I want to say, and and didn’t didn’t pay out the settlements. Yeah, that that could be

Like something else.

It could be a substantial amount of money.

Yeah. And I mean, as a lawyer, you know, obviously you have a fiduciary duty to your client to turn over all that profit if it’s theirs. So the fact that he was taking in these awards and utilizing them for whatever he wanted, whether it was a finance or career or to pay the frickin mortgage, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t his money to spend. And so she’s reaping the whirlwind for his actions and all because she was married to him at that time, whether she knew or not. It doesn’t maybe

Open her up to my knees, but she might a difference the estate of she might need to marry like Russian oligarch money or, you know, Jeff Bezos money to get herself out of this one if she’s going to get remarried, right?

Yeah, I hear he’s looking for somebody. So you know she could she could file an application there. I’m sure that list is long.

Yeah, but wow, it’s just it’s it’s a great it’s a it’s a it’s crazy to think how these people live, and it’s also crazy to think that, you know, the kind of predicament for them. And she’s not the the first housewife to get herself into some legal trouble. No. Yeah, I have some. I have some. I’m not without empathy for her. I mean, I I understand that she probably probably had no idea what was going on, but at the same time, you know? It is what it is, and she did profit from all of that, so

Yeah, I mean, it’s a terrible situation to find yourself and especially in that lifestyle, and it’s so public, you know? I mean, it’s not like she can say, no, I wasn’t living high off the hog while all these other people weren’t getting money for their suffering. She really

Was. I mean, she was. She was financing a pop star career, and I don’t know if she had any. Did she have any following? Was she a popular pop star? I know she had this, this thing and she was trying to do music, but was it? Was it? A joke. Well, she’s no Britney, but all I can say. No kidding. No kidding. But whether or not

She sold any albums made a profit. You know, I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure that the bankruptcy court is having a whole field day with all that stuff, right? But the big thing on that and we’ve touched on this before, is, you know, family is one of these unique areas of law where many areas can collide at the same time. So when you look at a case like hers, you’re looking at a guardianship proceeding for capacity to enter into that, you’re looking at civil law and those lawsuits penetrating the divorce process and then you’re still looking at her claims against her husband. Right. So she’s still trying to get divorced. So all these are being handled by the same court, really, for all intents and purposes, at the same time and then you layer on a bankruptcy. So the bankruptcy is a federal court is taking care of all of it. It’s saying, Look, we go first, we get to decide all this estate stuff, then you can get divorced, then you can sue her civilly. And so like having all these pieces like the perfect storm you ever wanted to do a case study on how these courts relate and overlap on one another? This is a good

I mean, she’ll be she’ll be lucky to walk out of there with her. Her life is so public. I would think as soon as the the vultures get all over, I would think that the, you know, all the fancy stuff is going to go.

Well, she sure wants to get divorced, you know, she wants her money to be hers, but like I said, you know, in California there is lifetime support, you know, and so when you look at that situation and you have a disabled spouse, what does the court do with that where he can’t work anymore? He’s going to be penniless. Very likely. So does he get his share of her income? We’ll flip it if it was a guy getting divorced. Right. And the woman has special needs or is disabled in some way. Typically, the court is going to award lifetime support. So these are things that she’s wrestling with as a breadwinner now. And I’m not saying it’s role reversal because, hey, we’re in a new age and women typically make a crap ton more than guys are making, but it’s definitely something that has got to.

Well, she certainly obviously more more marketable and everything like that. So celebrity dollar wise, she’s probably could do pretty well if you want their house. I think it’s been, you know, it’s been reduced in price from 13 million, down to eight million. So you might be able to slide in there for a cool eight million. You will buy their place, the court appointed receiver and said, Sale, that

Bad boy, huh? Well, yeah, yeah, you know, and that’s one of the other challenges that people face in a divorce is, you know, let’s say you get yourself into a situation like she’s in and the court in a bankruptcy or even just in a divorce is looking to liquefy assets to make them easily divisible, right? Because if there’s not funds, we need to pay debts. The court’s going to say sell stuff typically in that situation is going to appoint a receiver. What a receiver does. Is it somebody who’s you know, sold? Yeah. Sometimes it’s a lawyer who’s hiring real estate people to sell it. Sometimes it’s a different realtor who has experience with the court, but they sell it. They sell it quick. I’m telling you what, you’re putting the receiver in the property situation like that, and courts are going to sell that asset really quick because they’re going to jump through prices until it’s sold. You know, you, you know, in Texas, you know, we always have those there are certain days of the month where all these properties that are going up for auction are going to be out at the courthouse. And so you’ll see all these huge crowds of people out there trying to be the next fixer upper to get themselves a discount. Yeah. But so I mean, these guys are super experienced men and women who are selling these assets. So if you get that and get yourself in that situation where you need the money or in the reverse, you don’t want it. So very quickly you better have a good lawyer who’s going to help you do that process to try to minimize the effect of what a receiver can do.

Because a receiver gets paid an a fee outside of oftentimes they’ll take more than them. And the just the regular real estate commission.

Yup, yup. So it’s definitely something to consider as a client or as an attorney to advise them and tell them, Hey, look, you know, you want to try to maximize your endgame, and a lot of times it’s not forcing it through the courts.

All right. So let’s see here our big song big hits. Let’s see.

She’s like a pretty hot little mess or something like that pretty, pretty hot mess or hot mess.

Pretty mess.

That’s it, I think. I think that was like her, her song that like I’ve ever heard anywhere. She may have more. I’m assuming she does.

I’m not super impressed so far.

It’s not your euro, you’re not you’re not a, you know, it sounds like Euro Club dance music. Yeah, I think that’s what she was going for. Apparently, she’s like, you know,

That actually seems heavily synthesized to me. It’s no crust.

She’s like, she’s like the half man. She’s like The Hoff, you know, she she’s going for that sweet Swedish market.

No crush education.

No, no, there’s only one of them, and they’re way better than that.

All right. So let’s I think we killed Erika Jayne or gone as far as we can go with Erika. So we’ll come back to her later as this lawsuit unfolds. Yeah, it is definitely a legal quagmire. It’s it’s going to make the careers of some attorneys, I would suspect. All right. So let’s go down to something that’s a little bit more local. The Astroworld situation down there with Travis Scott down here in my neck of the woods.

Houston Yeah. Seven hundred and fifty dollars million lawsuit filed. And that’s just one of them for really kind of almost a class action against the producers and Travis Scott. And I think it’s the names of quite a few people in the lawsuit. You know, obviously a tremendous tragedy that happens down in Houston. I think there’s a lot of culpability all the way around, what kind of

Really they just started rushing the gate and they couldn’t get they couldn’t get them. You know, I don’t know if that’s a failure of security or kind of what the

You know, there’s. There’s so much out there, Bryan. Obviously, there’s reports that the chief of police for Houston met with Travis Scott and his people before the concert and said, Hey, we’ve got problems. Now this is because historically this concert has been pretty rowdy. His concerts are fairly rowdy. He’s kind of one of those, and I’ve been to many of these kind of rowdy concerts where, you know, there’s a mosh pit. There’s, you know, there’s always going to be people passing out, there’s this crush of people. But in this situation, it seems like there was a lot of concern.

I think I’ve been in a I don’t think I’ve been in a mosh pit since Rage of Rage Against the Machine. How long ago was that?

We were dating ourselves. But you know, I mean, the situation is, you know, when you buy a concert ticket, you know, there’s this there’s this massive amount of text typically on the back of a concert ticket or digitally if you’re getting it digitally. And a lot of that is wavers waivers that you don’t really understand or care to read because it’s your favorite band. But that’s the thing that these individuals are going to have to fight and try to overcome is that negligence claim on the waivers that they probably

10 people died due to crowd compression, which is trying to squeeze together and, you know, including a nine year old boy. So they had a nine year old boy at this concert, and one hundred and twenty five people have now joined a lawsuit against Travis Scott and Drake, seeking about three quarters of a billion.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, the situation is, you know, you’re talking about intentional infliction of emotional distress. These people who saw their people die, you know, they’re sitting next to you, squashed up next to somebody who’s been asphyxiated and is dead in the crowd, but they can’t move. And so you’re sitting there up against the dead body and you’re trying to beg people to like, stop a concert, get people out. I mean, these are legitimate claims that these lawsuits are bringing forth. I mean, some of them, I think, are going to be vetted because there’s always people see a payday and they want to jump up and go, Hey, yeah, part of that. But you know, I mean, legitimately, what do you pay somebody for experiencing something like that or losing a child? This was a nine year old child that was on the shoulders of his father. And, you know, because of the crowd’s way he fell, kid gets trampled to death. I mean, like, you know, these are these are horrible experiences that nobody wants you to see your favorite band, your favorite artist. You’re like, Hey, let’s go have a good time. It’s going to be something incredible and what you take. I think preliminarily, most people, when they go to these types of events, think, well, it’s safe, you know, people have thought about this and it’s going to be a pretty safe environment. There is enough security, there is enough barriers or whatever it can be.

And they also probably think that they have enough insurance to cover anything that could potentially happen. But if you’re talking about, I guarantee you, they didn’t care, they don’t carry a billion dollars worth of insurance on this. On this event. There’s no way

Heck, some of these some of these people are even self-insured. They don’t even get a separate insurance policy because they’re like, we’re going to make so much off the concert. If something happens, we should be able to pay it out of the proceeds. There’s no way. And I get that it was a sold out show. It’s a massive venue. But I mean, there’s just and I guess I’ve got.

And I get what he’s trying to do, and I get, you know, he’s trying to bring some life back to the city of Houston and energize his hometown and stuff, and I get that. But yeah, like you said, I think you when you go to these these venues for these concerts, you assume that while the thought out crowd control, they’ve thought out security, they’ve thought out this kind of stuff and it’s not going to get out of hand. And you know, this particular one did well.

And you know, like obviously, they may not have resulted in deaths, but we know that this is not like a unique occurrence, you know, as they go through and not just to Travis Scott. There are plenty of concerts where you want to go through the rock genre, rap genre or whatever it is. I don’t care if it’s a Celine Dion concert. If you’re not sitting in a chair and you’re up and there’s an open area where people can congregate, what they want to try to do is get as close to this artist as they possibly can. And when you talk about bodies being squashed together, I mean, there’s nothing really you can do as an individual when the crowd starts.

They have this. They have a documentary a number of years ago about an English soccer match where to two teams were playing in Liverpool, I think was involved in it, and they opened one part of the back section and for fans to come in. I think of Hillsborough or something like that, and the crowd just pushed was pushing and pushing and pushing and all the people in front of the, you know, in front of the fence there at the end of the grandstand, all got crushed against the fence. And that’s basically similar to what happened here. I think fifty thousand people are all pushing into into one area and then people are going to get for lack of a better word, crushed.

Yeah, I mean, that’s basically what happened. You know, they were sitting there and they talk about, you know, your lungs in that situation. You know what most people want to try to do is they want to try to struggle, excuse me, against the weight of a crowd. But what that ends up doing is it pushes you further towards exhaustion because then you want to try to take deep breaths, and that just allows the crowd to compress you even further. And that’s usually where people are passing out. I mean, I don’t know how many concerts I’ve been to. Obviously, I’m more of a kind of 80s hair band kid. I’m pretty old, but you know, like how many times we would be passing people overhead if you were at the very front because they’d passed out whether it was heat, whether it was because he couldn’t breathe, because the crowd was so squished in, you know, and luckily, this never transpired. You know, we never had that kind of people get killed or trampled. But it’s very easy to get that many people in place. And they said, you know, like they were looking at video and watching the crowd and this is something that his concerts are actually famous for. Is this this synchronized movement of the crowd, you know, thousands and thousands of people swaying or moving or compressing backwards and forwards? And so, you know, if you’re at the tip of the spear on that, what do you do? There’s nothing really you can do. And the security

People, obviously. I guess he’s getting to I guess he’s getting some shade thrown his way because he continued to perform five minutes.

They say they’re forty two minutes after

After they declared it a mass casualty event. I don’t know if you’re on stage, if you can, if you can know exactly what’s going on.

Well, no, I think we’ll see a documentary or two come from this. This situation,

I’m sure there always is. There’s always a documentary or two, right? One.

And here’s the deal. You know, in the modern era, everybody is a filmmaker. Why do I say that? Because everybody has a phone most often that has a camera that can record video. And so everybody is a news outlet. Everybody is a real time. Hey, this is happening right in front of me, and I guarantee you in a concert situation, I don’t know the last concert that I went to. Bryan, yours are a little wilder than mine. But like, everybody had their fricking phone out, it’s like nobody can watch the concert anymore. Everybody’s got to watch it through the screen on their phone while they record it, even though they’re probably never going to play those videos again. And I guarantee you everybody who had a who had a phone, who was at that, who had a ticket that they can track down is getting subpoenas for the videos that they took. I mean, it’s just going to be a tremendous amount of evidence to sift through

And to look at the potential plaintiffs you’ve got, obviously all the concert goers. So you’ve got one hundred and twenty five, potentially and potentially more, then you’ve got who’s got potential liability, of course. You know, the artists, they’re going to go after their production companies. They’re there any anybody and everybody who’s associated with that artist, then you’ve got the venue, potentially. Nrg Stadium is as pretty a pretty well-known venue.

So when you talk about like so you know, one of the things that they raised is like, Hey, well, shouldn’t the city of Houston have some culpability? If they identified that there was a risk, why didn’t they frickin do something about it? You know, in Houston, sit back, they’re saying, like, this is a private event. Like, unless somebody calls us in, we can’t go in and mandate as long as they’re compliant within the. Which will be interesting to see. You know, fire code or whatever the new code is, then we don’t really have anything to do there unless they need us. We were just trying to let them know, Hey, we’re putting you on notice. You got problems. So, you know, you can’t sue the city. Obviously, they have sovereign immunity. They’re going to sit back there and go. You can’t do this for Jack, right? But that clearly, you know, there’s just so many problems that are going to come from that. And obviously, you just have a tribute to your heart, goes out to those family members and those people who experience that. So it’s just going to be a long, arduous journey for them and kind of through the courts and what happens?

Yeah. And I guess the wonder to me, the big I mean, Travis Scott, the famous. You know, famous rapper, but he’s not he doesn’t have a billion dollars, so. Exactly. It would be interesting to see, I’m assuming the big the big deep pockets defendant here is going to try is going to probably try to be NRG, which is where they’ll try to get the bulk of of the money from. I would assume they’re going to have to face there’s some sort of crowd control issue or security issue. And I guess the security company that was providing security or allowing people to crash the gate or whatever happened will be the ones that have to do the most fighting. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of times the plaintiffs attorneys will throw in a big lawsuit with a huge number. You know, in there and, you know, settle for, you know, 10 percent of that, but 10 percent of seven hundred seventy five million dollars, I mean, it’s still it’s still a lot of money and you can’t put a price on a human life. So especially the nine year old kid.

Yeah, I mean, it’s just, you know, nothing but devastation in there, I think, for all parties involved, but it’s going to be interesting to see kind of what transpires and what information comes of it. Like I said, I’m sure we’ll be watching it on Netflix or Hulu or something to

Get the documentary rights

Or oh yeah, everybody’s warming,

Right? So that covers the latest goings on down here in Houston. Unfortunately, like I said, I think I think Travis Scott is trying to do a lot for the city and, you know, and things like that. And it’s just unfortunate when you have a tragedy that comes out of something like this and putting together this thing, just trying to, you know, really just trying, obviously trying to make some money, but at the same time, trying to revitalize Houston and his hometown and all that. And so it just kind of sucks that it turned out this way. And so, all right. So let’s move on to do you want to cover the vaccine mandates or Kyle Rittenhouse? I mean, both are very exciting

Dealer’s choice dealer’s choice.

All right. Well, let’s hit the I guess let’s hit the vaccine mandate. So obviously, Joe Biden, the Biden administration, the former vice president, instituted, I guess, OSHA regulations that required employers of one hundred or more employees to mandate vaccines for their employees under using OSHA regulations. So I guess they’re equating to be getting getting a needle jab with wearing a hard hat on a work site, right? But anyway, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on the on that vaccine mandate. So and then I guess the former vice president decided that he didn’t want to follow that. And then, I guess over the weekend, the Fifth Circuit said, No, no, no, we really mean it. It’s nationwide. So. I don’t know how you feel about vaccine mandates, I’m I’m certainly not anti-vaccine by any stretch of the imagination. I got it. You got it. I am anti vaccine mandate, though. So in this country I am at least,

Yeah, you know, and I think that the court has the right interpretation. I’m not going to deny it was a creative way to try to circumvent kind of the law that’s in place and kind of how you attack a large percentage of the population that seems to be unwilling to want a mandate or want a vaccine.

I think that was was that not the Texas lawsuit was the one that the Fifth Circuit decided was or was it? I think it might have been 12 states involved. I know there were a lot of people joined in. Oh, it’s the that was the Louisiana lawsuit, I think. But there’s another number of states that joined in, I think, 12 states. But Missouri filed another lawsuit, which included 10 states. So I guess that’s 22 states. So there’s no way this thing’s not going to the Supreme Court to be decided. And I guess the legal question in this situation is whether or not they can force a whether it’s constitutional to force the vaccine mandate from the federal government. You know, my my read on the on the on the case law is that I think states states are potentially local areas could potentially force a vaccine mandate, but I don’t know the federal government can. That may be outside the scope of the federal government’s power.

Yeah, I agree with you, I think he’s definitely pushing pushing the boundaries of really an executive mandate. I mean, the challenge is. You know, their balance of checks and balances between the branches of government, you and I have gone through this. Obviously every president that’s been in there contested it. Sometimes Congress tests that sometimes the courts test it. And this is just another opportunity, I think, to the executive branch, really kind of covert is presented this unique situation. It was there for President Trump, it’s there for President Biden. They’re all trying to say, like, we want to be able to dictate what everybody does. And at times try to circumvent the Constitution and really those checks and balances. And I really agree with you. I think that it is a step too far. I think that that’s what the courts are going to say. It’ll be interesting to see with the conservative Supreme Court. How they approach OSHA regulations are an interesting kind of thing because obviously the states have to comply with those regulations. Right.

And typically OSHA OSHA regulations, aren’t they? Are they not decided in a in a more administrative type of body, not a not necessarily a court. It’s more of a it’s not an OSHA court, but it’s more of an administrative court. I know that could still be appealed to the Supreme Court, but a lot of times the Supreme Court leaves that stuff alone. But I think I think trying to like I said, like you said, it’s kind of a clever, clever way to try to bring it under the under the under the OSHA regulations. But I don’t think occupational safety is the same as a vaccine. I really I think there’s a level of difference there. But but the if the OSHA regulation, the mandate was pretty, pretty significant. So if you had one hundred or more employees, you face fourteen thousand fine per violation. So if you have if you had a hundred times fourteen thousand, I mean, you could be out of business if you decide to defy the our federal overlords, right?

Yeah. I mean, obviously, there’s some pretty big companies in Texas that were wrestling with it most significantly. And I think that the ones that people would know pretty handily. American Airlines, Southwest

Airlines, these are based

Out of Texas, and they have a large number of employees. And so you know, you’re talking about and these are unionized employees. So, you know, every union is up in arms saying, like, you can’t do this in any ways, even if you wanted to, that really needs to come from the state. Well, Texas is one of those states that’s like, that’ll never frickin happen. So, you know, I get I I understand the complexity of what each one of these groups is trying to deal with, right? It’s hard. You personal freedom is at the heart of our constitution. I feel like, you know, I’ve had those conversations before, and I understand too, that when you talk about public health, you know, that’s something that affects all of us. And so does somebody whose personal freedom weigh heavier than your ability to maintain a healthy environment for your family, your children. I mean, these are tough subjects that the courts are wrestling with. And I think that everybody is pushing those boundaries. I think the courts have a very difficult decision to make because the implications are very far reaching, not just about pandemics and COVID vaccines, but it’s really a very, very intense scrutiny of the Constitution and its applicability between the branches. And do you? Does the court really check the strength of the executive branch at this point and say you don’t have the ability to do that? You’re overreaching. That’s really Congress’s. You want something like that. Fine that Congress enacts legislation. And if you want to sign it in, great because the people have spoken. But where does that threshold happen?

I don’t know the other thing. I mean, obviously, twenty seven states have decided that they don’t like this and they’re they’re filing lawsuits, they’re seventh Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Those all have eight Circuit Court of Appeals. All have cases. Ninth Circuit all have cases pending and the 11TH Circuit all have cases pending involving vaccine mandates. You know, I think it goes to the heart of a lot of things that are that are significant about this covert argument you’ve got, whether or not that’s a true vaccine in the sense of the word, it doesn’t it doesn’t cure people or it doesn’t keep people from getting anything. So it’s not technically, I guess, the CDC has changed the definition of vaccine. So it’s no longer like the polio vaccine, which is an actual vaccine. I think this is more of a, you know, get you less sick kind of kind of vaccine as opposed to. So and then you’ve got another situation where they’re starting to mandate vaccines on children ages five to 11. When then the death rate on children of that age of COVID is next to nothing? I mean, you might have more risk from the vaccine than you do have from the COVID. I mean, based on the numbers, it’s I mean, definitely you definitely have more risk from seasonal flu as a child than you do from COVID. The numbers are statistically zero, but they are mandating that now. I mean, in certain states or in certain school districts are starting to mandate it. It’s a it’s a tough. It’s a tough. A tough call, because are you going to throw kids out of school because they’re not vaccinated? I know, I know it’s a hot button issue and it’s very emotional for people because you know, you’ve got you’ve got. Crazies from the right saying they’re putting stuff in the vaccines,

They’re putting their tracking, their tracking.

And then he got crazy. They got crazies from the left saying, Well, if you don’t get vaccinated, you’re trying to murder me. You know, so. So you know, it’s you’ve got to find some, some some sense to this. I mean, some reasonableness to all of this. So, you know, I don’t think these vaccines are full of nanotech, but it’s tracking us. And I also don’t think that anyone who doesn’t take a vaccine is trying to murder another person. You know, I don’t I personally don’t have a problem with vaccines, I think. I think obviously vaccines have contributed over the course of history to. A number of world, no longer life expectancies for a number of people, I mean, you know, nobody wants to live through a mumps outbreak, I can promise you that so vaccines are an. Right? But at the same time, I mean, personal freedom is is one of the foundational things of our country. So if you want to choose to be unhealthy, I think you have the right to do that. And I’m not saying you’re unhealthy for not getting a vaccine, but if you want to choose your personal decisions over over getting some type of medical treatment, I think you do have the right, you know, in a free country to deny to decline medical treatment if you so choose. I know that there’s a public good that overrides that.

That yeah, that’s that’s the kicker right there, public good, right? So like I think what the courts have ruled in the past is that there is this element, this public good element that if if they can show, hey, you know what, doing this protects a large majority of the population, then yeah, you have the right to do it as a government. And that’s where these these mandates are coming in. But I would tell you, Bryan, you’re right, the challenge is not, in my opinion, law, because obviously this is ever shifting sand. It’s as a people, as a country man, we couldn’t be further apart about a hundred different subjects, and this is one of them. It’s, you know, there’s no there’s no middle ground, there’s no understanding. It’s like a fist fight every time anybody gets into any kind of conversation. It’s just become become so polarized on all topics. Not just this topic, so many topics. And what makes that challenging is that without any type of room to compromise because it’s either black or it’s white, then this is where everything is playing out. So the role of the court has become fundamentally so much more important than I think it’s ever been really since, probably early on in our country’s history. Because really, like through the sixties, maybe early on when our country was early in its foundation period, like the courts making these determinations are really at the heart of what does liberty mean? What is personal freedom mean? What does it get balanced against? What laws can really brush up against these rights that are inherent in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights? You know, these are extremely complicated legal theories that the average Joe has no understanding of how those things interrelate to one another. They just basically look at it and say, like, you know,

It’s what do you want better? I mean, I think the part of the problem with so much civil unrest is sometimes courts not tackling some of these issues and deciding one way or another. So if a court declines to hear something on a jurisdictional issue or some sort of procedural technicality, I mean, the Supreme Court obviously doesn’t have to take up any of these cases if they choose not to. Then you start leading to more and more unrest because states start doing whatever they want. Then and then you’ve got if you’ve got a bright line rule that we can all follow, you may not agree with it, but you know it does. It does help keep the peace as opposed to a free for all whenever everybody is well, the court didn’t decide it. So I’m right. You know you’re right. I don’t know. I’m right, I’m right. You know,

That kind of thing. It goes right back to them. To your point, we end up right back in the same place. It’s just a lot of people get hurt in that interim between, Hey, I didn’t do anything, and now it’s back up in your face. I mean, I’m with you. I’m with you. You know, I guess that’s super complicated issues. It’ll be interesting to see how the law plays out. Our Supreme Court right now is challenged with some, you know, they always have these super important cases, but this court has some monster issues in front of it.

And I got that Second Amendment case and they’ve got abortion case.

They got this case, got the cold case. They’ve got like, there’s just a lot of very hot pokers in that fire.

And the other thing is, I mean, the other thing is I’ve been kind of thinking about is our society has changed so much with the mobility of society. And and I’m not saying that this is this is a reason to curtail anybody’s freedoms or anything like that, but we’re so much more mobile as in the society now. So you can get on a plane, you know, from DFW today and you can be in Tokyo in 14 hours and you can be on the other side of the world in twenty four. And so things like pandemics and things like that can spread so much faster nowadays than they ever could before. And so I’m not saying that that’s a reason for the government to come down on people and say, you have

To do this or you have to do that.

But it is something to keep in mind that there’s, you know, whenever Trump, you know, rightly or wrongly, when Trump issued that travel mandate in January of 2020 from China, there were twenty twenty two to twenty five thousand people coming in from China every day to LAX, you know, LaGuardia or JFK or or SFO. I mean, that’s just people landing, you know, at airports. So. You know, people, you know, spreading a very fast spreading communicable disease can happen very quickly now. Should we have had all of these lockdowns and all of these things like that, I mean, that’s obviously a debatable issue. I don’t know that that’s necessarily what we need to get into. But you know, if but if you’re then requiring everybody to get a vaccine that you know, some people have some problems with the way the vaccine was created, you know, the research behind it. Some people don’t believe the vaccine is very helpful. I don’t feel personally feel that was very helpful. I had it and I also got Kobe. So, you know, I don’t personally feel the vaccine helped me very much.

But some people swear by them. And, you know, I don’t know, you know, I don’t know that it’s a true vaccine in the sense of the word so that you have to force everyone to get inoculated. But it’s not like I said, it’s not like polio. Where where the the vaccine stopped polio. I mean, they stopped polio or smallpox vaccine and stopped it dead in its tracks. It’s just not that easy. And then then you’re forcing. I don’t like the idea of the federal government being able to force employers to force their employees to get to to get medical treatment that they don’t want. I think I think that’s a lot different than having somebody forcing somebody to be safe on a worksite where the proper protective equipment or have certain, you know, certain standards on a worksite where so you’re not going to get, you know, you’re not going to get injured or maimed or killed. There’s a world of difference, I think, between the two things. I think it’s a it’s a nice try. But no, no thanks.

Yeah. I mean, I do think that there are some regulations that have to be in place. Obviously, I think if you’re COVID positive and you’re going to go to a worksite and you’re going to get everybody else sick and sick, your fucking idiot. But you know, in that, like, does the federal government need to tell us that? I don’t think so. I think a state government, a local government, can say, Hey, look, here’s COVID protocols because we want to keep our small population or larger and it’s year

And it’s maybe safer for the local government or the state government to do it. I mean, the one vaccination case was what a local area in Massachusetts, right? So there may be better for there isn’t a one size fits all for every local community. What if you’re in a farming community and you’re your closest neighbor is seven miles away, you’re unlikely to cova doesn’t travel seven miles. So forcing that person to get vaccinated is not necessarily the smartest thing. And like I said, people have, you know, the United States is a country where people have many differing beliefs. I mean, you know, certain religious, you know, certain religious beliefs call for no vaccinations of any kind, you know, and that’s that’s your right to believe that. And that’s your right to follow that religion, if you so choose. So, you know, forcing somebody like that to be fired from their job if they don’t get a vaccine, it seems, seems very un-American to me.

No, I definitely think that that’s the complexity of this particular issue is when you look at it and you say as a local government or a federal government, we want our people to be healthy. We want them to be safe, OK? You also want them to be free. And that’s what the Constitution says. You know, the right to life liberty. These two things don’t always match up, right? Right. So and that’s that’s the issue that is really complicated is which, which way. Which way is heavier? Is it liberty that weighs heavier than life? Is it life that weighs heavier than liberty? You know, and I know that’s very generic, but that’s the heart of this conversation that we’re having. And then you layer on the complexity of the law, which is in written word, well, frickin. I could write an email right now and we would read it two different ways. You know what I’m saying? And we’re we’re fairly educated individuals. Well, you talk about yeah, right? So when you talk about the American public, this melting pot that it’s become of personalities, of perspectives, of education, of, you know, this social history that we drag into these conversations. I mean, it’s not easy. It’s not the solution that a court comes up with. No matter what they do, it’s going to be heavily criticized and it may inspire legislation. So this is what they’re wrestling with, do they? Is it judicial activism right? Or do they adhere to the Constitution and say, No, we’re going to be strict interpreting interpret this and say this is what the Constitution says. And so that’s what we’re going to apply. So getting it as high as it is is really important because I think that’s the heart of the conversation that’s going to be.

Yes, I guess I get the thing that that really irritates me about all of this is if there was some sort of kind of defined characteristics that this virus displays or this or things that happen, it seems that there’s so much misinformation out there about, well, if you’re six feet away, you won’t transmit it to someone else, but or but if you’re sitting right next to them, you will or, you know, if you come into contact with anybody who has, there’s been exposed you’re likely to get if there was some settled science on how it’s transmitted. You know what the treatment protocols are, what how, how long you should pick. I’ve seen know, stay away until you’re COVID negative. I’ve heard no automatically 14 14 day quarantine. I mean, just on if you’ve been exposed to it. So I guess I guess what I’m trying to say, the thing that irks me is if we had some definitive, you know, this is I know they generally know how is transmitted, how it’s transmitted. If we had some, you know, general guidelines that made sense about where this is all going or what we needed to do to stay safe, I think that would be. I think people will be much more receptive. But there’s so much misinformation out there about how it’s transmitted, what what you get, whether you’re really safe with a vaccine. Some people say it’s 80 percent effective. Some people say it’s. 50 percent effective, some people say it’s not effective, you know? If we had something, something to make it a little bit more clear, and I think that’s why maybe it’s better for state and local governments to be looking at this stuff because, you know, there is a county health department for a reason. You know, there is state medical boards for a reason. There is state and state have states have regulations on all of that stuff. So if your state doesn’t necessarily want to impose a vaccine mandate, they shouldn’t have to.

Yeah, I mean, those are all like like I said, I agree with you, Bryan, I think it’s going to be a bunch of

Disinformation or misinformation, but there’s a lot of, you know, you find me a pundit and you can find a different opinion on on this stuff. Unfortunately, it did me a talking head on the on the TV and you can find a different opinion, right? There you go.

It’s the digital age. This digital age you want, you want to prove something to disprove it. There’s one hundred ways to do it, so it just makes it tough for people to figure

Out what to. And regardless of your feelings on the pandemic and what you think of it, you know, obviously you want people to be safe and you want as few people to die from this thing as possible. Most people feel that way. I don’t think anybody’s out there actively trying to spread COVID. That’s not a completely insane person. So no one, I think, is out there actively trying to spread it, I think. But at the same time, like you said, how do you curtail their personal freedoms? You can’t just say everybody’s got to shut down. I don’t think I think that’s been proven not to work. So I mean, if you want to look at Australia, it seems to be getting worse and worse and they seem to get more restrictive and more restrictive. So it’s just that heartbreaking the whole thing. Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right, so let’s so let’s move to a less controversial topic. The Kyle Rittenhouse case I, you know, before we came on the record here, I thought we were going to look at, you know, hopefully some sort of resolution to this case. I guess we’re still on verdict watch, right? As of right now, yeah.

Nothing yet. Third day of deliberation by the jury. It’s definitely going to be something that I think we’re going to spend some time on when the when the the the jury comes out with its verdict. But, you know, I mean, it’s an interesting case because obviously it ties up into what it’s become is a Second Amendment case, but it’s really not a Second Amendment case, in my opinion. I mean, as you look at the situation that he created, a situation that he put himself in, that situation is is irrelevant to. Does he have the right to possess that firearm in the state and locality in which he was in? And so it really becomes just a simple crime? Or was it a crime at all? Do you have the right to defend yourself? At what point in time? Like in Texas, we have the Castle Doctrine, right? So it means basically that you don’t have to retreat. You can stand your ground, your stand, your ground.

I think this case is honestly, I think this case is going to define a lot with respect to self-defense law for a long, long time. I think it’s like you said, I think it’s. It’s a it’s a self-defense case, it’s, you know, that’s obviously there. The indictment is for murder. His defense is self-defense. No one’s disputing that he killed the people. And so the discussion now is whether or not he acted and whether they had where they felt the threat was reasonable enough that he could. He was he was authorized to use deadly force, right?

Yeah. You know, this really goes to the heart of there’s a lot of states that are having these kinds of interactions, right? So a good another good state is Arizona. Right. So these are there’s militias in Arizona that patrol the border. And so in those situations are fully armed. They get into an encounter. Do they have the right to use lethal force? That is not Second Amendment. Second Amendment is not what’s at issue in the Rittenhouse case. What it is is what we just talked about self-defense. When you have the right to use lethal force in defending yourself or someone else or personal property. Every state has different legislation. Every state takes a little different tact on it.

I think you’re right. I think I do think the left is trying to make this about an AR 15 and a and they and a gun grab. And any time there’s a shooting like this, it’s always seems to be an excuse for a gun grab. But you’re right, it’s not. It’s not a possession of firearms case. They drop the firearm charge against him, so they literally are not pursuing any kind of that. You didn’t have a lawful right to carry that weapon. I mean, you can question you can question all day and all night whether it was a smart decision for him, a 17 year old kid to go out and, you know, try helping people or rushing graffiti off walls or trying to help provide security for a car lot that that may or may not be a stupid decision. But I mean, I guess you’re you’re allowed to make stupid decisions. I guess in that moment is he does he have the right to defend himself if he believes his life is being threatened, which he obviously is testifying that he did? And you know what I also think is very interesting about this case is I’m almost shocked it hasn’t ended in a mistrial.

I mean, I think the the prosecution, in my opinion, I’ve watched a fair amount of this trial. I think the prosecution in this, this trial has been awful. I mean, they’re hiding. I mean, they’re not they’re they’re very, very close to skirting the, you know, skirting the Brady rule and hiding hiding evidence and not, you know, they’re giving the defense. One, like the FBI. Drone footage, I think, is the clearest footage of this whole, this whole interaction. They give the defense, you know, a grainy, you know, not clear version, but they bring an HD version to court. You know that they don’t turn over. I mean, stuff like that is, you know, this prosecution seems it seems bad. I mean, it seems like they’re they’re ethically very challenged, I guess, is the most delicate way I can put it. And then that leads me to another question Is this case? Does this case ever even be? Is this case ever been brought in Texas? I don’t know that it is.

Well, you know, I mean, everybody wants to talk about the race card. And I think if I do think that if he was a minority, this case would be happening a little differently. But that aside, I would tell you that I agree with you wholeheartedly. And so for people who are listening, Brady or watching Brady is about exculpatory evidence, right? So this this landmark case basically said the prosecution has an affirmative obligation to turn over evidence, all of it. And so the fact that prosecutors do this all the time as a as a criminal defense attorney, they do this all the time. They basically sift through the evidence to say, Well, this is really the evidence that you need is a defense, but that’s not their obligation. Their obligation under this, this case is you have to turn it all over and we’ll decide what’s important, what’s not important to the defense. So the fact that they’re trying to limit it or mitigate it or give them different versions, you know, now the HD One is interesting to me in a digital age because obviously right now we know that it could be a still frame that makes a difference in a case and an HD version of what you can see is supposed to not HD version. Definitely, I think, puts the defense at a disadvantage. Is it enough, you know, in this situation for a court to say, Yeah, these violations create a mistrial? I don’t know. Honestly, if I was this kid know I would probably hope for not a mistrial because I agree with you. I think the prosecution has done a pretty piss poor job.

And so it really we don’t want a mistrial because you don’t want to have to try this thing again. You know, that’s ultimately what happens. And a hung jury or a mistrial?

I know that, you know, I get the defense’s strategy, though. They’re like, Hey, we want to throw everything out there in case the jury comes back with something that’s not favorable to the client. But yeah, I agree with you. I think that the way this situation has presented itself and the way the I mean, the prosecution has handled the case is really good for the defense. I think it puts them in a position they could possibly be.

I mean, my. My my personal opinion on this thing is the scary part about it is it’s it’s it’s got a lot. There’s a lot of video footage on this, on this thing about showing what he did, a lot of pictures, a lot of a lot of potentially exculpatory video and pictures of showing the events of that night. So what happens in a situation where there’s not that, that video footage, when it’s your word against someone else’s in a self-defense case? You know, there’s a lot of a lot of eyewitnesses and there’s also a lot of footage, you know, there’s obviously a picture of a guy holding a Glock, you know, starting to point point a Glock and the guy’s in his face. Is that a situation where you have the right to defend yourself if somebody is pointing a loaded gun it? Yeah, I think it is. But look, think about situations where there’s not going to be all this camera footage and there’s not going to be, you know, it becomes your word against someone else’s. I mean, in a self-defense case, you have to view the threat as being

Potentially lethal to you

To cause death or serious bodily harm in order to use lethal force. And you know, one thing I didn’t understand about the case is why didn’t they let them bring in the background of some of these, you know, some of the assailants that were kicking in and hitting them and coming after him because I do think that is a little bit relevant to to, I guess if he knew that they were criminals,

But it would only be relevant if you knew in advance what he didn’t. He’d never met these people. He never had any kind of encounters with them other than the night in question. So, you know, that really becomes inflammatory to a jury who listens and says, Oh, he was a convicted felon and had been, you know, had had two protective orders against them. So he’s naturally violent. So obviously you had the ability to defend yourself. You just got to kind of take them in that snapshot of time. But what you and I have talked about many times in relation to firearms and using deadly force is, look, the one piece of advice I would give all of our listeners. You are entitled to arm yourself in most states, OK? But remember that the use of that

If you’re a prosecutor in Kenosha, Wisconsin, I don’t know that you do have the right to defend yourself in most

States. But I would tell you, here’s the challenge arming yourself and using those firearms guarantees that you’re going to go through a situation like this this guy is going through. And irrespective of if you believe he did it, he was justified or he was out to murder somebody because he wanted to shoot his gun. I promise you, you discharge that weapon, whether you kill somebody or not, you’re going to end up in legal proceedings. You’re going to be pulled up. Absolutely. You’re going to have to hire legal counsel so you better know what the hell you’re doing. You better know the law as it applies to you in relation to that firearm and self-defense in whatever environment that you’re in. If you don’t know. Talk to a lawyer. Get some advice. Don’t just Google it. I mean, spend some time because, you know, whether you’re like, in Texas now, we don’t have to have a concealed handgun license to be able to carry a firearm. We’re an open carry state anyway, so you could just put it on your hip and walk around. I’m going to tell you what, you pull it out of that with an intention to use it. You better know that your life is about to change dramatically.

Mm hmm. Yeah. There’s you know when you introduce firearms into these situations. Look, and I’m not, I’m not sitting here saying he should have let him let himself get beat to death with a skateboard or shot shot from behind a parked car or anything like that. I do think he has the right to defend himself, but at the same time, you know that probably better be your last option, you know, and based on the drone footage, it looks like that was probably his last option. Yeah. I mean, there was an attorney talking on TV yesterday and he was talking about, I guess he’s it was pretty prominent criminal defense attorney. And he said in a self-defense case with these facts, this is almost the best self-defense case she can have with this set of facts because oftentimes they’re not clear. They’re not as clear as this, this this could potentially be. You’ve got four multiple assailants attacking this guy, some of them with loaded weapons and backing him in a corner or getting them on the ground and things like that. So it’s a little bit more it’s a little bit more clear cut of a self-defense case than than, I guess, a lot of a lot of instances.

Yeah, and I think that helps him on the murder charge, for sure. Obviously, Wisconsin has some different laws that there there also there’s some lesser included offenses in there that I don’t know if it’s going to stand up quite as well those facts. But you know, that’s really the kicker is obviously he doesn’t want to lose his life for trying to defend it. He feels that he was justified in what he did. I would just tell anybody who is observing that trial is to really pay attention to even if these facts are the best. Even if it looks clear-cut, it’s highly likely that this guy was still going to have to go through this process just like he is.

Well, the other thing the other unintended consequence of something like this is you have to use your weapon and kill somebody in self-defense. You don’t know the type of toll that takes on on you, you know, on your on your personal mental health, you know, having to take somebody’s life, especially if you’re a 17 year old kid. I don’t know that he’s, you know, based on his breaking down on the stand. I don’t know that he was, you know, he’s a regretful about what happened, whether he had a choice or not. I don’t know that he’s not regretful about what happened. I mean, nobody wants to get into a situation where, I mean, I have you have a gun and I have guns, you know, I don’t want to get into a situation where I have to use it. I really don’t. I would. I dread the day that that happens, and I don’t want to have to kill somebody. I mean. You know what kind of toll that takes on you personally? It’s no. Yeah. Everybody loses.

Yeah, I agree it’s

A no win situation. And like you said, you and you’re in and you kill somebody in self-defense, you are involved in a legal proceeding. Yeah, whatever that, however that looks, it might be a, you know, you get you get convicted of murder. It might be, you know, them having an investigation and deciding that, yes, it was justified. But either way, it’s going to be investigated. And either way, there’s your life is going to change.

Yeah. And it’s two part know inquiry, right? There’s the objective part. And then there’s a subjective part. And when people hear that they’re like, Well, what are you saying, Sam? I’m saying like, Well, the the objective part is, here’s a situation that we can observe. The subjective part was that enough for you to believe what you believe? And these are complicated issues when you try to break it down to the minuscule moments of what somebody is interpreting somebody else is doing and their intentions. And you know, to your point, Bryan, like, there’s no there’s no there’s no take backs, right? You do something like this and you’re changed forever and whether you get off or not. So this kid, his life is

Fundamentally going to be, I think, the enduring I think the enduring image of this trial is going to be that moronic prosecutor that looks like the guy from a Littlefinger from Game of Thrones up there with holding a rifle pointed at the jury. I mean, you know, I think that’s going to be the probably the enduring image of this thing. I’ve seen that thing on the internet, that that picture of that guy holding that rifle up at least a hundred and a hundred different news stories on this thing. It’s just ridiculous. It’s crazy world. We’re living in, brother. It sure is. Well. We’ve covered a lot, we’ve covered a lot

So that it was going to be a megalodon episode. Right.

We’ve been at this a while, so you got me any parting thoughts. You have an exciting Thanksgiving plans, anything, anything you want to tell us about.

I’m going to I’m going to tell you that I’ll be in a calorie narcosis watching the Cowboys win. So that’s all. That’s all that’s coming up for me.

Cowboys, I haven’t definitely haven’t having a good season this year. They are definitely on the good side. So they got the big Kansas City matchup and then, you know, four days later, they’re playing again. And you will there any old tough part of the schedule, right?

Yeah, yeah. So if we can make it out with at least one win, I think we’ll be in a good spot.

Yeah. Should be exciting. But you wish you and your family the safest and happiest of Thanksgivings.

Little brother eat a big turkey leg for me.

I carry my turkey leg around. Doesn’t go into a food coma. Watching the watching football. But but no. How do they? How do people want to reach out to you? How do they get a hold of you?

Sure. If you’re in the Miami area or in Dallas Fort Worth area, North Texas, you can reach me directly. A one seven nine one four five four seven zero you can reach our office at four six nine eight four four seven one eight one, or you can send me an email at Essence’s at NBC.com. Always visit our website. Ww dot dot com.

Yeah, you can. You can contact. Contact us directly on the website. You can also see the other episodes of this podcast that are slightly less slightly less long on the on the website. They’re all there. You can contact me at two eight one three seven four four seven four one or it be Abercrombie and Ask and you can also reach me on the website as well. So if you’ve got legal questions or you need some help with something we can, certainly we can certainly talk to you. But thanks for the time today, Sam. I appreciate you as always. I’ll go and have a happy Thanksgiving and we’re definitely going to make this. We decided to make this a longer episode this time so we could cover a lot of ground since we’ve been on hiatus. But we’re definitely going to be more consistent with our shows. So we’ll be hitting this thing once a week going going forward so everybody have a safe and happy holiday and we wish you all the best. Sir.

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