NCAA, Venomous Snakes, Anti-Protest Legislation, Estate Planning and More!

Coming up on The Outlaw Lawyer, we're going to talk a couple of updates on some things we've discussed in the past, the NCAA recent ruling, venomous snakes. We are talking anti-protest legislation.

We're going to talk about estate planning and we're going to cover a lot of topics next. And now the Supreme Court has said, unanimously, this was wrong, fact-based. Your belief at the time doesn't necessarily drive what the actual law is.

It's reasonable, informative. Now, if you take in facts and you think about them and you don't jump to an instant opinion, you're the outlaw. And now, Outlaw Lawyer with Josh Whitaker.

Welcome to this week's Outlaw Lawyer. I am Josh Whitaker. I am one of your hosts.

I am also an attorney with the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer. I'm here with our co-host, Joseph T. Hamer. How are you doing, Joe?

Doing great, Josh. Thank you for including my middle initial. I want everybody to really get a feel for who you are and what you're about.

It makes me sound very formal and I'm extremely formal. So thank you. So just a reminder, if this is the first time you're listening to The Outlaw Lawyer, what we try to do here, me and Joe, we try to take legal items out of the news cycle and kind of look at them like practicing attorneys would look at a trial or a fact pattern. And so me and Joe, we are partners over at Whitaker and Hamer.

Whitaker and Hamer has offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. We practice every day. So our firm's in the courtrooms here in Wake, Johnson, and the surrounding counties, and we're dealing with stuff on the ground. And we like to apply that reasoning and logic we use every day to these news items that kind of stand out to us. And so today we've got a couple of things. So Joe, it looks like we've got a couple of updates on some stuff we've already talked about.

That's right, Josh. We talked extensively in a past episode about the NCAA, some of the changes with the NCAA, what the future looks like for the NCAA. And we will kind of take a look at how that future is developing. We'll follow up and discuss that. We're also going to talk a little bit more about venomous snakes. Again, venomous snakes, been in the news here recently, and we have some updates there as well. We promised you guys we will follow these things and provide any kind of relevant updates we can, and we're coming through on that promise today.

That's right. So things moved fast on the NCAA after the case, the Supreme Court case. And of course, we spent some time last week talking about the North Raleigh spitting cobras. And as soon as we talked about it, there was a bunch of updates on that one.

So that's the thing. People, I feel like that just shows our fingers on the pulse of the legal news in the community, Josh. So after that, so we're going to spend some time with those updates and then we've got some other stuff for you.

What else we got, Joe? We have got anti-protest legislation. We're going to talk about some recent developments. Protests have been a little more prevalent in the news in the last couple of years. And, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about that and what some states are introducing to try.

And basically, you can, I guess the best way to frame it is really it's kind of anti-protest legislation in the sense that not necessarily preventing protests in general, but preventing and kind of criminalizing violent rioting style of protest. And we'll talk about that. And we're going to end the show. We've got kind of an estate planning fact pattern. We didn't have enough time to reach it last week, but this week we'll delve into what we're calling an estate planning horror story. We will dive deeply into the estate planning horror story.

I want to get more horror stories on the air for our listeners, cautionary tales, just to kind of keep everybody informed. So we're definitely going to try to do that. But again, like Josh said, we're looking at these things from the neutral perspective of the law. Again, we try to keep the politics out of it. We try to keep our own individual biases out of it. And that's, that's really what we're trying to do.

And that's really the purpose of the Outlaw Lawyer. You were talking about horror stories. And so when I go, I go talk to people, sometimes I talk to some groups and that's what I always start with. I start with things that I've seen go wrong in my practice. These horror stories are very good teaching tools.

That's true. We have a Rolodex of things that go wrong. And unfortunately we add to it every day because the law invites the horror stories to occur in a lot of ways. And, you know, by a lot of times through nobody's fault, it's just, if you don't have proper legal representation you can get yourself into bad situations. And again, that's why we always encourage our listeners to know the purpose of this show, not to provide legal advice to anybody. But if you do need legal advice, we always encourage you to reach out to us and we'd be happy to help you out. You know, a lot of my business law consults, Joe, is just established businesses. You know, we help folks get started up. We help people organize their corporate structure. But a lot of my business consults are established businesses that just call me and they say, Hey, Josh, this is what I'm thinking about doing. Should I, should I do that? And it's, you know, and it's, you know, God know, or, you know, yeah, we can do that, but this is how we, we need to think about it.

Here's, you need some waivers you need. So we help a lot of business owners just kind of think through, you know, their, whatever strategy, whatever, whatever they're encountering, whatever, uh, something they want to do new, how to organize a new division or what have you. And so, you know, your lawyer and your CPA, they're, they're just helpful folks to have in that kind of context, but we've definitely seen people do it wrong because that's the other half of my consults, right? So the other half of my consults are, Hey, look, I did this and I got sued, or I did this and I got a letter from this agency. And, and, uh, so anyway, a lot of stuff you can, you can, a lot of stuff you can do wrong.

Tanner Iskra And there's a lot of things you can do right. And we'll tell you the things you can do, right? We actually encourage every listener to start their own business today. Give us a call, allow us to assist you with this, but, uh, yeah, it is important to who you choose. Like you said, CPA, an attorney, anytime you're, you're starting a business or you're looking at a big decision like that, uh, it's not only important to consult with professionals, but it's also very important who you consult with and who these professionals are and do your research, do your due diligence. Um, if, if you don't choose the fine folks at Whitaker and Hamer that are associated with this fantastic radio show, um, because there are other great lawyers out there. We just encourage everybody to, again, look into who you're dealing with. You know, if you've got a good barometer of whether a professional is going to be reliable and it's going to be somebody that can provide a good high quality service to you. Uh, you can look at the, the length of time the business has been in the community.

Um, and if you've got someone who's been around for several years in the local community, uh, and it's still going strong, that's generally a strong indicator that you're, you're getting the type of service you deserve as a client. I was talking to a client the other day and, uh, here on the outlaw lawyer, you know, Joe and I, we work for law firm. There's a thing as such as attorney client privilege. So we will never, uh, divulge any personal information on the, on the radio show here.

We'll never do anything like that, but I do like to take things and kind of take names and details out of the situation just to give you guys again, like horror stories, just a fact pattern. So, um, we had, we had someone the other day who, who was, uh, militant. They wanted to use this form that they got, that they downloaded on the internet. And that way I told them like, Hey, that form, it's not going to do what you wanted to do.

It was, it had the same title, right? So this form that we're talking about, it was, it had the same title as the form that I prepared. They're like, why should I pay you to draft this when I can just download the same form that has the same name, right?

Not the same form, just the same name. I was like, look, if you, if you want the internet to be your lawyer, that's fine. You know, the internet is a terrible lawyer, just like the internet's a terrible doctor. You, if you have a headache and you Google that you have a headache, you're, you're coming away with cancer AIDS.

You're going to have everything just because that's the way it works. So just like we don't want the internet to be your doctor. We don't want the internet to be your attorney. Um, it's bad.

It's a bad idea. And, uh, just consult with a professional and this matter, this was a decently important matter. There was in theory, hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. And, and, you know, um, um, anyway, I got, anyway, that's a, that's a thing that happened.

Download lots of things from the internet. Don't download your legal forms for a fairly important, uh, matter. Um, but anyway, again, if you want to contact us here at the show, it's the outlaw lawyer. Our phone number is 1-800-659-1186. That's 1-800-659-1186. So that, that phone line is set up to have you leave a message, make sure you leave us contact information. Let us know if you have a question or comment for the show. Um, if you do need any legal advice or you want to consult with one of the lawyers over at Whitaker and Hamer, you can call that number too and leave a message and we'll reach back out to you.

So again, that was 1-800-659-1186. If it's easier for you to email, you can email us at questions, that's plural questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Remember that these important, our website is the outlaw lawyer.com. All of our episodes are archived there. So if you enjoy listening to the show, we've got some other episodes for you there.

And then on social media, we are the outlaw lawyer. So feel free to interact with us there. We always love to hear from you. We really want to talk about things that our listeners would like to hear about. So any, uh, any questions or comments are certainly welcomed. That's right, Josh, we love each and every one of our listeners individually, um, with all of our hearts and we love to hear from you. And there's nothing more we would love to do than interact with you guys, talk about the things that you guys would like us to talk about. And we've really been overwhelmed with the feedback we've gotten so far.

And we just really appreciate it. Up next on the outlaw lawyer. We take a look back at what has changed since the ruling in NCAA vs. Austin.

All right. We're back on the outlaw lawyer, Joe and Josh with you. And the first thing we wanted to do in this segment is go ahead and give a, give an update. Uh, we, I don't know, it was a week or two ago. Uh, Joe and I spent a lot of time diving deep into NCAA vs. Austin. Joe, remind us what was going on in that case.

Yeah. So again, we, we talked about NCAA vs. Austin. We talked about it extensively, um, because we thought it was really a big case and it really signaled the direction that things are going to move in with NCAA. And we speculated at the time that there could be some pretty wide and sweeping changes.

And I don't even know that, that we thought that they would occur so quickly. Um, but, but just by way of review NCAA vs. Austin, it was a Supreme court case. Again, we've talked about it. And if you guys are loyal listeners who of course listen and review every episode we do and go back to the outlaw lawyer.com to catch any episodes they miss, um, you'll remember justice Cavanaugh, uh, wrote in the case and gave a pretty strict warning to the NCAA and basically criticize the amateur model that the NCAA has been built upon for really since its initiation and, and stated that the NCAA is not above the law. There was a lot of antitrust elements to it. Um, it was basically a case about education related benefits being given to student athletes. And the court ultimately said that, you know, that is permissible. So Cavanaugh basically used the decision and used what he wrote to put the NCAA kind of on notice that if another case comes before the Supreme court and the NCAA has to make a more, you know, pointed specific ruling about the NCAA business model, then they're going to basically destroy and rule against the NCAA.

And I wonder how many times that's happened. Cause this was relatively what we attorneys would call narrow kind of on the facts ruling. So this Supreme court case, while it was important enough to be at the Supreme court, the Supreme court decided this, I believe it was unanimous. I think this was one of the nine Oh, uh, cases if I, if I remember, um, and they handled this as education related benefits to, to athletes, I believe. So a small, important, but small, uh, narrow ruling and Cavanaugh just teed off on how he just used that as a jumping point.

Yeah. It was like a dad scolding his, his kid. And, uh, like you said, narrow, but, but super relevant. And I think that's why we kind of really honed in on it because it wasn't so much that the ruling itself was, was ride wide reaching and would have these great ramifications.

It was more or less, you could tell by the tenor of Cavanaugh's statement, where this was going to go, if something else came back up. Um, and it was basically an inevitability that the NCAA, as we know it was going to drastically change, if not go away altogether. I think it was right after we talked about it, like a couple of states think Kentucky, maybe Florida, there was a couple of states that almost immediately proposed state laws that would allow any collegiate athletes in their state to make money off their name, likeness image. Yeah, exactly. And these are, you have to remember college sports or it's big business in these states.

And it's, uh, it's one of those things. And it's kind of like, we talked about one of the concerns with these NCAA regulations that have been around for a long time and just the amateurism model in general is trying to maintain some semblance of a level playing field, which really is kind of an illusory concept in and of itself, because you've got schools and you've got athletic departments and boosters that really have so much money and so many resources they can pour into their school that there's, there's really not a level playing field as it is. Um, but, but like you said, you see a lot of states jumping to get on this bandwagon and to, to not fall behind. And then again, because in the interest of justice and what's fair and what really should be done in this situation, You know, uh, so the states, a lot of states try to get legislation through and then the NCAA, and I don't remember how long after Kavanaugh's ruling came down, but I mean, a week, two weeks, I mean, it wasn't a long time. The NCAA came out with their new, uh, policy on name image likeness, which was basically their policy was suspending all the rules that had prohibited prohibited athletes from, uh, from cashing in. And so that was the new policy.

So it really is just like overnight. This, this is, you know, this is kind of what the outlaw lawyer is about. So this was a Supreme court ruling, uh, that maybe not a lot of people read. I know it got, uh, summarized, you know, on CNN or ESPN.

And I don't know if anybody ever really looked at the nuts and the bolts. They just looked at what Kavanaugh said, and then everything changed almost overnight. So now it's, it's, uh, it's like the wild, wild West of collegiate endorsement.

There's like no rules right now. Yeah. And you know, you mentioned that that happened shortly after Kavanaugh gave his ruling.

I don't know that we can conclusively prove that that didn't happen in response to the outlaw lawyers episode that, that erred on the matter. The NCAA heard our damning commentary. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. We, we get things done, but, uh, yeah, you know, I think, like you said, a lot of States were kind of making their own laws and handling it on a state by state basis. And I think the NCAA kind of wanted to address that on a national level.

Cause you had really a weird patchwork for a little while there where you had these differing rules and differing different areas. Um, and I think the NCAA kind of suspending all of that. I think the NCAA sees the writing on the wall really, and wants to get out ahead of this as much as they can and preserve whatever semblance of their relevancy that they can. Well, I think we've mentioned this before. I am unfortunately an NC state fan. Our friend Joseph here is a Duke fan, but I was, as these States were passing these laws, I was like, man, North Carolina has got to get with the program. I was really concerned.

Uh, but, but yeah, I've already seen a couple of things. I didn't, I didn't really look, but I know like, uh, who's the guy from Carolina who signed the deal with the Maryland, the Maryland restaurant was bad. That's a good question. I don't know if it was Baycott. I think it was Baycott. We should sponsor a player. The outlaw lawyer should sponsor a player.

If there's any, if there's any logo on the front of the Jersey, I don't think you can do that yet though. We'll sponsor a walk on, but I saw a story where, uh, I think it was Miami. I didn't go back and find it, but it was like a Miami businessman who was offering, uh, or at least put out there in the media that I got a $500,000 a year deal for whoever, you know, comes to the university of Miami. And, uh, and that's the concern that was the concern and that is playing out in practice now. So it's, it'll be super interesting to see how you balance that.

How do you balance just a bidding war for these, these individuals? I think, I think masterpiece kid got like a $2 million deal or something. I don't know where he plays. A lot of people don't realize master P was actually a high level athlete and, uh, a really good basketball player that actually played in the NBA for a period of time.

Master P would 100% beat you in a game of 21 and me to get probably at the same time. Did he, uh, he, he wrestled too, didn't he? Didn't he? Wasn't he a wrestler? I don't know if there's anything master P hasn't done.

So, um, but his son's going somewhere to play basketball and got 2 million bucks. I don't know if it's a year or I'm guessing it's a year. I don't know what it was, but from somebody does masterpiece kid need to know. Arguably. No. And I wondered if it wasn't just like a company that was already associated with master P, you know, when was the last time master P put out music?

That's a question. So master P was after my time. Yeah. Yeah. So my smack dab in the middle of my time, my pop culture, uh, references, they die off.

I'm 2003 is about as late as I go. I think maybe a one. Yeah. I remember master P had his heyday and, uh, again, he hadn't heard much from him other than thing, you know, non musical related things since then. Um, but apparently really good at making kids that are athletic and a very good athlete in his own, right. And our crack research team in the background shows me that master P actually going on tour shortly, a reunion tour. So for all of our listeners, um, but yeah, again, back to the NCAA, very, very interesting. Um, a couple of other developments, uh, Fresno state's women's basketball. Uh, they have a couple of twins, Hannah and Haley Cavender, and they are actually inking one of the biggest deals yet, which is with boost mobile.

And it's basically an endorsement deal. Yeah. I didn't even know who they were. I did.

People know who they were. You will now. Well, I will now, but I just, in general, I just, I didn't know they, I didn't know much about Fresno state.

Boost is doing a deep dive. Well, you're not, you don't keep up with the world of women's basketball like you should, Josh. Well, I keep up with the Wolfpack, but, uh, if you don't play the women's Wolfpack team, I don't know that, uh, yeah. Um, name one player from Fresno.

They won. I can do it. I can name two Hannah and Haley Cavender name, name a men's women's athlete, an athlete, anybody who graduated from Fresno state.

I could, if you put it, put a gun to my head right now. And you tell me to do that. You tell me to name their mascot. I can't do it Bulldogs. So you're going to survive.

I think they're the Bulldogs, but yeah, no, don't know a player, no offense to any of our Fresno state fan listeners. Um, all zero of you, but yeah, I couldn't do it. Um, but boost Mo boost. Mobile's endorsement deal is going to solve that problem for you. I had a car. I talked to a couple of attorneys. Uh, we were talking, we were on a conference call to talk about something else, but we got to talking about how this is opening up, you know, and you know, you already got, and this is the one of the things I haven't researched at all.

And I haven't researched every rule that the NCAA waived. Uh, but as far as agent contact, you know, this is gonna, this is, it's just going to be a whole new, I don't understand. Like I understand, like we talked about these like boost, mobile's given a contract, right. But money coming through agents and agents having more access and there can be kind of sleazier arrangements than they have been in the past.

Like, I don't know how we get past that. I would assume all these things have happened for years, just under, you know, under the table type of deals. So I don't know that there's going to be much difference other than a lot of these things are going to be more above board. And then there probably will be an escalation based on the fact that these things are now permitted as well. So it's super interesting to see, and it's super interesting to look at how this may be rained back in, or if it does just become the wild West, like you said, and things just get nuts and it's just an arms race. And, uh, yeah, there's going to be a lot of losers in that arms race.

There's going to be a lot of losers in that arms race, but that's why you choose a team. And you look at like the pending allegations against state and Arizona. I mean, they're all small potatoes to what's legal now. And how does, exactly, how does that, how does, how do you look at that retroactively under the lens of the new regulations and rules?

I see a lot of people asking for Reggie Bush to get his Heisman back. That's been one of the big things that people have been pushing. So, but yeah, very interesting to see these develop.

It's a fast developing item. We may even do another update. Yeah. We might have no, no limit to the number of NCAA updates. And then like we've, we've mentioned in our last NCAA episode, when that NCAA college football video game comes out again, we're dedicating an episode.

We should have, we should have like, uh, you know, the most boring thing I could think of I'd have fun, like a, uh, a tournament we should play online and we'll commentate our game for our listeners. The, uh, all right. If you have any questions or concerns for us here at the outlaw lawyer, you can get ahold of us 1-800-659-1186. That's 1-800-659-1186. Our email is questions at at the outlaw lawyer.com. Our website is the same, the outlaw lawyer.com. And on Facebook and Twitter, we are the outlaw lawyer be back after the break. A lot has happened with the case of the North Raleigh venomous zebra Cobra since we last talked about it.

So let's talk about it again. All right, Joe, we spent a lot of time talking about North Carolina, general statute, chapter 14, four 17, the regulation of ownership or use of venomous reptiles. And we were, so we were talking about it last week and it just about the time we stepped out of the studio, a bunch of extra stuff happened.

Again, the outlaw lawyer with its finger on the pulse, uh, the catalyst for change in, in the local world and the national landscape. So just as a, by way of reminder, a week or two ago, we find out there's this spitting zebra Cobra on the loose. And, uh, I guess we, at the time we thought it had been on the loose for a week or two because under that statute, an owner of a venomous reptile is supposed to give notice immediately once a venomous snake is, has escaped. And, uh, we find out apparently that didn't happen. So apparently it had been loose since November and we just didn't know about it.

North Raleigh was under siege. Josh, uh, the Cobra was on the loose for seven months. Um, so every body listening to this show was in grave danger for a very long period of time without even knowing it.

We, uh, I saw, uh, I saw someone on, uh, my Facebook newsfeed, which is how I get all my news, you know, my Facebook newsfeed, but I saw safest and most reliable way to receive your name. I saw someone, I can't, I can't remember their name, but they were very worried. They had been doing some research on how snakes can, how easily they can cross breed. And so she was worried that we have some sort of hybrid copperhead spitting zebra Cobra out there roaming around. Josh, you've ruined the lives and days of several of our listeners with this thought.

Uh, that's a terrifying thought, man. And I feel like the exotic zebra Cobra is out there. The other snakes see it. It's a new type of snake.

They're probably drawn to it. There's probably thousands of zebra Cobra hybrid babies. We, uh, so if you remember, we talked about the statute and the statute, you could, uh, I think the, I think we talked about how the highest charge was an a one misdemeanor, but there was a lot of things you couldn't do. So you were, it was venom owning a venomous snake or a venomous reptile as it were is, is unlawful unless you do certain things. And so those things were keeping it in a particular cage.

It is locked and escape proof, and it has to be labeled. And, and you're basically just keeping these animals for, so you can look at them, right? You're not. And we find out, and I won't mention the person who was charged. He's, he's 21, but he's just a kid. 21 year olds are kids to me, but he, uh, apparently the allegations is, you know, on his Tik TOK channel that had half a million subscribers, he was letting them go in his backyard and kind of doing a little videos that a lot of people, I guess, enjoyed, but so he was, they were definitely getting out of their cage. And if they're, if they escaped their cage, you're supposed to notify authorities. And so there was all these different things you're supposed to do.

And if you take the allegations to be true, this young man, wasn't doing any of those things. Josh, have you ever gone down a Tik TOK hole? I'm a little too old for Tik TOK.

No one's too old for Tik TOK. It's, uh, it's, it's amazing. Um, uh, I personally just look for the, the most ridiculous, spend 20 minutes on Tik TOK and you will question society as a whole.

Um, it's amazing. The, the, the paths you can, the hole you really go down. Um, and apparently we have snake guy on there as well. So it's snake guy is, is nothing compared to some of the things you will see on Tik TOK.

If you spend enough time. Well, snake guy was making, I mean, so I'm assuming he was making money. You advertise on these. Yeah. I'm not familiar enough to, to know how people are monetizing this, but my assumption is yes, it's, it's monetized based on a number of views.

He probably has other social media outlets and he just kind of funnels everything back and forth. Um, but, uh, ultimately, you know, we speculated a lot. We talked about the law, we talked about how it works. We talked about the fact that we were blown away, that it was just a misdemeanor. If someone was, was injured by this animal. Um, and, and actually that is the case here, but we have 40 misdemeanor counts is what this is. Is what this gentleman is charged with. And they ultimately confiscated some 75 snakes from his home.

That's about 75, too many snakes. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, you know, it was just, and we, we, we thought that maybe that would be coming now. This statute doesn't get broadened, uh, public view very often.

Just kind of sits there when it's needed. And we kind of talked about some of the, uh, I don't know the word I'm looking for. Like this statute really wasn't, didn't go far enough. We thought, but we thought it was, uh, it was a little, and I think some congressmen have maybe agreed with us because there's a couple of congressmen who are trying to push through a bill to ban all non-native snakes. And I don't know that they'll get the support they need.

I don't know. There might be some, they've got my support, Josh. They have my undying and unwavering support, but under their, their, under their statute is you just don't even have the option to keep them. And, uh, current snake odors could be grandfathered in, but you'd have to register your snakes. You'd have to carry additional insurance, which makes sense to me, makes great sense.

Cause I don't, I don't know this to be the case, but if you're keeping a venomous snake in your house and it bites someone who visits your house or gets out and bites someone, I'm pretty sure there's no coverage there. Look, man, look, I'm going to be honest with you. Everybody has their hobbies. People like their own things.

People like strange things. Um, I, I can't get into the head space of the venomous snake owner, but I'm not going to knock them because they might be listening. They could be listening and we love you. We love each individual listener. If we have a, if we do have a listener who owns a venomous snake, I would really want you to contact us and tell us why you own it.

Yeah. And again, not knocking you because we look at these things from a neutral, unbiased perspective. So, but, but I would be very interested to know the appeal because again, especially you can't, I guess you can handle these snakes, but why, um, why would you want to spend a lot of time handling them? Um, and it just, it's something that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Uh, but again, we, we love our listeners.

And if we have these venomous snake owning listeners, please reach out, give us your thoughts. Um, we will take a neutral and unbiased look at the, the reasoning behind doing so, because again, people have different hobbies. I mean, I'm not going to knock anybody's hobby, but I do think legislation is necessary here.

And, and like you said, I don't know that it goes far enough and I don't think it's a bad idea to expand that legislation. And I hope, you know, we criminal law is a, is a tricky, is a tricky thing to talk about. Cause we're talking, you're talking about real people and there's real consequences. I don't even know what a judge would do with if you were found guilty on 40 misdemeanor counts. So it's like three months a count or I don't know, but, but these are people, you know, maybe this guy made a mistake and he probably is not going to do this again, or at least not do it North Carolina.

You don't want to ruin someone's life, but I almost felt like you're used to be a felony in there somewhere. Yeah, I can't. Here's what, here's what I'm going to propose. We're going to play a legislator right now. I'm proposing a bill to ban the crossbred copperhead zebra spitting cobra. Yeah. And I'm surprised more people, if it's that easy to crossbreed snakes, more people have it.

And, you know, yeah, I just, I shudder at the thought that's, it's terrible. But, but seriously, even though this is, we're talking about, you know, you don't, you don't have to own a snake, but this is, uh, you know, when they look at this new statute and they entertain just banning, uh, the, the ability to own such a snake and that makes sense to me, but you're still doing that balance, you know, every statute and every case that, uh, that a court looks at your balancing thing. So you hear it's public welfare versus private freedom. And, you know, uh, you really, you know, at least I, the way I look at it is I never want to take any freedom away from anybody. Even if that freedom may sound somewhat silly, you're not constitutionally permitted. You don't have a constitutional right to own a venomous snake. That's the 28th amendment, Josh. So we're, uh, we're, I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here, but you, I think we always got to take it serious when you're telling someone we've decided you can't do this. This is illegal because a lot of times it feels like there's a lot of stuff that's illegal that maybe shouldn't be illegal.

Yeah, that's true. But, but on the scale of things that maybe should be illegal, I think that we put the venomous snake ownership up there towards the top. You know, I was doing, I was doing my exhaustive research. I research every show exhaustively, and I was doing, checking out some historical documentaries about snakes and there's one, it's called Anaconda, um, starring J-Lo and Ice Cube, and it's got Jon Voight in there. And you learn a lot of things about that. And, uh, and venomous snakes are not one of my things. That's what I learned from watching that movie. I don't usually watch a lot of movies that aren't comedies, Joe, but I did see that movie on a first date whenever that was.

I remember that it was a big, yeah, it was a big one when it came out and I don't know that it's stood the test of time like it, like it should, but, um, a cautionary tale about traveling in the Amazon. Well, if you want to, if you want to, if you have any questions or comments, or you do own a venomous snake, I, we, we weren't being, uh, facetious. We'd really like to hear from you.

And, uh, you know, how good, I guess, how good a pets they are. I guess they're not going to cuddle up with you or nothing, but, you know, to the extent that you enjoy having one, we'd love to hear from you, but you can get us 1-800-659-1186. That's 1-800-659-1186. Our email is questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Uh, our website is the outlaw lawyer.com and on Facebook and Twitter, again, the outlaw lawyer coming up next on the outlaw lawyer, we are going to talk about some recent anti protest legislation and what it means for the future of protest. So Josh, let's talk about protests in the last couple of years, we have seen a pretty steep rise in protests, at least media coverage of protests. And, you know, protests are really nothing new. They've existed presumably since the beginning of time. And, you know, over time, they've taken various shapes and forms. You've had peaceful sit-ins, you've got the guy that handcuffs himself to a tree or a tractor to not get it to cut down the rain forest. Um, and then you have the complete opposite extreme of that, which we've seen a lot recently, which is just the more violent Bernie of burn things type of protesting, um, borderline rioting, essentially.

And, you know, anytime you talk about protests, you're talking about, uh, you're, you're talking about subject matter that was important enough to someone to protest. Cause that's what, that's what always, you know, me and me and Joe spent a lot of time at the office as attorneys do. I had a, um, I had a law school Dean who, uh, would always talk about, well, he'd always talk about the sword of Damocles. Is that, does that ring a bell? For some reason that rings a bell.

Me and Joe both went to Campbell where we went there at different times and had different Deans and things. But, uh, he would always talk about how the law is a jealous mistress and you're always right underneath the sword of Damocles. And I still don't know what that means. Exactly.

I have a general, it sounds great. And I'm going to go home and I'm going to say it to my children and I'm going to confuse them and hopefully they'll take something from it. But we, we talk about, you know, we spend a lot of time in the office. It always, it always surprises me when something's important enough for someone to take time out of their life, whatever their life may consist of to protest. And so I always assume, Hey, that if someone's taking the time to do that, that's an, that's an important issue to them and probably something that we should be, uh, cognizant of.

Cause I can't think about what would be important enough to get me to like leave the office for a day and, and protest. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think there's two types, two types of people. There's the protesters, and then there's the people like you, Joshua, who it would take a lot to get you up in arms and care enough to go do that. And I think one thing we've seen recently, um, you've had, you know, these kind of professional protesters are just downright, I guess you could call them agitators people who probably don't care that much about the cause necessarily, but especially with COVID with lockdown, there was a lot of people who had a lot of free time, uh, not much to do. And I'm, and you know, while there's probably a lot of people who genuinely believe in these causes and who were there, you know, to support that, you probably have a lot of people as well, who were just, who were just there for just to have something to do, or in worst case scenarios to, to cause trouble and to, to just kind of act wild, essentially. So you can, you can always look anytime you have a big protest or, or, you know, in the law, law enforcement has to get involved and people are arrested. It's always interesting to go. And you can look at the, you know, you can look at the mug shots and stuff.

They're all public record, but where people are from, or at least on their license or the identification where they gave, they were from. And it's always interesting to see, especially, you know, we're in North Carolina, a lot of people won't be from North Carolina. Yeah. And I think that's, that's, that's a thing that you've really seen recently where people coming from out of state. And it's almost like, like we said, professional protesters, like we, as you said, spend a lot of time in the office.

I imagine a lot of our listeners spend a lot of time in their respective offices or in their respective fields working, spending time with their families. And so like you, it's, it's hard for me, especially to imagine is someone who can just literally attend several protests in separate States. And it just, it's not something that I can really comprehend, but I think we see a lot of that these days. And again, some of those people genuinely care enough to do that.

And we're not knocking those people, but, but there's also probably some who are just doing it for some politically motivated purpose or for some just to have, have something to do essentially. And I think the political motivation, especially in the coverage of recent protest is something that's important to note. Cause we have seen a lot of media coverage of that.

And you, you get it's, it's so interesting. We've talked about it in the past, how different news outlets look at different things and the way that they characterize things. And you really have to kind of look at an amalgamation of various sources to get the truth. And you can have one news outlet calling something the worst, most damaging, horrible thing, and then another calling it just an essentially peaceful protest. And it's just, it's mind boggling how you have this disconnect.

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's a broad disconnect. And I think you can really, you know, over the past couple of years, uh, you can, you can really, you can really see it and it's just, it's hard to figure out what happened. And that's why I always go, well, who got arrested? You know, what are they, what were they charged with? You know, what was the pro who organized the pro like, you always kind of have to spend some time, like trying to, you know, trying to get to the bottom of it and actually figure out what happened because yeah, you know, dubber WRAL and the news and observer and, you know, whatever blogs you may look at, like you're going to get like 89 versions of the same event and no one's going to agree on what the event was, what it was called, how it happened. Yeah. You can't trust any, that's why I encourage everyone to not believe anything.

Just don't have a belief. But, but serious, like if you look at it factually, like we can look factually and you can see that there are actually people injured, arrested, outright killed at some of these protests. So I think factually speaking, we can say, and we've seen property clearly destroyed and damaged. So there are some of these protests that are turning violent and that are turning just a little bit out of hand or a lot of it out of hand. And, and I think that's where we get to the topic of this anti protest legislation. You know, a lot of it's been politicized and through that politicization of these issues, you have seen this legislation. There's been a lot of people who have called for the need for new legislation to protect businesses, individuals, and to kind of curb the, the more violent tenor of some of these protests.

And so that's kind of how we get to where we are today. So according to our crack research team here at the Outlaw Lawyer, lawmakers in 34 States have introduced more than 80 anti protest bills so far in the 2021 legislative session. We can't talk about all of them, but we will talk about a few of them that have been a little bit more prominent in the news. And the first we're going to talk about is actually the legislation that was recently introduced in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis signed an anti-riot bill into law, and it basically states in part that a driver can avoid liability for injury or death calls if fleeing from safety for safety from a mob.

So basically a person can in the act of fleeing from a mob, smash into a pedestrian or property potentially, and avoid civil liability for the injury or death that's caused. I wonder how many times that's come up though. Yeah. And that's, that's interesting. So I was going to ask you a couple of questions, Josh, first of all, is this legislation constitutional and, and does it infringe on an individual's first amendment right to peacefully protest, or do you think it's a necessary deterrent to kind of combat that violence? And I think you hit the nail on the head.

How many times does that come up? Yeah. That's one thing that, that we'll have to do a whole show on, on legislation that gets passed, that you got to wonder, is, is this even really necessary? You know, is this even really a thing that, that has happened or needs to be addressed kind of like venomous snakes? Like, you know, that's necessary.

There's nothing more necessary. We have learned that that's necessary, but here, um, I think it raises several questions and I think we're going to have to kind of look at it. I think in the end, um, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about how the first amendment and that interplay with, uh, between civil liberties and necessary regulation of, uh, constitutional rights to protect the public. So again, all the law is, is a balance, you know, we've got these things that are always, uh, kind of at each other and you're just trying to find the proper balance and that's kind of what's going on here. Yeah.

And we talk about that balance a lot. So, you know, in a nutshell, this new legislation in Florida, uh, it proposes that the immunized people who were involved in car accidents, uh, from driving basically through a crowd at a protest and these individuals, they'd be immunized from civil liability for any danger or any damage rather that's caused as a result of fleeing that protest. Um, so when you look at the headlines that have come out surrounding this law, kind of in a vacuum, and you just read immunity for individuals plowing over people at a protest, it kind of makes you pause and think that doesn't sound right, but there's actually some pretty interesting nuances of the law that we'll take a look at. So, you know, the first thing we need to look at is the constitutionality of the law itself. So if we're going to analyze this statute, would we think this would pass muster if it was challenged before the Supreme court? Um, so here, you know, we're talking about the first amendment, how does this interplay with the first amendment? The first amendment protects free speech among other things. And when you, when the court looks at regulating a person's free speech, they take that seriously. So they apply what we call a strict scrutiny analysis, and these regulations must be limited to time, place, and manner. So as we talk more about the Supreme court, and as Joe talks more about this, you'll see, that's the top that's, that's it. That's the highest form of scrutiny.

Uh, the Supreme court can give a item that comes before it. Exactly. And so one thing about this new Florida law, that's, that's actually pretty interesting is it actually creates a new type of crime, which is just basically dubbed mob intimidation and mob intimidation in short, just makes it unlawful for any three people to meet together, to use a threat of force, to force another person to assume or abandon a point of view. So it's basically a new crime they've created.

All right. So right off the bat here, the first thing that strikes me about this new crime is that the level of leeway and discretion it gives the police and prosecutors to declare what a mob is. Cause that definition is, is not precise. Um, it seems like there's a lot of potential to abuse. Uh, this can just be used to charge anybody who's protesting. Yeah.

You and three buddies go and complain about something and yeah, there is a lot of leeway there and it is, it is kind of vague. Um, and if you take that aspect of the law and you combine it with the grant of civil immunity to people who drive through protesters, the bill almost starts to sound insane. Yeah.

Well, and it may be, you know, the way the media has covered this too. Um, it sounds, it sounds crazy, but as we kind of look at the nuts and bolts of it, um, you know, I guess you could look at it from the side that it's really only, uh, taking civil liability out of the picture. If a person was hurt, um, is convicted of a jury is convicted by a jury of the felony of rioting.

Yeah. So it does, you know, it, it, it, when you, when you look at the bones of the law, it's not as crazy as it sounds because like you said, there's a bar there. So it's not like we can get in our car and smash people in a protest and get away with, with no issue.

You have to have the individual that you injure. So the person that you run over literally has to be convicted by a jury of the felony of rioting. So you're not talking about someone just smashing through a peaceful protest.

There is a bar there. Um, and it's a relatively high bar before that plaintiff is going to lose their calls of action against the person who just smashed them. So anybody listening that was planning on smashing through a crowd of protesters. And that's really the, I think that's, that started the sort of the danger with the media coverage because the headlines all focus in on that aspect of it. They don't give the context, they don't give the nuance. And if you have people who don't look into these things more closely, um, you could have people who read this and potentially get that impression. Um, and I don't want to say that there's a lot of people out there who were that uninformed and unintelligent.

Our listeners, uh, studies have shown are some of the smartest listeners in the history of broadcast radio, but there are people who are uninformed out there. Um, and you know, there is some danger there, I think, to the, the media coverage of these, this new legislation. The, um, I, I, you never know how far this will get, but I think once this gets in front of a court, um, some of these provisions aren't going to make it.

Yeah. I think there's a strong likelihood that a lot of, a lot of these provisions get struck down because again, it's very vague. And one thing that we don't have a ton of time to talk about is the fact that the, the real intent and not necessarily the intent, but the effect at least of these laws is it's going to deter protests, which is an exercise of that first amendment. Right. And anytime you have any kind of deterrence of that first amendment, right. The court, like you said, looks at it with strict scrutiny and really doesn't like to implement too many barriers to that. Right.

Because it is, uh, like we said, an unalienable right. Well, I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure as soon as we leave the studio, Joseph, there'll be some important updates to this that we'll have to address later. Yeah. With the prevalence of the protest and the, you know, it seems like it's, it's calmed down a little bit lately.

The political climate, I guess just the climate in general has been a little bit more calm, but almost assuredly we will see more of this and we will see more developments and we'll see more States adopting things like this. Um, and we will, we will follow it closely. Next up on the outlaw lawyer. We talk about an estate planning horror story and look at why you, yes, you are listener need to contact an attorney to review and prepare your estate plan ASAP.

Thanks. Joshua, we have talked a lot on this show about estate planning, and we have talked a lot on this show about the need for our listeners. Anybody, even people who don't listen to this show, we care about them too, to consult a qualified licensed North Carolina attorney to prepare your estate plan or to review your existing estate plan.

If there's been any kind of changes that have occurred in your life. And today we are going to talk about one of the many, and there are many nightmare scenarios that can occur if you don't heed this sage advice. That's right, Joe.

Uh, we can't really emphasize that enough. You know, it's, it's one of those things no one wants to do. It's kind of morbid to think about. I, I tell people, you know, I graduated from law school back in, uh, you know, three, of course can draft my own will. I'd have no attorney's fees whatsoever. It still took me like seven years to, to draft my estate plan.

And I was doing it myself. So it's, I certainly understand the reluctance in doing it. Um, and no one really wants to, uh, think about it, but when you, we see the, we see it when you're, when your time comes and you're gone, I mean, it's the people that you love that are, are picking up the pieces is that they have to just figure things out where your bank accounts, how much money did you own this car?

You got any credit cards? I mean, there's a lot to figure out once you're gone. Yeah, there is. And the estate plan isn't for you cause you're gone. Like it's, you don't care, but you do care because it's your loved ones. Cause that's, who is going to have to pick up the pieces. Um, they're already dealing with so much, uh, that you don't want to have to put anything else on them. And the goal of your estate plan should always be make things as easy, as seamless and as stress free as possible for the people that you leave behind. Because again, it's already going to be one of the most difficult times of their lives.

And the less they have to worry, the less they have to think, the less they have to pull together because they're already having a difficult time, the better it's going to be. And the best way to do that is to consult with an experienced licensed attorney, uh, in order to accomplish that goal. So as you guys know, uh, Joe and I are partners over at the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer. And so we have several attorneys that spend a lot of time just on estate planning and estate administration. Um, and so you can get in contact with them 1-800-659-1186, uh, 1-800-659-1186.

Remember that line is set up to take your message. So maybe be sure to leave us contact information and what you're trying to accomplish. Uh, and one of our attorneys or paralegals or staff will reach out to you to see if, uh, maybe our firm can be of help to you. Um, but it's, you don't know when your time's up and, uh, you know, I have a client in the other day who's, uh, 94 and, um, great shape, uh, gets around, awesome, awesome client. And, uh, we were just making some changes. We're just fine tuning some of his, uh, charitable, uh, uh, bequest he wants to make and just making sure everything's in tune and ready to go. And, uh, but you, you know, me and Joe, we might not make it back next week. You never know.

Yeah. And, and we, obviously we all plan on living forever, but it's just not the case. And, you know, it's important. It's important to have that estate plan review and just having a will or a trust, it may not be enough. You really need an attorney to take a comprehensive look at all of your assets, at your entire estate plan, and make sure that every single thing you have in place is working towards one cohesive goal, which is just to make the transition easier for the people that you leave behind. Um, so here's the scenario, Josh, mom tragically passes away after a short battle with cancer.

So this comes up on everybody quickly. She is survived by her adult daughter and her beloved husband. So most spouses leave most, if not all of their assets to their spouse, that's what they generally do, but that's not what mom wanted to do here because she and her husband had only married relatively recently and he wasn't the father of her adult daughter. So she was, so this was a second, a second spouse.

Exactly. So, so mom wanted the money she'd received from her, an inheritance to go to her daughter instead of her husband, which again is perfectly legal. And the husband's a good guy.

He's on board with his plan. But when mom died, the money that was supposed to go to her daughter instead goes to her husband. Why is that the case, Josh?

Well, that's a good question, Joseph. Um, it turns out that the accounts the inherited money was in did not have proper payable on death designation. So all mom's assets were swept into her probate-able estate, which went to the husband under the mom's will. So husband got everything and, uh, and the daughter, uh, got nothing. Uh, now husband could be a good decent person and honor mom stated wishes to get the inheritance in the hands of the daughter, but it's going to take time and energy. It's going to have tax consequences. Uh, it's not going to be as easy, um, as if everything had just been organized, uh, right when she got diagnosed with cancer.

Yeah. And so, you know, in this situation, you know, this, this situation crept up on mom quickly and she, you know, either didn't have a will in place that stated what she wanted to have happen. And, uh, you know, the, the intestate statutes took over, she did have a will and it just wasn't up to date with her current intentions. And again, we talked about the fact that you need a review of your estate plan. So, you know, this, this could have potentially been accomplished with proper drafting of a will, but it also could have been accomplished. And this is why, again, we talk about the fact that a trust or estate may not be enough. It could have been easily accomplished by reviewing her situation and just changing the payable on death designation to her daughter. And that again avoids probate.

And, and it's, it's arguably the easiest way to handle the situation. Yeah. I'm always, I think it amazes people when we sit down and we talk about an estate plan, we talk about assets that would be in probate assets that would be, uh, outside of probate, but how easy it is to keep things out of, there's some things that are hard to keep out of probate. Some things are easy, but you're checking your savings account. All you gotta do is go down the bank and change your signature card, change your designation, add someone to it as a joint, uh, with right of survivorship, uh, payable on death, like Joseph said, you can have it directed and that doesn't go into your estate.

Yeah. And so I think the lesson, and we've said it countless times, it's really, you need constant vigilance, uh, in making sure that your estate plan is current and that it's updated and that it's been reviewed by a licensed attorney. Um, the husband in this situation could have taken the money and run could have not been a very decent guy or, and kind of an inverse of this nightmare scenario, say that mom did draft her will to state that this money should have gone to her daughter. But then let's say that the bank has a payable on death designation in favor of her husband. Then again, those funds aren't subject to probate. They're not going to pass.

They're not going to be a part of the estate. And it's the exact same situation. And again, that's a result of not having an experienced qualified attorney, critically looking at every single aspect of your assets and every single aspect of your estate plan. You did the old switcheroo there.

I did the switcheroo. We try to keep you on your toes here at the outlaw lawyer. We, we see that a lot and that's easy. So we, uh, you know, a lot of times you hear, I said, second spouse earlier, you hear the term blended families, but if you have, you know, you, if you're married to someone who is not the, uh, the father or mother of your, your children, the statutes in North Carolina are going to favor your spouse. So if you do nothing, a lot of stuff goes to your spouse and maybe that's fine. Maybe you want to make sure stuff, but we have a lot of, especially blended families where each, each partner in that, uh, in that marriage are bringing kids from a previous relationship.

You really got to sit down and you got to think about what you want to happen, you know, like, okay, I usually kill when I have a console, I usually kill them. You know, if it's a man and a woman, I killed a man all first because men die. Right. So I'm like, well, what, what do you need to get to your spouse so that they can maintain their, their current, you know, uh, way of life and still get some stuff to your kids, because, uh, there's no guarantee that that spouse is going to leave anything to your kids.

Yeah. And it all depends on relationships and, uh, but once you're gone, you're gone. And if you don't direct your assets to where you want them to go, if they all go to your, your, your new spouse, and then there's some following out later and that money may never make it to, to your kids, depending, you never know. You don't want to speak ill of people, but you know, attorneys, we always assume the worst case, right? So we assume like the day after you pass away, your current spouse and your kids are not going to get along anymore. Safe assumption. And then, and then what happens then?

Well, nothing, you know, nothing happens. There's no, you can't make someone agree to give a certain assets to your kid. So anyway, there's a lot to take in. There's a lot to think about and, uh, it's real easy for us, myself included on my own personal estate plan to not think about it. But if you have any questions or concerns for us at the show, Joe and I would love to hear from you. Um, if you want to contact the Outlaw Lawyer, it's 1-800-659-1186, 1-800-659-1186.

You can email us questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. Visit us at theoutlawlawyer.com for archived episodes or engage with us on Facebook and Twitter at The Outlaw Lawyer. Uh, Joe, as always, I've enjoyed it. Look forward to next week. Thank you, Josh. And thank you to each and every one of our listeners individually.

We care deeply about all of you and we'd love to hear from you. 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.