Rittenhouse Trial discussion, Aaron Rodgers Covid issues & the WWE Steroid Scandal back for discussion

Coming up on this week's Outlaw Lawyer, we talk the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

We talk Ahmaud Arbery. We're going to talk about Aaron Rodgers and his recent COVID issues. And then we're going to discuss the WWE steroids scandal that just had a special come out.

Coming up next. Well, Morgan, glad to be here with you. We have had a good week so far. I know college basketball season just started, so I'm a little sleepy because I went to the state game and it didn't tip off until eight. So that puts me getting home at like 1030, which is way past my bedtime. Sounded like an old man.

Sounding like an old man. I didn't even, uh, so I went to bed right when I got home. State, state did well. Uh, I'm waiting to see how long we lost Manny Bates for, but, uh, state looked all right, but I came home and went straight to bed, came straight to work this morning. So I don't know how Carolina and Duke did.

Winner winner. It's early. They're very young. Same thing for North Carolina.

A lot of transfers. Uh, the opponent was probably not at the level of a Kentucky. Uh, but both, uh, UNC and Duke with midweek wins. Well, Joe, you're, you're a resident Duke fan.

They look pretty good. Yeah. Josh, you know, you're, you're complaining about, uh, 1030 bedtime. The Duke game didn't start until very close to 10. And as the resident Duke fan, uh, I did stay up for that game. It was very pleasing, very, very pleasing game. Uh, I can confirm Duke does a lot of optimism for this year.

A lot of young guys, but young guys that don't seem very young, uh, you know, 18 year old kids that look like very grown, healthy men. And, uh, they played very mature. And I was actually impressed with Kentucky as well. You know, Kentucky and Duke both had very, very down years by their standards last year. But I think both teams much improved this year. And I don't think Duke.

I think the reason why they're leading Kentucky in the way they did is necessarily an indictment of the Kentucky team so much as it is a reason for a lot of optimism for Duke fans. I'll tell you what I'm going to get tired of real quick. Joe is like, everything's the last time she chefs. He's going to do something. This was his last season opener and I'm going to get tired of those stories real fast.

It's going to be the rocking chair tour. You know, they're all going to give him gifts. I think he's annoyed by it too. You know, I don't think he's necessarily like he, they had a segment, uh, last night and you can kind of tell, I don't think he's all about that. You know, I don't think he necessarily wants there to be something like that, but that's how it's going to be.

Every event, it's going to be nonstop. Um, and, and you guys aren't, I'm going to watch every single Duke game, so I'll get a lot more tired of it than you guys will. And I'm as big of a Duke fan as there is. Very good team. Uh, you know, uh, Paolo Bancaro, very good player, but then Trevor Keels for Duke, uh, another freshmen.

I don't think his expectation level was quite as high, but absolutely phenomenal. Joe, I was kidding. I was kidding about breaking it down, but nice job. Well, we're going to do a couple of segments on the game.

We'll do a front court, then we'll do back court. I was gonna say this weekend I did the most, I think you say like starting connection, but it just, I mean, you know, 20 or 30 I did the most country thing that I've ever done in my life. I flew I flew to Atlanta to see a George Strait concert, which in and of itself is, is a pretty, I think, country thing to do, but we got down there on Friday. We got down there in time for the Braves, uh, world series parade. And that, that, that city is very excited about the Braves.

That's all. That's why I'm going to report that back to you guys here on the outlaw lawyer that Atlanta is very happy about the Braves world championship. Well, for the record, for the record, if that's the most country thing you've ever done, the fact that you flew to Atlanta now, if you had gotten into like a king cab, uh, four by four, four wheelers, you know, and just take it to Atlanta, do a road trip with the family. Then maybe you fit into that category, but flying down, maybe if we were somehow able to jet ski down there, that would probably be a little more, I think walking barefoot through the woods with a 12 pack, that would be country would have been, it would have been the appropriate, and there's nothing wrong with it there.

There's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that at all. I was, I was down there, but, uh, that's the first time I've ever been in the Mercedes Benz. I don't know what they call it, where the Falcons play now. That place is gigantic. Yeah. That place is it's nice. And it's a convertible, right? It's a convertible. It opens up. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, that's an awesome place to go see a game or anything really fantastic place to go the, um, well, Joe, uh, we always talk about sports. It seems that's what we, uh, when we're not talking about the law, we, we watch a little bit of sports and so we always catch up, but we do have a lot of legal things to talk about today. We have several, several legal things, and that is the purpose of the show, Josh. So thank you for that.

Thank you for that redirection. I'm happy to make this just a sports radio show. Maybe we look into that in the future, but, um, yeah, Josh, a lot of things to cover, um, we're going to go back and we're going to discuss the, the written house trial. We started talking about that a little bit in our last episode, and we're going to follow up.

It's something we said that we would follow. We'll probably follow it through to its conclusion and talk about it, you know, until it's done. But, uh, we are going to discuss some updates and some things that have been going on with that case. And after that, you know, we, it's been fun to follow, you know, again, we, we talk about this. We, we don't mean to be callous because, because people have died in these cases, you know, they're victims.

There's, there's things that have happened and people's lives are forever changed. But we, you know, as attorneys, we, we like, you know, Monday, Monday morning quarterback, these things, we like to see what the defense is doing. We like to see what the prosecution is doing. We like to see what comes into play. Evidentiary matters.

These are all fascinating to us because this is what we live and breathe every day. And so when we just, just a reminder, when we talk about these things, we don't mean to be, uh, callous or, or, you know, we know that there are real world effects to these things, but in this show, we, we like to look at the law behind stuff. And so Rittenhouse has been kind of a, it's been covered very well.

I think I was reading a lot of coverage. Um, but that's, that's, uh, that's an interesting one for attorneys. Um, we're also going to look at the, the Arbery murder case out of Brunswick, Georgia. And so that's kinda, in my mind, I've kind of looked at that as kind of the opposite fact pattern of Rittenhouse. It's not perfect, but it's, it's, there's a lot going on in that one too, Joe. Yeah, there's a, there's a whole lot going on and there's a real contrast between the two. There's, you know, there's some similarities, um, and then there's some stark contrasts and, and differences. And I think there's kind of an interesting dichotomy if you look at the two of those cases, uh, cause you got, you know, you basically have that, you know, two sets of, of individuals in these, these separate instances, both using, you know, self-defense to an extent as their defense to committing murder, but very, very similarities, but also some differences. And like you said, it's, it's going to be interesting to look at the two of those and see how those cases develop, uh, and kind of compare the way they develop to one another as they, as they play out. So we will start getting into that and start digging in to the facts of that case. You know, it's, it's interesting that these two are kind of playing out at the same time as well.

And then we'll jump over to kind of what's going on with Aaron Rogers, uh, with his COVID being immunized, not being immunized and kind of the, the world, it sounds like the world freaked out over it. Um, it got covered more than probably the other two things that we were even talking about, but there's some legal implications there. So we'll spend some time taking a look at that.

Yeah. I think it's accurate to say that that was a huge, a huge story that that's really captivated, especially folks that have any interest in sports. And then it's kind of permeated outside of that arena as well, because as we all know, anytime you get into this, this COVID discussion, especially when you're talking about, you know, vaccines or any kind of vaccine hesitancy, and you involve a public figure, you know, you're going to get a ton of discussion and a ton of really both sides of the aisles having such widely differing opinions on it.

So we will get into that as well. And then we also want to touch on, uh, I, me and Joe both watch a series, dark side of the ring, which is, you know, kind of interesting stories from the professional wrestling world. And some of them were interesting than others, but they just did a special couple of weeks back on the WWE steroid scandal.

And from, I guess that would have been the late eighties, early nineties, maybe like 89 through 92. Um, but I was a young man then I didn't know what was going on with the legal side of stuff. And so it kind of opened my eyes and it's new to me, even though it happened many, many, many, many years ago. But I thought that'd be fun for us to talk about a little bit.

Yeah. And it's relevant because like you said, the, you know, that there's been a recent documentary, you know, uh, episode of the, uh, dark side of the ring series that's come out and kind of brought that back into, into the public attention. And so I think that's, it's topical. I think it's something that's, that's topical to discuss today. And then we always have our, our big stack of listener questions. So if we have time left over, we'll, uh, we'll attack one of those listener questions and one of our listeners will have an answer to a question that has been burning in their mind.

Well, I tell you, the show is absolutely packed. So let's get to it. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners. They're 46 combined years experience again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

I'm Morgan Patrick consumer advocate, big voice, and also referee between these two. And again, we talk about legal topics each and every week. If you've got questions pertaining to maybe a legal situation that you're involved in, or you've just got questions, here's the number 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186. Or you can email questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer.com.

And these questions can be used on an upcoming episode. And again, go to the website, the outlaw lawyer.com and all of the shows are available in podcast form. We're going to be back right after this up next on outlaw lawyer. Joe and I talk about Rittenhouse, the prosecution's rested.

What's the defense going to do? The outlaw lawyers on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

I'm Morgan Patrick, your consumer advocate. And again, we have a lot of fun talking about legal situations that are out there. And there are so many stories that hit the headlines and you're, we're talking about them here on the outlaw lawyer. So guys, I know Rittenhouse is going to be front and center.

This portion of the program. Well, Joe, we spent a lot of time last week talking about a Rittenhouse Kyle Rittenhouse is case, and that had that jumped off last week and got started. And the prosecution, uh, just rested.

So we're in the studio on Wednesday morning. Uh, uh, but so the prosecution just rested yesterday. Yeah. You know, and we did talk about it a good bit last week, Josh, we, you know, just to give a rehash to anybody who, who missed that, or somehow isn't following this case, which again, it's very difficult to, to not see these things with, with the way that with our 24 hour news cycle, but essentially Kyle Rittenhouse, he, uh, he comes from out of town, attends a protest, a BLM protest, he's armed with a weapon. And, uh, at some point in the night, tensions rise, he ends up, uh, shooting multiple individuals, killing a few of them. And again, it's charged. And like you said, they've, the prosecution just rested their case yesterday and a lot of very interesting things in my opinion, as far as, as how the prosecution is case played out and how some of the witnesses that they called actually, in, in my opinion, could really be seen as damaging the prosecution's case.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that, uh, you know, Joe, I'm a, my undergrad degree is basically a journalism major or I went to NC state. They don't have a journalism school, but it's basically the equivalent of a journalism degree. And so I always like to follow how different media outlets, TV, print, you know, conservative, uh, more liberal. Like I like to see how they present the news.

That's very interesting to me. And it's one of the things we do on the show is, is kind of look at that and going into the Rittenhouse trial. I didn't think there was very fair coverage either way, right? I felt like everything was slanted one way or the other. This obviously is coming out of a situation, which was very political, very, very socially charged and coming into the trial, I thought the coverage was, was pretty unfair, slanted one way or the other, but since it started and people are actually looking at what the prosecution's putting out there, I feel like the coverage has really come in and kind of really focused on legally what's happening and I mentioned that because that doesn't seem to always be the case. I thought that was really interesting and it made because the, I think the prosecution honestly, and I think we predicted it was going to be a struggle. Um, I think both of us said, I can't imagine it was almost this almost when you break it down factually and look at the, you know, the murder charges and you look at the application of self-defense as justification, and you've got these three different scenarios and you've got to figure out who's the aggressor in each one of these scenarios and the, you know, it keeps resetting. And it's just a lot to look at factually.

And you could see the prosecution really struggle with this. Yeah, you said it and, and just touching on what you said, I completely agree as far as, and it's not just this case, it's a big problem we have with just the news in general, and then with the proliferation of social media, you get into this kind of this tribalism and you get whichever side of the political aisle you fall on, things just get so slanted. And I think, like you said, a lot of times there's not really fair coverage either way, so we can't, you can't really pinpoint either side and say, you know, this, this side's presenting some kind of a fair and balanced and really accurate accounting because you get so many people just trying to, to, to play to their market and, and to appeal to their demographic, as opposed to just strictly looking like, like we try to do here at the factual basis, uh, without any kind of slant, without any kind of leaning and it's kind of disappointing. But like you said, I guess, somewhat refreshing where we've seen as, like you said, the case has played out and we've seen this case presented, it does seem like there's almost been more of a truly neutral approach to, to presenting this. Because again, we're just, when you're presenting on a trial, you're kind of, all you can do is really state what's taking place, state the facts as they're taking place and report what's going down there.

So I don't know if that has something to do with it, but it has, it has been a little bit refreshing to see that. Yeah. You know, the, I think most of the experts going in this trial, basically, you've got to figure out who the aggressor is. You know, who, who was in the wrong, and you kind of have to figure it out several different times because we have several different incidents.

And so I think in the opening arguments, the prosecution, I mean, I think one of the things they had to do was say, Hey, uh, Mr. Rittenhouse shouldn't have, shouldn't have been here, shouldn't have been open carrying, uh, you know, an AR and was threatening and he was, he was the aggressor, um, I think the defense was able to, to argue, Hey, there's, he was doing nothing illegal and, uh, you know, he was there maybe, maybe it's not the smartest decision for an 18 year old to be open carrying, uh, you know, a semi automatic rifle and, uh, in a situation like that, but, but it, you know, was it illegal, you know, I think it's kind of what the defense focused on. And then they, they've kind of broken each of these encounters. You know, there's three encounters, two resulted in, in the death of, of, of someone. So there was two murder charges in the last one, the last encounter, the last guy who was shot survived.

And so he was one of the, what you would think would be the star witness. And I'm kind of skipping ahead a little bit, but just, just, just a very confusing, factual, um, and I don't think the prosecution did a good job, like separating these out. Like I would have hoped they would have done, you know, And it's, and not to rag on them too much, because it's difficult. Like you said, it's, it's a, it's convoluted. It's complex because you have several individual incidents, but at the same time, you have to look at all those incidents in concert and kind of look at they, they build on each other. And that first incident sets the tone and speaks to, it really speaks to Rittenhouse's perception of everything that follows. So you do have to look at them individually, but then there's also relevance to the way that it builds and the way that it progresses.

So it's not the easiest thing to do. And you know, I can't, but I agree with you, you would have liked to have seen it as the prosecution looking at it strategically, you think they could have potentially done a better job there. And like we said earlier, I think a lot of the things that they laid out really kind of backfired on them in a lot of ways. And some of the things that they were trying to do, you know, some of the witnesses that they called actually ended up destroying their case in a lot of ways, and especially, like you said, with, uh, with, with Grosskrauts, I believe we're pronouncing his name correctly. He's, he's the one that survived. And honestly, man, you look at his testimony and that's almost like a slam dunk in Rittenhouse's favor.

If you review what, what he said and the way that he presented what happened, which is his firsthand account of the situation, I don't see how the prosecution is going to overcome that. Yeah. And even before we get there, so the first encounter was with, uh, the gentleman's last name was Rosenbaum and he's, he's deceased. Um, but I think the on cross and, uh, I mean, it, I definitely left with the impression that Rosenbaum was, was the aggressor in the, in the first encounter.

Yeah. You, you don't have, you know, the thing about the Rosenbaum encounter, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of video evidence, you know, we, uh, crazily enough, there's a good bit of video evidence of a lot of what took place on this knife, but that's one thing that there's not a ton of really clear evidence of, so you actually had a video producer that was there on site, who was one of the main people that testified about this incident with Rosenbaum. And he basically stated that, you know, he heard Rosenbaum essentially say that if he caught Rittenhouse alone, he was going to kill him, said that he saw him reaching for the gun.

I think there was some, some coroner testimony that his hands were actually on the gun when it was shot. So there's, there's a lot of things that came out there as to that initial incident that, that really seemed to work in Rittenhouse's favor. And then the second, I believe the second, uh, encounter was with, with Huber and Huber's the one that had the skateboard and, and, you know, was coming in kind of after, uh, the first incident. And so that, that even gets more complicated, but it seems pretty clear from the evidence that Huber, uh, for better or worse, uh, depending on how you view the situation, was attempting to get the firearm, he wasn't, he was attacking, uh, you know, or attacking the, the plaintiff or the defendant here.

Um, so that's another kind of odd situation. And again, it gets, it gets so complicated, man, cause you look at it and you look at, you look at Huber as being the second piece of this puzzle and he's seen Rittenhouse fire his weapon. And at that point, you know, it gets very difficult. It gets very convoluted and you start getting into some tricky situations. But again, we're, you're having to look at Rittenhouse's perception. Um, and it's just, it's a difficult one all around, especially, you know, as to Huber, but then again, clearly you've got, you've got substantial evidence that he swung and attacked Rittenhouse with a skateboard and, you know, that's, that's.

That's something that's problematic for the prosecution to overcome. And, and so then that takes us to the last one. That's where you, uh, it was like, how do we pronounce that last guy's name? I think we're going with gross, gross Krauts.

All right. So gross Krauts is still with us. He's still alive.

He's got injuries that'll be with him for the rest of his life. But, and you sent me the red, I think you sent me the link, Joe, but just watching attorneys respond to his, um, his testimony, it was like the prosecution had never talked to the talk to him. I, I can't imagine they were gonna, you know, he basically came out and said that, you know, he had no problem admitting it seemed that he, he aimed, he had a, he had a weapon and he aimed his weapon at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse fired. Yeah. And it was amazing, man.

I sent you that link. It was, this is what I guess nerdy lawyers do, but, uh, it was basically a live stream of some, some attorney reactions that were watching the case. And you would, it was like going back to our sports discussion to use an analogy. It was like watching, you know, a basketball fan, seeing someone get dunked on the way that the attorneys just kind of popped for it and, you know, couldn't believe it and essentially were like, that's it, you know, that, that, that alone, the fact that he is readily admitting that he, he pointed his, his weapon at Rittenhouse, I mean, I don't see how you can get more clear evidence, at least in that incident of it being self-defense, you know, that, that's such a, a huge thing that's going to work in Rittenhouse's favor. And the fact that that came out during the prosecution's case, like you said, it, it, it kind of, did they even talk to him? Like it's, it kind of boggles your mind.

Yeah. And so the big question now is what will the defense do? You know, there was, uh, there was at least a rumbling, you know, uh, in a, in a federal criminal case like this where, you know, a long time in jails up as high stakes, you know, most of the time, the defendants of Mr. Rittenhouse wouldn't, his attorneys wouldn't put them on the stand.

They don't want to open them up to cross. If they feel good about where they stand there, they don't want to jeopardize their case. So I'm really interested to see what the defense does here. Cause I think the defense, uh, much like what we're going to talk about in the, in the WWE, uh, steroid, like I don't, I don't know that the defense has to do anything. I don't think the prosecution came close to proving their case. And again, no matter what you think happened or how you interpret the facts or the way they've been reported, if you just look at what the prosecution presented to this jury, I don't think there's enough there for anything. I mean, I think, I think the defense could rest and Rittenhouse would be a, would be a free man just based on that, based on the evidence. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how, I don't know if the defense anticipated that the prosecution's case would play out that way, but it will be interested to see if they, if they kind of pivot or if they handle the presentation of their defense any differently in light of what's been presented thus far. And, you know, the, the prosecution's argument, it's essentially that the fact that the, despite that there was a tense environment and a lot of widespread aggression there on that night and house was, was the only person who responded to that aggression with any kind of lethal force.

Uh, but the way that it was presented and some of the things that came out, I think just really are going to prove damaging to that case. And I, and I have to agree with you, Josh, it's, I don't know how much the defense even has to do at this point to, to, to, to kind of get Rittenhouse out of this. The Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer handling the Rittenhouse discussion again, it will be ongoing. Uh, there'll be follow up, uh, down the road here on the program.

We've got a lot to get to today. Again, you can find Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, they're the managing partners, 46 combined years experience and offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay Verina, as well as Gastonia. Gastonia and they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And we get into the legalese each and every week. I'm Morgan Patrick, again, consumer advocate and referee between these two. If you've got a legal question that you want to get an answer to, here's the number to call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. You can also email your questions to the program at questions at the outlawlawyer.com and we'll try and use those, uh, try to get to them in an upcoming episode. You can also go to the website, the outlawlawyer.com. You can find past podcasts there, click on the subject matter and listen to your heart's content. We've got a lot coming up on the program. If you're an NFL fan, you want to stay tuned. We're back right after this coming up next on the outlaw lawyer.

We talk Aaron Rogers, recent issues with COVID-19 and violation of the NFL league protocols, the outlaw lawyers on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. You can find them as managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience between these two. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verina and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

If you've got a legal question of your own, we hit a lot of different topics, but you may have something going on in your world and you need some answers. Call the firm 800-659-1186. An attorney will be back in touch with you. Leave your name, number and a little brief information and you will get a phone call. 800-659-1186 or you can email questions to the program. We'll try and use those in a future episode.

Questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Well, NFL fans, listen up, Aaron Rogers in the news, guys, a lot of fantasy football team owners are concerned. And certainly if you're a Green Bay Packer fan, holy cow, what, what's the difference in having a, I guess, a frontline, you know, top 10 quarterback and then not having him, I guess we, we can see that, huh? I tell you what, Morgan, I, the NFL, I've got kind of like a tunnel vision. So I pay attention to the Panthers.

Sure. And because my, my wife's from Buffalo pay attention to the bills and neither one of them really come into contact with Green Bay a ton. And so like, I pretty much ignored Green Bay for a long time and I didn't know much about Aaron Rogers. I hadn't really followed him, even though of course he's been a star for a long time until he was on jeopardy. And then my family became big fans of Aaron Rogers because he did a really good job hosting jeopardy. And, and, you know, you say top 10 quarterback, I think maybe closer to top five. Yeah, that's probably, that's probably, that's probably more accurate. I mean, he is, he's legit.

One of the best to do it and has been for a long time, a whole, a really long time. So, you know, recently, uh, there's been all of this, this COVID-19 talk circulating around Rogers and around the Packers. And so basically just to, to catch everybody up to speed, basically Rogers tested positive for COVID-19 and was placed on the league's reserve, which is the COVID-19 list.

They have Wednesday of last week at the time of this recording. So there was some video around Halloween, Aaron Rogers, you know, he grew his hair out and, and kind of grew a beard and people didn't really know why. And it turns out it was for a Halloween costume.

He, he went as John Wick was actually a really solid Halloween costume, but there was some, some video of him at a party unmasked, you know, kind of dancing, having a good time, living his life, man, having a, having a blast. And, uh, then of course comes out, he tests positive for COVID and the league announced after that, that it was going to investigate how the Packers had handled their COVID-19 protocols. So, uh, another, another big piece of this is the fact that back in August, there was a lot, you know, there was a whole lot of discussion leading up to the season about the vaccine and vaccine mandates and players being required to be vaccinated. And so there was a lot of discussion.

A lot of players were asked their opinion on that. Rogers basically came out in August when asked about his vaccine status and said that he had been immunized for COVID-19, which led a lot of people to believe that meant he was vaccinated, but turns out he's actually, he's allergic, according to Rogers, he's allergic to the ingredients that are in the mRNA vaccines. And he didn't feel comfortable taking the Johnson and Johnson. He doesn't have the same athletic body type that you have, Josh, where I know you feel very comfortable taking that and you were perfectly fine, but it turns out that despite claiming he was immunized Rogers actually was never vaccinated. So this has been a big issue for people who feel he kind of misled the public stating that he had been vaccinated when in fact that, that he was not, you know, and it's a different, I was trying to think about this. So I've tried to ignore this story as much as I possibly can. Like I've clicked past it and then it's just beat me up over the past week or two. So I finally started paying attention, but when you're an athlete, you know, this, your, your body is your, is your paycheck.

You know, I'm an old broken down man. And so I never really thought to, I was like, okay, I'll get this vaccine. And, uh, I never thought too much about it, but yeah, if you're a professional athlete and Aaron Rogers has been doing it for a long time.

So he's probably, I would, I would argue maybe doesn't have a whole lot of, he's got more years behind him than ahead of him. And so I kind of ended up kind of feeling for him. Like, you know, he, this is his body.

This is his livelihood. He should have, we should all have freedom to make these kinds of decisions. I'm not a big, um, anti-vaxxer. I'm not a big, everybody should be back so I can be safe guy, but it's been interesting to hear those two camps interpret this story. And the, and the way I saw it was professional athlete, very, very much concerned with what goes in their body, how they train, what they take supplements, medicine. It all made perfect sense to me, but it made a lot of people angry.

Yeah, it made a lot of people angry. And I think, I think a part of what really sparked the anger is the fact that he he's on record stating he had been immunized. And so it actually turns out that, uh, prior to the season, Rogers actually petitioned the NFL, uh, stated that he had done alternate treatments prior to the start of training camp.

And I don't have, I don't know exactly what those alternate treatments were. My understanding from, and this is a super uninformed opinion, but I know I heard he was taking zinc. He was taking supplements.

He was taking things. And he was basically trying to, to ask the NFL that in light of these alternate treatments that he had done, could he be considered the same as someone who was, who was vaccinated with an approved vaccine? And so there was a long back and forth, uh, the players union and an infectious disease consultant, all kind of, uh, heard this and heard this case for him basically arguing for that exemption and then ruled that he wasn't going to get that same, that same consideration. And he would ultimately be considered unvaccinated. So what that means with all of the NFL's COVID protocols is if you're unvaccinated, you're treated a lot differently.

And there's a lot of things that you got to do differently than players that, that are vaccinated. So it turns out it sounds like Rogers really followed those masking protocols while he was interacting with players and coaches in the team's headquarters. But he didn't wear a mask when he was in the media auditorium during his weekly news conferences, which again, makes, it makes a lot of sense. Cause you're talking one of the biggest stars in football period, much less by far the biggest star for the Packers, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna want them to be there for his media obligations and him being unmasked for that from a media perspective makes a lot of sense, but it looks like other players who were not vaccinated actually ended up, they were handling their media obligations, uh, through zoom rather than, than being in person. So there was kind of a difference there between how that was handled. And then again, we talked about the video of Rogers at the, the team sanctioned Halloween party, which was actually a team sanctioned event. And so apparently the fact that he's unvaccinated, he is prohibited from attending any kind of team gatherings outside of the team facility. So that ended up being another violation of the NFL and the player associations protocol guidelines ended up the Packers actually were fine $300,000 as a result of this. And Rogers and another individual associated with the club were fine 14,650 a piece, which to them, again, that's, that's peanuts, but that's like finding you 14 bucks, you know, 14, find me 14 bucks, man.

I'm good for it right now, right now. But, uh, did any of the, I didn't, again, I haven't read as much as you have, uh, Joe, uh, since I was trying to avoid coverage, but did any of his teammates come out? Was anybody like, I saw a lot of national commentators were, you know, teeing off on them because that's what they have to do. They got to come up with some content, but did any of his teammates actually give any statements or speak to this at all that you saw? I don't know that again, I haven't, I've looked into it more than you cause I haven't been trying to deliberately avoid it. And then I, you know, our crack research team provides us with these notes for our show.

I haven't seen anybody come. I haven't seen any of his teammates come out in a negative way. And my guess is, you know, we're, we're talking about sports and sports psychology and the way that teams work. And my guess is that no one on the team is really going to come out and make that strong of a stance. I mean, this is the quarterback of your team. Uh, they're the team's doing well. Everybody you're an athlete, you want to win. And I would imagine that there, even if there's players that have super strong political opinions about it, they're probably going to let that take a back seat to team chemistry in this case, that would be my assumption.

Yeah. In the end, I, it just seems like much, much to do about nothing. Cause the fines are meaningless. The fines are completely meaningless to the people that are paying the fines. They care less.

And, uh, the only people that seem to be really angry about it are, are pundits, you know, people that, that get paid to be angry about things. Um, so I'm, I'm guessing this will, I guess he's going to come back. He's going to, in theory play Sunday. Hopefully I guess they'll, I don't know who they're playing.

Maybe they'll win and everybody'll just be quiet. It's kind of like, I haven't heard too much about the Kyrie Irving. I don't think we really talked about Kyrie on, on our show, but. No, we didn't talk a ton about Kyrie, but you know, the Kyrie situation is, is, is a similar, and it's kind of crazy, man.

You know, you, you talk about these vaccine mandates and you talk about the way that different places handle these vaccine mandates. And so you've got Kyrie who hasn't played a single game for the Brooklyn Nets, uh, due to the fact that he's unvaccinated, he's very, very outspoken and you know, his opposition to, to being mandated to get that vaccine and hasn't done it. So he hasn't played. And he, he can't play, uh, you know, he could play in road games. He could play at other places that don't have similar mandates, but he can't practice, he can't play in the games at, at where the team plays because of the fact that he hasn't complied with that. But then it's interesting because, you know, that mandate doesn't apply to players of other teams.

It's just for employees that are employed within the city. So you, you have other players that, that come in, you know, every night they play unvaccinated with no issue whatsoever, and it's just such an interesting, it's such an interesting thing, uh, to, to look at and the way that these things kind of play out. But yeah, Kyrie don't know that, don't know that he'll play a second this year because of that. Hopefully this all just fades. I, that's what I keep telling myself. Hopefully this all fades away as, as, cause you know, every, everybody's going to get COVID at some point.

That's just going to happen whether you're vaccinated or not. It sounds like it's just one of those things we're all going to have to deal with and hopefully at some point, this stuff just becomes a non story. I keep waiting. I keep waiting for a lawsuit to come out of the Kyrie situation. Cause he's, he's, he's got a contract and I haven't read the contract. He's being told he, he can't play even though he's ready and willing to play.

And I'm assuming, I'm assuming the nets aren't paying him. You know, he's, I don't know. I haven't read too much into it, but I just keep waiting for that lawsuit, uh, to happen.

And that kind of be a flash point on these kinds of restrictions, but I guess we'll see. Yeah. And you know, the, that, the other thing with the Rogers issue that kind of has taken over the, the news cycle is, you know, he did some alternative treatments for his COVID and, you know, same thing happened with, if you keep up with it, you know, Joe Rogan was someone who, who was kind of outspoken against vaccine mandates, was unvaccinated. He got COVID, he did some alternative treatments as well. And any, anytime in the news, when you've dealt with individuals that have, have pursued these alternative treatments, especially if you're doing treatments, especially anything involving ivermectin, you've seen just a ridiculously strong backlash from a lot of the traditional media outlets to, to classify that as just a, such a strongly opposed thing.

You know, there's a lot of talk of horse dewormer. There's a lot of, a lot of things that are thrown out like that. So, so Rogers actually came out and said he consulted with Joe Rogan.

He did the same things that he did and, and apparently both, both men heard like extremely quickly from that. And, so, but there was a lot of, a lot of backlash. Anytime you, we've seen discussion of any kind of alternative unproven treatment in the media from any kind of public figure, man, the backlash has been just so strong and so extreme. And, and, and on the one hand, you know, we, we try not to take a side.

So if you look at it from the folks that are really pushing back against this, these are public figures. You don't want to spread any kind of misinformation. You don't want to promote any untreated thing that could be potentially harmful to, to anyone. But at the same time, should you not be, we should be pursuing every avenue of defense against this society crippling pandemic. And it's, it's kind of tough that people don't want to talk about a lot of things and there's not a lot of exploration of these other, other treatments, at least there's not discussion of it. And, and it's, it gets into a really tricky area that, that really pushes a lot of buttons. Guys, this is going to be a topic that's going to resurface. We'll end up chewing on it in future programs.

Look forward to that. The Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker, Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We're here each and every week.

They have 46 combined years experience between the two of them. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verina, and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate.

We're going to be back here in just a little bit. But if you've got a legal question of your own and you need some answers, here's a number to call to get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 800-659-1186. Leave your name, number, and a little contact information as far as what you have a question about and a, an attorney will be in touch with you. You can also email questions to the program questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We'll use those in upcoming shows and check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Up next on Outlaw Lawyer. Joe and I discuss a 30 year old case that is suddenly interesting.

Again, the WWE steroids scandal of the early 90s. The Outlaw Liars on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. 46 combined years experience between these two offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and Gastonia. Practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We talk legalese each and every week.

All the hot topics. If you've got a question about what's going on in your life legally, you can get in touch with the firm, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information a little bit about what you've got a question about and an attorney will be back in touch with you. Also, you can do questions at theoutlawlawyer.com and leave a question and we'll use it on an upcoming show.

And please check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Guys, where are we going next? Well, I think we're gonna go back to the late 80s, early 90s. And this was back before I was aware of the news. I didn't watch the news back then, but we've been following the dark side of the ring, which is a documentary series on, I think, what does that come on Vice TV, Joe? Vice?

Yeah, it's on Vice. And like you said, Josh, back then, you didn't watch the news, but you know what you did watch? You watched professional wrestling.

That's right. I, uh, so big into professional wrestling back then, do a lot of stuff that was going on, but I never do the business side, never knew, uh, the, with the steroid issue that, uh, and I'll say the WWF, the WWF of course is the WWE now, but back then it was the WWF, um, but they were having a big steroid, uh, issue. Um, and it was really, we won't go into it here, but it was really weird.

All this came up back in the day, but the result of it was that the United States charged, uh, Vince McMahon, the owner, the promoter of the WWF, basically with a conspiracy, uh, criminal conspiracy to supply illegal steroids to his professional wrestlers, to improve their performance, to improve their physique, their appearance. And that he, that basically he was profiting off this scheme, which even when I say it, uh, really sounds, uh, like sketchy charges. It doesn't sound very well thought out, uh, charges. It sounds like that would be kind of hard to prove. And I guess it, it was in the end.

Yeah. They, they charged them with conspiracy. They, they also charged them with, you know, distributing. There was a lot of charges.

I think there was six total originally and three of those were thrown out before the case went to court. But, uh, you know, looking back at, you know, looking back at professional wrestling at the time, you can, you can't really go back and watch the early nineties professional wrestling and think none of these people are on steroids. I mean, it's, I think it's patently obvious virtually every single individual was on steroids because that was a big thing at the time. You know, the size of the, the wrestlers was kind of paramount. And, and I don't think anybody disputes the fact that McMahon really pushed that and he was huge on, you gotta be big.

You have to look the part. Um, so this came out and I think it's also important to talk about the history of steroids, you know, steroids weren't necessarily a controlled substance in the sense that they are now prior to the 1990s. Uh, so, and, and, you know, wrestling obviously predates that period of time.

So there was probably a period of time there where this was something that wasn't necessarily outright illegal, ultimately becomes illegal. And then, like you said, that there's allegations that, that McMahon really promoted this use, required this use and distributed those steroids as well. And, you know, they had a lot of, uh, there's a very interesting story. If you've never watched the dark side of the ring, you know, my, my wife is not a, is not a big wrestling fan, but, but she's found these interesting too.

Uh, some of them, some of them kids can watch, some of them can't, but, uh, my oldest watched it with us. Um, cause some of these guys are still around, you know, Hulk Hogan is somebody they talked about a lot who ended up having to testify in this. And there were, there were other wrestlers and, and for the most part, again, the kind of like we were talking about Rittenhouse, the, the federal prosecutor here, when you get charged with a federal crime, that's a big deal. And we've talked about it before on the show, you know, usually that's a, you're, you're up against a lot of evidence. You know, the federal prosecutors usually don't charge you unless they've already got a lot of the evidence they need. And, and so going to trial on a federal case is, is scary for the defendant.

It's probably scary for the attorney. I was really impressed and I didn't write down his name, but the attorney that represented McMahon and, or the WWF on this one, he was a, he was a really good attorney. Um, and he's apparently still their attorney today, from what I understand.

Yeah. And he was, he was great. And it all centered around, there was a doctor, um, Zahorian, there was a, there was a doctor who was kind of supplying, uh, steroids again, wasn't illegal for a while, then it became illegal.

Um, and he kind of got caught up in that. So there definitely was, uh, I don't think he was, I guess he was employed by the WWE, but this doctor kind of was the focal point where a lot of these wrestlers got their steroids. I think one of the wrestlers testified that he didn't get steroids from the doctor because it was cheaper to go get them on the, on the street. So he found other ways to get his steroids, but they put all these wrestlers up on the stand and all these wrestlers say, Hey, Vince never told me to take steroids.

I never got steroids from Vince. It's something I did before I got here. And I was like, this federal prosecutor, did he question any of these guys before he put them on the stand? It was just amazing to me that you can get that blindsided by your own witness, you know?

Yeah. And, and it's funny because if you, if you watch the documentary, it, they actually talk about the fact that once the, you know, the indictment came down, McMahon, actually, there was a, like a jovial celebratory environment about the charges and they kind of had like a go get them, let's, let's knock this down type of type of approach to it, which is, which is kind of interesting. Cause like you said, that's, it's, you get these federal charges, usually that's a super serious thing. And you're going to be, you're going to be not very excited about that, but it seems like the polar opposite reaction from the, the WWF, WWE, WWF at the time, it looked like the prosecutors really only had one witness who was a wrestler that had been fired by the WWF. And he, I think he was the only one that testified that, you know, McMahon told me I needed to do steroids and this is where I could get steroids. And then he had a lot of other things going on. He wasn't a very reliable witness, kind of a hostile witness since he had been fired. His name was Nails Josh.

Isn't that enough to give him great credibility? They showed a picture of him and he wrestled as kind of, I guess he had like an inmate garb. And I've seen, I've seen a lot of eighties and nineties wrestling and I couldn't remember who that guy was. Yeah, they, his, he was a, that was his gimmick. He was an inmate and, uh, they feuded him with the big boss man, understandably. Uh, I, it seems like I should remember that I'm disappointed in myself.

He was very unmemorable. But this trial was very, like you said, it had a very pro wrestling element to it, you know, with the way that, uh, uh, the opening statements and the closing statements and some of the, the tax they took and how there were some celebrations, uh, in the courtroom, but this lens credibility to my theory that everything is really pro wrestling court, we'll discuss that theory on an upcoming episode. We'll just dedicate a whole, whole thing to it. Uh, I tell you guys, uh, so many fans of pro wrestling. So this is another, uh, uh, part of, uh, I guess the story for the outlaw lawyers that continue and we will, uh, follow up with, uh, the latest from the WWE. Uh, and I guess that's world worldwide entertainment.

Is that what is it? World wrestling entertainment. They got, so we could do a whole series on them.

They had to change the name because of the world wildlife Federation. Okay. Well, there you go.

Well, there you go. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners there. We have to take a short break. We're back on the other side and we'll wrap up this edition of the outlaw lawyers coming up next.

We're going to wrap up the show. We'll kind of summarize what we've discussed thus far, and we will set up our Ahmaud Arbery discretion for a future episode, the outlaw lawyers on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts of the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience. And they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, your consumer advocate. If you've got a legal question of your own, you can always call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. Leave a little information for the attorneys and they will be back in touch with you. And again, you can also email your questions to questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Guys, it's been a very busy show, so let's kind of wrap it up, talk about, you know, kind of summarize what we've gotten into and we'll look forward to next week. Well, Morgan, we talked, we talked a long time about Rittenhouse cause that's just such a, such a crazy case. And, uh, I don't think we'll have any resolution before the weekends. I'm assuming we'll, we'll spend some more time talking about that next week. Hopefully we'll have a jury verdict and some more to discuss in connection with that.

Yeah. You know, Josh, we talked Rittenhouse, we talked the Aaron Rogers scandal. We talked the WWE steroid case. We may do some more wrestling segments going forward, uh, depending on how well received that is. Uh, and then, you know, kind of piggybacking off what we talked about with Rittenhouse, you know, going forward, I think next episode, we'll, we'll really dive into this, this Ahmaud Arbery case as well, because it's got a lot of, a lot of parallels to, to the Rittenhouse situation and, you know, similar, but different scenarios where you've got this self-defense being claimed and just a generally interesting scenario that, that I think there's a lot to dive into on.

This is one. I remember when this happened and, uh, I remember, I remember being angry about it at the time. You know, I politically, we don't like to look at things politically. Um, but we still look at, at facts and some things just don't, don't make sense. And this one to me seemed about as senseless as, as they could get, you know, w again, we'll dive into the facts the next show, but Mr. Arbery, uh, has done nothing.

Or at least in my opinion, did nothing wrong at all. And this, this is a slam dunk to me, if I was the prosecution, I would, I would be feeling pretty good about my, my chances, but this is one I kind of spent a lot of time reading about this week. And again, we're going to run out of time, so we'll, we'll focus on it next week, but this is, this is really interesting. It brings up self-defense again, and it brings up, you know, how you view both parties and something like this.

And there's some other things there's old laws that come into play in this one. And, um, it's just going to be, it's going to be, again, uh, from an attorney's perspective is going to be interesting. I'm really interested to see what the prosecution does. They've already started the, the trial. So we'll, we'll have a lot to talk about about it.

Yeah. It's, it's super interesting, Josh. And like you said, there's a lot of things to discuss. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of recusal that has to take place due to, you know, personal relationships.

We're dealing with kind of a small area, small town. So there's, there's some, the prosecutor knew some of the potential defendants and you got some controversy there and some things that have come out that are, you know, very interesting, add some interesting wrinkles to this. We're dealing with a, an old civil war era law that they're kind of trying to use to justify this. And it's like you said, man, there's, you know, from what we can tell, Arbery did nothing wrong.

And even if you assume, if you take the defendant's argument and you say, well, he was burglarizing homes, you know, that still, in my opinion, doesn't justify him being basically run down, confronted by just these individuals with weapons and then murdered essentially. So, um, a lot of parallels to the Rittenhouse house case, almost the polar opposite of the Rittenhouse case in a lot of ways. Well, very interesting to look at them together. Yeah.

I was just going to say, I mean, it's a lot for one show and I like the idea of coming back next week, uh, you know, fresh palette and, and discuss that case. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm is where you can find them. They're the managing partners. Again, 46 combined years of experience at Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I'm Morgan Patrick, your consumer advocate. It is about time to wrap it up.

Want to give this number out one more time. If you've got a legal question, 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186 or email a question to the program questions at the outlawlawyer.com. We'll use it on an upcoming show and you can always visit the website, the outlawlawyer.com guys. Great show.

We'll talk to you next week. Outlaw lawyer is hosted by an attorney licensed to practice law in North Carolina. Some of the guests appearing on the show may be licensed North Carolina attorneys. Discussion of the show is meant to be general in nature and in no way should the discussion be interpreted as legal advice. Legal advice can only be rendered once an attorney licensed in the state in which you live had the opportunity to discuss the facts of your case with you. The attorneys appearing on the show are speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of the show, contact us directly.