NFL Lawsuit, Palin vs NY Times, and No Knock Warrants

This week on the Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I have a lot to talk about. The NFL lawsuit made a lot of headlines. Sarah Palin's lawsuit against the New York Times is in trial.

Lots to talk about there. And the reoccurring issue of no-knock warrants comes up again. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. Joe Hamer, the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they host this show, the Outlaw Lawyers, each and every week. They have 46 combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and Gastonia.

And we talk legal topics each and every week. If you have a situation that you're going through and you've got some questions and you need some legal help, I've got a number for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Give that number a call.

Leave your contact information briefly, what the call's about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. And always email your questions to the program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We get into all kinds of topics, and boy, we got some good ones today. Guys, welcome in. And certainly, let's just get started. Hey, you guys ready for the Super Bowl? Yes! Oh, and I know you're probably going to ask this, but I'm going to jump the gun. I'm going to say, what's your favorite food for a Super Bowl gathering? You know, we spent some time thinking about this.

You know, me and my wife, I think I consider myself an old person. I enjoy leisurely watching CBS Sunday mornings, a lot of Sundays. I'm there. I like that show. I do.

I enjoy it very much. And a couple of weeks ago, they had something I had seen before, but they had a special on a company called Goldbelly. Goldbelly hasn't paid us any money to talk about them, but it was an interesting concept. Goldbelly is a company that, you know, they take this famous food from different regions of the U.S. and they figure out how to package it and get it to you so that you can, you know, heat it up and enjoy it. So, you know, you got Chicago deep dish pizza, you got all this stuff that you can order. And so we decided we would do that for the, we've never done that before. We decided we'd do that for the Super Bowl.

The kids are really pumped about the Super Bowl. So did you go deep dish? Is that what you did? No, I wanted to go deep dish because I figured that would be the thing that heats up the best, that kind of tastes like.

But no, I got all voted. And so we did Philly cheesesteaks from Philly. So we got some cheesesteaks coming in. Nice. So I'm pretty excited about that. But how about you?

How about you guys? Josh, I'm going to jump in and comment on Goldbelly first and foremost. I feel bad because I've been on the Goldbelly train for a while now. I hadn't heard you talk about it. I didn't even know that.

Yeah. Well, it's, it was my secret and I didn't want to share it with you. I didn't want you to mess up the turnaround time on the food I was ordering.

So no, we, so I've done it. I think I saw like a, someone I know on Facebook had ordered some stuff from somewhere. This was like several months ago. And I was doing this, this dumb diet where I don't, like I eat very well. And then you have like one sheet meal a week.

Gotcha. And that one sheet meal, I'd order something just completely ignorant from Goldbelly. So I had ordered like 30 cinnamon rolls from someplace.

They were supposed to be the best in America. And it's legit, man. You know, they send it to you.

I guess it's, it depends on where you order from, but they do send it to you with like instructions on exactly how to reheat and prepare. And it seems legit and they, you know, it, the service was great. We got it on time.

It was quick. The cinnamon rolls were delicious, but to answer your Super Bowl related question, I'm just going to go straight up simple. I'm just gonna say wings, any kind of wings. I feel like wings in the Super Bowl go together very well. I'm a wing guy too, guys. And I think this year I'm gonna have to take out a loan just to buy some wings cause they're so expensive. But yeah, I love, I love bone in wings. I can't, can't really beat it. You know, and I'm, I'm kind of Asian zing.

I like that spice on there. But I'm, I'm, I'm currently dating and will, I mean, this is it for me and she's a vegetarian. So I have to be, you know, mindful of that. And so deboning a wing, like I like to not preferred in our house. Oh, wow.

Could you just turn your back and do it? I have to run into the next room. We have a wing room. I'm gonna go eat these wings real quick.

A wing room. That's a good idea, man. Well, you know, we were talking last week, we spent a lot of time talking about legal betting in North Carolina and how it's on the horizon. And so I was reading, getting ready for today's show, I was reading and I read a headline. I don't know what outlet it was on, but it said a record 31.5 million Americans have placed some sort of bet on the Super Bowl and see Super Bowl Sunday.

We're recording on Wednesday. So I read this Tuesday. So I'm sure before we get to the Super Bowl, that number is going to be what, twice that. So, again, just kind of showing we all we all we're all out there betting on sports, breaking the law.

Well, I know. And that doesn't include the friend bet. You know, those are bets they're just monitoring. I mean, think about all the bets we have with our friends on any particular game, but especially the Super Bowl. Look, Josh, not everyone's breaking the law. There's several jurisdictions where it is perfectly legal to bet on the Super Bowl.

So, yeah, go ahead. It very well could be that these are all legal bets. I doubt it. And you know what? Here's what's funny. I wonder if that thirty one point five million is just a calculation of the legal bets only and how many bets there would be if you could tally up like the offshore books and the the under the table, like bookie that runs out of a pawn shop type of bets and things like that.

It probably would be an infinite degree higher factor than thirty one point five million. I tell you, somebody, you know, betting aside, is somebody who was raised in the in the early to mid 90s. I can't remember the last time I've been this pumped about a halftime show. This halftime show is going to be awesome for the old people like me. You know, you can bet on the halftime show. And there is a I have seen there's a prop bet and it's a bet whether or not Snoop Dogg smokes marijuana during the halftime show.

And I think the odds are like plus 200 that he doesn't say that's a decent bet. And again, guys, you're in that you're in the legal side of this. Do we know what the status is of marijuana in California?

I mean, can they can they light up there? Yeah, I don't know the exact I don't know the exact rules. Yeah, I don't know. I can't speak as to the exact I don't think Snoop Dogg cares.

That's going to be that. I don't think he really cares. What he may care about is if he's been like advised by network sponsors not to.

But even then, I don't know that he really cares. I you know, that's a you might want to sprinkle a little bit on that that that bet for the Snoop Dogg lighting at halftime. We have been very I've been very militant over the years. You know, you see all these when we get close to the Super Bowl, they kind of rate the halftime performances, you know, from from best to worst. And I've been militant. You know, the best halftime show of all time was Michael Jackson.

Yeah, that's that's the bad people. Are you me as Prince or Tom Petty? I was like, no, you're wrong. Yeah, I agree.

I tend to agree with you and we're going to rate them. I don't I'm I'm excited that maybe just maybe this year's halftime show, it might get close. It might get close to that.

That Michael Jackson. It could, man. It could. There's a lot of potential there.

This is a lot of pressure on Snoop Dogg. I'm just saying, yes, we have a lot of backup with them, too, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of folks like I wonder. I know how they sometimes they make you do medleys and stuff because you got time constraints and what they got, like four or five performers who all have like lots of music to draw on. So I'm really interested to see how they put all this together. I think it'll be good, man.

And I think the game I'm pretty intrigued about the game. Who do you have? This doesn't count against our prediction record, by the way. We're going to separate our sports predictions from our legal predictions. Who do you have in the game, Josh? Well, I know the Chiefs are and I don't remember the other team offhand.

Wait, whoa. How are the Chiefs? Did you know watching? Did you see the game?

Oh, that's right. The Chiefs are done. The Rams are when the Bengals were down at halftime. Yeah, well, we were together. I saw that game.

Yeah, I think we were in the same amazing game. You were watching the hockey game while I was watching the football. Yeah, it's telling you, Cincinnati, Josh, this is going well, Cincinnati and the Rams. Our sports credibility just went in the toilet. But anyway, so it's like it's Cincinnati and the Rams. So it's obviously I'm not even going to ask you. Yeah, Joe, go ahead and break it down for us because what is your prediction for the game?

All right. My prediction is L.A. Rams defensive line against Cincinnati's offensive line. And a lot of people have talked about it. You know, Cincinnati has some issues there. The L.A. Rams, man, it is just like a Pro Bowl defensive line.

Fantastic. But there's a lot of pressure on the home team. And Cincinnati has won three road games. So I think I think Cincinnati not Karen coming in and I don't know, I think it could go Cincinnati's way. But, you know, on paper Rams. Yeah, this is my prediction.

And it's very similar to what you're thinking, too. So I think the Rams are better as a team top to bottom. If you look at each unit offense defense lines, I think there's a big problem with the offensive line of the Bengals versus the defensive line of the Rams.

All of that is true on paper. Like you said, Rams, they've got the they're at home. I know there's pressure there, but I think that's also a big benefit to them. So all of that in the Rams favor. But I just have this feeling that Joe Burrow is just like blessed by God.

And there's some kind of magic about him and he's going to find some way to win the game. That's kind of where I'm leaning right now. So but it's tough, man. I don't know. I'm torn. I have not decided my theoretical bet that I will place on this game as of yet.

Mm hmm. OK, I'm going to go I'm a double down on the Chiefs. Look, man, the odds on the chief win the Super Bowl like a cancellation for the Bengals. And they just call the Chiefs in as the last team they played. What a score that would be. Hey, man, just in my defense, like once my teams are out, like I'm the same thing with like the NCAA tournament.

Once once my teams are out, I'm like, I barely I can do that for the NCAA tournament. But it's the Super Bowl, Josh. Oh, I'm going to watch it. I'm not I mean, but you should know that's not hard to know, man.

It's very I think my grandmother knows and she has watched zero football games this year. I love it. I love it, Josh.

It makes the show, man. Awesome. Any any who I. Well, you might be surprised we're not a sports talk radio show. We actually like to talk about legal stuff. And we got a little bit of overlap today. So we always talk about sports because, believe it or not, we're sports fan. Even me, who didn't know who was playing in the Super Bowl.

But we are sports fans. So we got a little bit overlap today. So we're going to spend some time talking about Brian Flores, the coach of the Miami Dolphins, was was terminated and has filed a lawsuit that is from an attorney's perspective, very interesting.

So we're going to spend some time talking about that today. Sarah Palin has a ongoing and it's been around for a little bit, but it's finally getting to trial. She has a libel suit against The New York Times, which I find very interesting. You know, journalism is something that I like to follow and how things are reported. And so this is a very interesting case from my perspective. And then the no knock warrant that keeps kind of showing up.

We got we got someone, Amir Locke, who passed away, was was shot while folks were serving a no knock warrant. So we want to spend some time talking about those. Those are all things I saw in the news this week that were legal, that I thought we'd spend some time on today. So definitely a lot to talk about today.

OK, well, we'll get into it. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners. They're pricing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience between these two and offices everywhere you turn.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. If you've got your own legal issue and you've got a question, we've got a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information and briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your question to the show and we'll answer it on an upcoming show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

And as always, go to the Web site. Kick the tires there. The outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Welcome back to the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and offices in Raleigh.

Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And you don't do that overnight, folks. They have forty six combined years experience between the two of them. And if you've got a legal situation and you need some answers, got a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And just leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And we'll answer those questions in an upcoming episode and visit the Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com. We're going to go to the NFL, the shield. Guys, let's go.

So, Morgan, I thought this was interesting. You know, last week I was eating dinner and I think I flipped on Sports Center or something. And I was trying to figure out some scores or what was going on.

And this had just dropped. And so Brian Flores was the head coach of Miami for a couple of seasons. He got terminated after I think what most people would call a pretty decent season.

If you look at where Miami had been and where they were headed. So he kind of got fired. It was kind of odd. Things like that happened, I guess.

But then he and more. This is my opinion. I'm assuming he didn't start working on this lawsuit that he filed after he got fired. I assume he's been working on this for a while.

This isn't the kind of thing you just drop after a couple of weeks. But anyway, he filed a class action lawsuit. Now, it says class action lawsuit.

I don't know of anybody else who has joined. I mean, I guess they're opening it up to potential additional plaintiffs. But it basically is the NFL named a couple of teams that he has experience with and then named potential defendants. You know, potentially all the teams are involved, but basically just attacked the NFL's hiring practices as it relates to racial discrimination and things they've got going on. But this was just I mean, this was a bombshell. This is not good news if you're a big NFL fan.

Well, and I'll just throw this in, too. I mean, timing is everything. I mean, you've got all eyes on the NFL with the Super Bowl coming up, the playoffs, obviously, when this bomb went off.

But yeah, I totally agree with you. This is something that's been in the works. Part of the story is is Coach Flores is alleging that the Dolphins wanted him back in 2019 to tank so they would have a better position in the draft so they could build on that franchise. And Flores has said publicly that he was offered one hundred thousand dollars per loss in bonuses back in 2019. And he refused to do it. And that's his side of the story. The Dolphins are saying that did not happen. Obviously, they're denying it.

But Hugh Jackson, former Cleveland Browns head coach, said he was basically offered a similar deal when he was in Cleveland. So this this is not going away. And this is about integrity. And the NFL is taking it very seriously because we joke about prop bets and we're talking about all these different things with the Super Bowl.

But it's a big deal. And if you've got ownership that's trying to influence the outcome of games with bonuses to their own employees, I mean, you are talking about the integrity of your league. And so the NFL is going to take it very, very seriously. And there's a distinction there, Morgan, because it makes sense to us to incentivize a coach with with monetary bonuses to win.

Obviously, you know that that's no one's going to look at them. That's the purpose of the sport. But it's looked upon with great disfavor and it makes you feel strange when it's when it's the alternative.

Any time you talk about a team taking a dive, it's going to give you pause, not only as a fan, but then as like you said, we've got this growing industry of sports betting, multi-billion dollar industry. And that really affects that. And it's going to really affect a lot of that. So, yeah, it gives you pause. And but at the same time, you know, you understand everybody if you're a sports fan, especially if you I mean, really any sport, you know, NBA, NFL, you understand the concept of of tanking in those sports.

And it's it's difficult because these are seasons aren't you know, each individual season is kind of looked at in a vacuum. But these organizations, they're looking long term and they are looking at things from the perspective of how how can we build to the future as well? So if you've got a team that, you know, they know they're not going to win a ton of games this year, they know they're not going to be in contention and they can improve their ability to draft better players in the future.

It's almost like a natural inclination. And it's almost an intelligent strategy. It's hard to say that, but it's almost an intelligent strategy that you wouldn't want to win.

You'd want to increase the likelihood that you can bring in some game changer type of players. So it's a it's a really strange balance there. You know, I always think about this.

I try to think about things practically. You know, there's the there's the you know, these are billionaire owners, right? These owners aren't millionaires. They're they're billionaires. And these are like their side hustles, right? You know, we think about an NFL franchise as, you know, this, you know, super valuable commodity. And, you know, and it is. But the people that have enough money to own an NFL franchise are rich beyond what we can even, you know, contemplate. I think most normal people, I'm including myself as normal people, you know, like. And this is their I think about it like this is just their plaything, right?

You know, they have to obey laws and stuff. But I don't know that, you know, what Brian Brian Flores to me. And I noticed that this year, you know, I'm married into the Bills. And so I watched the Bills play Miami twice. I think I saw him play Jacksonville. I saw Miami play like four or five games this year.

And that team played good. You know, I don't know much about him. I know they've they've had a rough couple of years, but I think Brian Flores is probably, by all accounts, a good coach. And that's right.

That's that. You know, they say they had a rough couple of years. And I mean, again, you don't I'm not holding this against you. You don't even know who's playing in the Super Bowl.

Say, Josh. But, you know, they they Florida has actually posted the first back to back winning seasons in the last couple of years that the Dolphins have had since 2003. So they've actually had arguably their two best seasons in what? That's close to 20 years now under under his tenure.

So shocking to say the least, that he would be terminated when he's produced results of that nature. Look, man, all I can tell you is on 1998 NFL quarterback club, Brett Favre was on the cover. But if you give me I think Marino was still there.

So if you give me the Dolphins with Marino, I'll beat you on that game. Well, and I also want I also want to jump in and say, you know, we're talking about Coach Flores because, you know, he has this lawsuit, class action lawsuit against the league and the 32 franchises. And it was all sparked from a text from Bill Belichick that it went to the wrong Brian and it was for the Giants position.

And, you know, congratulations. And it was the wrong Brian. And the problem is Brian Flores was scheduled to interview for that position in the coming days.

So they had already made the decision and they were still going to bring in Brian Flores to interview. And that's what caused this kind of this this domino effect we're seeing right now. And, you know, and now all of a sudden, Hugh Jackson has jumped in about, you know, tanking games, being asked to do it when he was with Cleveland.

And so now it's just this big swirl. But the NFL's got an issue and they are very good about being Teflon. Things don't stick to the league. It seems I saw Marvin Lewis came out, too. I think I was reading this yesterday and I always liked Marvin Lewis. He interviewed with the Panthers and I really wanted him to be the Panthers coaches back when we had a lot of good defensive players. And, you know, I saw he came out and he was starting to say, oh, yeah, this has been my experience. I think he was more commentating on the the rule where if you're going to hire a coach, you have to hire the NFL's got this rule where you have to interview at least one minority candidate. And that's part of Brian Flores. I think that's the meat of his lawsuit is that this is just a scam. The interviews he went on weren't very serious. And and and a lot of them, he could tell that, you know, he was just being interviewed to satisfy this this rule. So this racial discrimination, I think this is the bulk of Mr. Flores's claim. And I mean, on paper, the claim looks just from what you see in the media. You know, the NFL can't really hide much. You know, it's popular. The media follows it like.

Yeah. To me, it doesn't look good. You know, racial discrimination in hiring practices is to me, in my opinion, is just a tough thing to prove. But it seems like, you know, a lot of the facts they need to prove this are just out there. And then if the Marvin Lewis's and the Hugh Jacksons of the world get in this with Brian, you know, there's just going to be there's just a lot there that doesn't look good when you put it all together.

I don't I don't know. Brian Flores doesn't seem like he's really out for money on this one. This really seems like he intends for this to be a game changer. He wants he wants to make change.

I was reading some of his quotes and, you know, he saved his money. And and this is it. This isn't about money. This is about, you know, changing things. And you said it, you know, I think that's the that's the big piece. That's what I was going to get to is the fact that it's not like he's like you said, he's not really suing to recover monetary damages and to to get himself rich in this situation. And that's my prediction for what what comes from this, because like you said, it doesn't look great.

I think we can agree it doesn't look fantastic. And I think what's going to end up coming from this is going to be some form of sweeping change. And that's what's actually been proposed at this point is to to basically kind of they want to shine a light on racial injustice as they see it inside the NFL. And so they've actually presented in the lawsuit, you know, several bullet points of what they want to see addressed.

And I agree with you. I think that's what it's going to be. It's going to be a vehicle to further implement this change and and take care of some of these things that have really been taught. I mean, if you follow the NFL, these are things that have been talked about for, you know, as long as you can remember. You know, it's it's been discussed that there's an issue with racial diversity, especially at that higher level. You know, at the at the player level, you know, you see a league that's the majority of players in the league, of course, are minority players.

And but then at the higher level, you don't see that same level of representation. And so it's been something that's been discussed for a long time. And I think this lawsuit is going to be, again, that vehicle to really push forward some some sweeping change. Yeah, I think if the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer represent the NFL, I think we'd be having a hard conversation with the NFL.

You know, Roger, they say this isn't good. I mean, it's not. And you're talking about we live in a different time.

We've talked about it all the time. We live in a different time than we have before, where the people in general have so much more of a voice. And that being just the general public and issues like these are the exact issues that really fire people up and get get folks, you know, out there behind their keyboards, really mounting up, so to speak, and going to bat for causes. And this is the type of thing that does that. And it's not something that you're going to be able to quietly make go away. You know, it's going to be a problem and it's going to be something they're going to have to deal with.

And it's not going away, man, unless there is some concrete addressing of these issues. And I want to I know we're coming up against a break, but I want to backtrack a little bit. Did you show you had a Nintendo 64? You had the Nintendo 64.

I did, Josh. I did have a Nintendo 64. Was Madden on the Nintendo 64? Because I don't feel like I had Madden. I feel like I only had this NFL quarterback club game. It doesn't seem like it'd be more than one NFL game on on the Nintendo 64. Do you know that's something you know off the top of your head?

Yeah. There was Madden Football 64. There was Madden 64 on the Nintendo. It wasn't the 64th Madden game, Josh. So, yes, they had Madden 64, Madden 99. There were several Nintendo 64 Madden games. And then, you know, you go from the Nintendo 64 to the the Sega Dreamcast was kind of the next the next thing. That's when Randy Moss.

Yeah, that's the one. But that's one or two. That's when the NFL 2K series. It was a good game. It was honestly a superior football series while it while it lasted. And then it's back to kind of Madden has the monopoly on it.

And I don't know how we got on this topic. But yeah, there was a Madden game for the 64, Josh. We you know, this again has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But I tell you what, man, somebody needs to do like a economic study on why the Sega Dreamcast didn't become the most dominant. We should be playing Dreamcast right now instead of PlayStations and and whatever the Xbox.

It should be all Dreamcast. Yeah, neither here nor there. Yeah. And just again, this is neither here nor there.

We could probably talk about this a long time because I've actually done some research into that very question. And it's funny you mentioned it. One of the main reasons why is the fact that the Dreamcast didn't have access to those EA Sports titles, which is where where, of course, Madden came from.

And so that even though I think the 2K series was a superior series, they didn't get any of those EA games. And that was a big, big piece of the puzzle there. Gentlemen, we need to take a break. You're listening to the Outlaw Lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're the managing partners there and practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience between these two.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia is where you can find their offices. If you've got a legal question of your own, you can call eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six and leave your contact information briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will return that phone call. You can also send your question to questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We'll answer them on an upcoming show and visit the Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com Palin versus the New York Times. Coming up next. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You're a host. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, managing partners there and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience between these two and offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. Easy for me to say.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. Guys, we've got a lot to get to is a lot of fun having that conversation about the NFL. We didn't even really get to the Rooney rule, something we'll probably have time to get to in later episodes. But, folks, Palin versus the New York Times.

So I forgot about this one for a while. You know, one of the reasons we just started doing this show, there's a couple of reasons. But one of the reasons we started doing it is because I came up as a journalism major in undergrad or and and worked in small town newspapers for a while before I went to law school. But but I've always been interested in how stories are reported on, how they're presented, you know, just kind of bias. Even before we got to Fox News and CNN and MSN, like just, you know, just bias in journalism has always been interesting to me as I got into the law. It's been interesting to see how, you know, legal things are reported on, what's left out, you know, what how they're presented. And so anyway, Sarah Palin, you don't have to be a fan of Sarah Palin to appreciate what's going on here.

But Sarah Palin obviously is a is a public figure, was a VP candidate and has stayed kind of in reality TV, kind of that CD level celebrity. And we won't go into it too much because I don't want to bore our listeners. But basically, The New York Times had an editorial that ran I can't think it was twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen anyway, a few years back. And the whole deal is this editorial kind of insinuated that some gun violence and some deaths were maybe on Sarah Palin's hands because her, you know, the way she supported gun rights. And again, we won't go into it. But this editorial was produced, edited and printed by The New York Times that kind of blamed Sarah Palin. I think for I can't remember the name of the was it the senator of the House member that was murdered in Arizona? Man, I just drew a blank. But anyway, that she maybe had some responsibility in that.

Anyway, so it's kind of a weird situation. But this brings us back. You know, Palin, Miss Palin thought she was defamed by this editorial. And so she filed a libel action against The New York Times. And The New York Times has a long storied history where if you're going to sue us for libel, we're going to defend it. We're going to trial.

It's either going to get dismissed. We know we're not settling. We we report on the news. And and so this takes us back to some Supreme Court cases.

And, Joe, I didn't talk to you about this ahead of time. But but in our notes here, we talk a lot about New York Times v. Sullivan. And that's the Supreme Court case that kind of set the line on how a public figure, which Miss Palin is, how they can sue for libel for defamation against a media outlet, a newspaper who who has printed something maybe as derogatory or not nice. But you want to tell us about that one?

Yeah. You know, so when we talk about when we talk about this, this whole the idea of libel in general, especially when you talk about the press, you get into the concept that we've talked about in the past, the competing interests of that First Amendment right. The freedom of speech, freedom of the press. You get into how that balances out against, you know, the fact that you can't just literally say anything you want, especially when you you are the press. And when you have that when you have, you know, the ability to reach so many people to influence the masses, there's going to be there's going to be a line drawn somewhere where you can't, again, just say anything, especially something that's false and especially something that is going to to really damage the reputation of someone else by the fact that it is false. And so basically what we had was with this case, the New York Times v. Sullivan, during the civil rights movement of the 60s, the New York Times, they published an ad for contributing donations to defend Martin Luther King Jr. on perjury charges that he was facing at the time.

And the ad contains several minor factual inaccuracies. This the city's public safety commissioner at the time, who was L.B. Sullivan, he felt that the criticism that was was placed against his subordinates at the time reflected on him. And even though he wasn't mentioned in the ad, he sent a written request to the Times asking them to publicly retract the information, which is what was required at the time when a public figure was seeking punitive damages and a libel action under the Alabama law. So when the Times refused and claimed that they were kind of puzzled by his request, Sullivan filed his libel action against the Times and against a group of African-American ministers that were mentioned in the ad. So a jury in state court awarded him five hundred thousand in damages. The state Supreme Court affirmed. And then the Times ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court where the the question really was, did Alabama's libel law unconstitutionally infringe on the First Amendment, freedom of speech and freedom of press protections?

So, yeah, this is a this is what we say this a lot. This is a slippery slope. You don't want the press to be able to print just absolutely anything they they they want to, whether it's true or not true or mean spirited or, you know, intended to affect readership. You know, so that's the Supreme Court balances. You know, we need a we need a press that's free to talk about leaders and talk about powerful people and report the news. But you also don't want them to have just a carte blanche to do anything they want to.

And so this case, there's a lot in this lineage, more than we have time to discuss now. But that was the ruling. The New York Times won the Supreme Court case because they said they needed actual the plaintiff, the public figure, the guy in Alabama, needed to show there was actual malice because he was a public figure. An actual malice doesn't necessarily mean bad intent.

It just means give me reckless negligence. You didn't fact check this. You didn't you didn't do your your due diligence. This should have never made it to print. And so here the New York Times ever since then has taken a really strong position. You know, we report the news.

You don't like it. You think we've done something. You think you've been liable. You think you've been defamed.

You sue us and we'll we'll see in court. And a lot of these court decisions have favored newspapers over over the years. And so Sarah Palin, again, no matter what you may think of her, this is this is toe in the line. You know, there's some evidence that's come out there. They've had some editors on the stand and the person who wrote the piece on the stand. And there's some conversations that the editorial board had about what they wanted this to reflect. And so I think for the first time in decades, we've got a case where the New York Times looks like maybe they they might have some actual malice here, or at least close to what a jury might be convinced that they kind of maybe had it out for Sarah Palin. And they were, you know, really trying to make her look bad, linking her to the shooting. And in my notes, it was U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords. And I remember when that happened, there was a yeah, she was Giffords was seriously wounded.

And a nine year old girl, among others, were actually killed in the attack. And this and this editorial kind of made, you know, Miss Palin had a political action committee, supported the NRA, supported gun rights. And as this editorial kind of put trying to put some of the blame figuratively on on Miss Palin and her pack for what had happened. And so Miss Palin was obviously taken aback by this, filed the lawsuit, has stuck with it.

And now now here we are. So we're in federal court in New York. And I'm sure Miss Palin has already said she's you know, if she loses this, she's taken into the Supreme Court and the New York Times the same thing. Hey, if we lose this, we're taking this to the Supreme Court. And this is something the Supreme Court would probably have to have to hear. So this this case has been around for a while. I think everybody expected to get dismissed. That's what happens with a lot of these cases. And it looks like there's just enough here to keep it moving. So it hasn't been dismissed.

And now it's day four, five or six. I'm not sure what day we're in of the trial. And I think most people think the New York Times will win at this level. You know, this jury trial, you never know what a jury is going to do. But I think we're going to see this at the Supreme Court in a year or two.

So this is this is something very interesting. You know, the Supreme Court has not really limited this night. You know, this 1962 Sullivan v. New York Times has been the law of the land ever since with some mild, you know, case law here and there. But I mean, we're sitting this 70 years since then, you know, and it may change a little bit. You know, I think about think about how much has changed in 70 years, especially with regards to how the news is is put out there and the level of access and the 24 hour news cycle. And things are drastically different than they were at the time that this ruling this the ruling we're looking at previously came down.

So, yeah, that's a good point, Joe. You know, news was delivered differently. People thought differently about the news.

I don't think people in the 60s, they probably trusted the media a little more than people in the 2020s do. So anyway, this is going to be something that we'll keep an eye on. Again, this is I don't think this is getting the attention it deserves. And as we always say, kind of the mainstream media, although it's being reported on.

But I think this is pretty important. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firms where you can find them during the week of the managing partners, their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And they have 46 combined years experience between the two of them and offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.

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We're back after this. The outlaw lawyers on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, Whitaker and Hamer law firm is where you can find a managing partners, their practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Forty six combined years experience between these two and again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And we're throwing this number out in case you have a legal question of your own. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information briefly what the calls about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will return that phone call. You can also email your questions to the show. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com will answer them on a future program. Guys, we are man, we're getting towards the end.

Hard to believe we're moving fast. What's up next morning? No, no knock warrants come up, come up a lot here lately. You know, these are warrants that a judge would sign off on when police are investigating someone they need to do a search. They think the evidence could be destroyed if they take the time to announce themselves and do a normal warrant, serve a normal warrant. So these are what we call no knock warrants where the police don't really have to. There's some things they have to do, but they can pretty much enter right away and try to prevent evidence from being tampered, damaged, destroyed.

People getting away. And so these are a relatively recent invention. And they're they're kind of I guess the easiest thing to say is they're they're fraught with peril. And the most recent example up in Minnesota, Mr. Amir Locke, a gentleman, was asleep on his couch with his he had his gun with him. And the officers served this no knock warrant kind of they had a key. So they had they had a warrant sign.

They'd gotten a key ahead of time as they just entered. It's kind of disturbing because it doesn't look like Mr. Locke was doing anything wrong. It doesn't like Mr. Locke was really the subject of the search. Sounds like they were looking for a cousin, but it was an apartment. The cousin known was known to have frequented. And so they go in here and we've got Mr. Locke, who is on his couch with a gun asleep in his own apartment.

And I think I read somewhere I don't know this to be I didn't double check it. But, you know, from body cam footage, the first officer gets in the apartment and then nine seconds later, Mr. Locke's deceased because they storm in there. And just like you would expect a police officer short serving a warrant, a SWAT team serving a warrant to do. They find him, he's armed, he gets up, he's armed and he's he's shot and killed in his own apartment. So that's a pretty shocking story.

It's going to get a lot of I think it's already got a lot of press, but it's going to be it's going to be getting press for a while. But a lot of states, a lot of municipalities have outlawed this no knock warrant. But you've seen a lot of that in the news, Joe. Yeah, and it's a nightmare, man. This is a absolute nightmare scenario. It's terrible and it's something that you hate to hear about. And it's super incredibly unfortunate.

And, you know, again, we like to we like to try to objectively look at these things and we like to try to look at both sides of the coin. And, you know, it's obvious if you look at this from Mr. Locke's perspective, anybody should have an issue with this because this is an individual that's in his own his own domicile. He legally possesses this firearm. He's not you know, it's not like he's he's a criminal that's possessing it illegally.

And he's got no reason to suspect the police are going to be who are busting into his apartment. It's it's a tragedy, man. Simply put. Yeah. You know, I was I was thinking about that. You know, if that happened at my house, you don't you're just going to react, you know, and here, you know, I don't always have you know, I legally possess guns, you know, but I don't always have a gun on me, you know, with me. But yeah, if someone just bust in your house, it's it, you know, we try to we try to, again, balance the equities. And so obviously we need law enforcement and law enforcement, you know, is, you know, keeps a lot of things working right in our society. And so this is no bash on law enforcement.

I got a lot of family members in law enforcement. But, you know, it seems this just seems wrong. Right. The fact that this happened, you know, accidents, of course, happened.

But here a man is dead who has done nothing at all wrong. And I think I think we get hardened. Right. I think we as a society, the way things are reported to us, you have to either support, you know, the blue line. You have to hold the blue line and you support law enforcement 100 percent or you you have to be anti law enforcement. You know, if you fall on that side, you can never say, you know, you're defund the police side, which I think is a small minority of the country.

You know, it seems like you're forced one way or the other to be supportive 100 percent. Like here, this shouldn't have happened. You know, I think we have to re-examine and people are, you know, this should never happen. This is not something that, you know, a man shouldn't be killed in his own home because he was holding illegally owned firearm in his own home. This should not happen. And I think we shouldn't ever I think we have to be able to take a step back. And no matter who, no matter what side of the defense you're on, you have to say, what can we do?

Because here, you know, I was reading a little bit about it and I haven't read as much as I wanted to. But, you know, they were they they had a lot of evidence. These cops had done their due diligence. They were tracking down Mr. Locke's cousin is accused.

He's under he's in custody now, but he's accused of murder and armed robbery. So we got some bad guys out there who've committed some crimes and we don't want those. We want those guys to pay the price for those crimes. We want the police to be able to investigate them and find those bad guys and bring them in. And then if they're guilty, in theory, they'll be convicted. If they're mistaken, they'll be released.

You know, that's kind of how it's supposed to work. And so here the cops had done a lot of research. They've done a lot of investigations. They attract this particular Mercedes Benz that had been involved.

It had been parked. There were three or four apartments. They wanted to to search in this apartment building where the quote unquote the bad guys have had been. And this was one of them. And they had gotten a no knock warrant signed and and a regular warrant signed so that they could use either one depending on if they thought someone was getting away or whatever.

And the SWAT team went with the no knock. But, man, just a tough you know, we're not always here to make predictions or kind of give answers. I mean, some things are just tough.

And I think you just have to kind of reexamine the way we do stuff. And I was actually going to do some research on no not warrants in North Carolina. I'm not a criminal attorney by trade.

May we have many fine criminal attorneys here in the firm, but they're all in court today. I was going to talk to some of them about it before I got on the air here. But yeah, I think generally you're going to you're going to see a movement against these no knock warrants. You know, I'm sure they're useful in certain circumstances, but I know Florida, Oregon, Virginia, they already have bans. I think I saw the mayor of Baltimore, you know, talking about there may be a ban there.

But I think 13 states have explicitly banned no knock warrants. I think you probably see a lot more because it's it's tough. It's a tough issue.

And what you touched on, Josh, that I want to go back to that I think is just super unfortunate that things have developed the way they have. And this this doesn't just apply to this argument. It kind of permeates a lot of political issues. And it's the fact that, like you said, it seems like at least at least the most vocal people come down so heavily on one side or the other of this argument. Like you said, it's it's perceived, at least if you're if you keep up with social media and things like that.

Maybe that's a mistake. Maybe nobody should do that and take that to heart. But it just seems like so many people fall 100 percent on one side or 100 percent on the other side of so many issues when really. Everybody should have the ability to critically analyze both sides of the puzzle. And, you know, you can't just look at everything that police do as being infallible and look at it as it's not subject to a deeper look at how things are done. And a consideration of the other side and, you know, public safety and keeping things like this from happening. Just like you can't go the defund the police route and not understand the difficulty that the police face every day and how incredibly difficult that job is and how they are protecting the public interest.

You know, you I wish everybody could find a way to come to that that more middle ground where they can look at both sides and not get so stuck in one side of the argument. Because, like you said, you can look at it as the no knock warrants. They serve a purpose in a lot of ways.

And, you know, there's whether it be the destruction of evidence or whether it be, you know, the destruction of evidence being one thing. I think the more important piece that could be used by someone trying to justify the no knock warrants is, you know, threat to officer safety because there's bad guys out there, you know, that are that are killing people. And the police and the public have a vested interest, obviously, and taking those folks down and safety can be an issue when when executing those warrants. So so there is genuine concern.

But at the same time, is it worth it? And, you know, this should never happen ever. This should and everyone should be so adamantly opposed to this happening, you know, that everyone should really be up in arms about it and it should be reassessed. I'll tell you, it's an incredible discussion about the no knock warrant. We're going to probably revisit in future shows. We're up against the clock.

We will take a short break. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your hosts, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, where you can find them during the week. If you've got your own legal question and you need an answer, call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

And just leave contact information briefly what the call's about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your question to the show and we'll answer it on a future program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Back on the outlaw lawyer, we're going to wrap things up by Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, your host for the outlaw lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm managing partners there. Again, 46 combined years experience in practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. Guys, great show. Well, Morgan, there was a lot to talk about this week.

I feel like there was a lot of interesting things in the news and we only selected three to talk about and it filled up the whole show. But I'll take a moment just to remind our listeners that Joe and I are practicing attorneys. We're the managing partners of Whitaker and Hamer. And like Morgan mentioned, we have offices in Raleigh, Clayton, Garner, Fuquay, Verina, Goldsboro and Gastonia. Our newest office is in that 4042 area.

Some people call Cleveland back in the day, Cleveland Springs, Garner area code. But the 4042 office and and our law firm is equipped with attorneys who can help you. I always say most normal folks, we can help you with about any legal issue you're going to face during during your lifetime. And so we you'll see on our advertising materials, a lot of times we'll say where your law firm for life. But that's what we're geared up for, is, you know, to give you advice on many of the issues you might encounter from day to day.

So traffic tickets, criminal charges, business law, real estate law, family law, personal injury, car accident type stuff. So we we have a lot of folks that we kind of advise everybody and their family. And so Joe and I, we've always we talk about this from time to time where we consider ourselves attorneys and counselors at law. And we're here.

If there's anything that we can do for you, any advice you need, you need an attorney. We'll gladly talk to you. But, Joe, I guess enjoy the enjoy the Super Bowl. I got to figure out who I'm going to root for now that I know who's in it.

Yeah. You got to figure out how to say you got to figure out who's in it and then you can figure out who you're going to root for. Root for root for Joe Burrow, man. He's got my same first name. So he's got that going for him.

And Burrow is a cool last name. I think it's a cooler name than Matthew Stafford. So just based on that alone, you don't want to root for Matthew Stafford. He's a veteran. He's getting his chance for a Super Bowl that doesn't grab you. Matthew Stafford.

He just it just sounds like someone who wants to sell me like insurance or something, man. I don't know. No, I think something Cincinnati. It seemed to be the underdog. And, you know, they took care of the it took care of the chiefs who beat the bills.

That Bill's game was crazy. But anyway, I'm all set. I got my cheesesteaks.

All right. That sounds good, guys. You have the cheesesteaks yet or no? They come in. They're coming in right now. They're coming in. Enjoy the big game. I don't even think we can call it the the S word.

It's the big game. The outlaw lawyers in the books, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. We're back next week with more legal discussion. 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.