Rittenhouse Trial starts, Texas Heartbeat Update, and Alec Baldwin involved with a prop gun fatality

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh and Joe talk about the Rittenhouse trial, more on the Texas heartbeat oral arguments before the Supreme Court, what's going on with that Alec Baldwin shooting, and a DUI related listener question. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer's on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience between these two. And they have offices, well, all over the place, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in the state of North Carolina. We talk legal topics each and every week here on The Outlaw Lawyer's real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal and traffic, family law. It always leads to questions with the listeners. There's an opportunity for you to get in touch and have those questions answered.

If you'd like to ask questions at questions at theoutlawlawyers.com, that's outlawlawyer.com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we're about to get into it. Guys, welcome in. Hope you had a great week. Morgan, I did.

It was a great week. I'm a little tired this morning. This is how you know you're old. I'm a little tired this morning because I stayed up to watch the World Series, but I didn't make it the whole game. So I only made it through like four or five innings, but I'm still tired because that's too late. Now the question is, did you make it to the bedroom or did you fall asleep on the couch or in the lounge chair?

What? I haven't gotten that old yet. I made it to the bed and I'm waiting. That's my hope as I get older.

That's one of the things I'm looking forward to is that ability to fall asleep in that chair. Right now, I can't do it. How about you, Morgan? Did you make it through the whole game? The whole game. I'm regretting it a little bit.

When we remind everybody too, we record this show during the week and it airs on the weekend. We're talking the day after. 26 years of waiting and the Braves are finally again world champions. 1995, guys. What were you doing in 1995? Joe, be careful how you answer this. I was being a nine-year-old boy.

That's awesome. Joe, I don't even know. Joe, are you a baseball fan at all? I don't know that I've talked baseball with you in a long time.

Man, funny story. I played a lot of sports growing up and baseball was one of the sports that I played. I guess this would have been around 1995 when I was around nine years old. I was playing Little League and always enjoyed baseball. I got to Little League and my coach was actually one of my family members.

He was a cousin. I think his intention was to toughen me up so in practice for Little League, he would just beam me. He would beam me constantly when I'd get up to bat. I just hated baseball after that. Didn't watch the World Series. Rarely pay much attention just because I've got horrible Little League memories.

I can feel your excitement and I'm excited vicariously through the both of you guys. The Braves, growing up watching TBS, you watch the Cubs and you watch the Braves, but a big Braves fan. I guess here in North Carolina, that's all we'll ever have. We're always just going to have the Braves.

I don't think we're going to live to see another major league team anywhere in our area. It's kind of like you guys remember back in the day when the only thing on TV for the NFL was the Redskins, or I'm sorry, the Washington Football Club. People were fans of Washington. Same thing for the Braves. They were a super station team, so really the entire southeast was kind of where their fans generated from. I knew some Baltimore fans, but mostly Braves fans. It was a huge night last night for the franchise.

They've got a lot of free agents on that team. They're going to be gone, but they got it done. It was fun to see.

That was good stuff. I usually get really excited when baseball starts. I'm in it really hard for two months. Then I drop out and then I come back in the playoffs.

I don't have the stamina to make it through an entire baseball season as a casual fan. The World Series, that was exciting stuff. I was glad. I watched it with the boys. It was good stuff.

Well, what I could stay up for anyway. Again, not to go too far back because Joe obviously was nine, but when I was in college, I had an opportunity to be a camp counselor in an athletic camp in northern Alabama. On my way back through, we had a family friend that was a traveling secretary for the Braves. Got to be a bat boy for a game in 1986. They won the division that year, but they really weren't that good. They were starting to formulate what would be that run that started in the 90s that was absolutely ridiculous.

Got to be a bat boy. Then the following summer, I went into Atlanta to intern at CNN. I did that at night, but during the day to make some money, I worked the ground crew for the Braves. I got to see all the teams come into Fulton County. We set up locker rooms and we worked the field. I got to be around the players quite a bit. I always loved baseball, but that summer it kind of made it happen. Then obviously the run in 91, 92. Went to both those World Series setups in Atlanta and just obviously didn't go their way, but a lot of fun.

Then 95 was huge. The long wait this week to win another one, I feel fantastic for the Braves fans. Yeah, it's good stuff.

It was a good story. It was a good season. The Hurricanes are still undefeated, aren't they, at the time of this taping? I believe the Hurricanes are still undefeated.

At the time of this taping, they are still on track to go 82-0 regular season. Morgan, you said 1986, you got to be a bat boy. You want to know what I was doing in 1986? Were you pooping in diapers in 1986? The summer of 86, I got to be a boy.

I was literally an infant being born, but I got great memories of that summer as well, man. You're killing me. Well, today guys, I want to preface this show with what we do here on Outlaw Lawyer as we try to pluck out these legal issues, these legal news stories kind of from around the country and talk about them like lawyers, not like reporters, not like pundits. We really try to be apolitical here on the show. We always like to chat about sports when we open up and what's going on, but once we get into the meat of this thing and we start talking about the law, that's what we're really trying to talk about. I'm giving that as a warning because we're going to talk about a couple of things today like we always do, but Rittenhouse, that trial just kicked off in Wisconsin. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about that trial, the jury selection, how it started. When we're recording, they just finished opening arguments yesterday.

I don't think we're going to have any kind of verdict or resolution by the end of the week. That's something we're going to talk about for a while today. I think that's one of those things we'll revisit as well, Josh.

Like you said, trial just getting started. I think we'll go back, provide periodic updates. I'm sure it'll be very interesting to follow. A lot of interesting nuances to the opening arguments and the way that the defense has been presented. It's one of those very divisive topics that we try to touch here. Like you said, the goal is we're trying to look at everything from an unbiased perspective and never really take either side. But just look at the law and neutrally approach these things and try to talk about things without any kind of inherent bias, which is something you don't get generally these days. You know, guys, when we first started the Outlaw Lawyers, you guys had this discussion.

We talked about it over a conference call. And what I remember you saying is the goal of the show is to help inform and to educate. And I like the direction you're going. It's not political.

You're not falling on either side. You're talking about cases and how it would impact everybody out there that's listening. And these are cutting edge stories. And each and every week you're going to be covering these. It's going to be a great listen. So we give you every opportunity to not only listen live when we bring it to you on the weekends, but you can also go to the website, theoutlawlawyer.com, and the podcast version of all shows.

Past shows all the way up to current are going to be there for you. And you can click on your subject matter and listen to your heart's content. Also want to remind you, too, if you've got a legal question, something that's just burning at you and you need an answer for, maybe we don't hit that topic on the program.

Or, you know, Josh and Joe are very, very busy covering these topics, but it might be a topic that's near and dear to you. You can certainly send suggestions to the show. You can call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Or you can email questions or topics to the program. It's questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. After we wrap up talking about Rittenhouse, we're going to go back. I think we've talked about the past two weeks here, but the Texas heartbeat law, as it's called, Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday, and they were fascinating. So we're going to take a minute to talk about that.

And then the Alec Baldwin shooting. I don't know if we've touched on that yet, Joe, but I want to spend some time on that one. Yeah, I don't think we've hit it. I do not think we've hit it yet, but you know, it's one of those that there will absolutely be legal ramifications. Nothing's come as of the recording.

There's been no criminal charges filed. I'm sure there'll be, you know, civil suits for sure. But it's something that we're going to jump into, kind of outline the facts, do some speculation and just talk about what was really just a tragic, just unfortunate event. Well, and it kind of it brings back the memories of Bruce Lee's son, Brandon.

He was shot with a prop gun in Wilmington filming the sequel to The Crow. And that story has kind of surfaced back up. And I tell you, it is it's incredibly painful for the families, for anyone involved on set. And I can't imagine, you know, what Alec Baldwin is going through right now.

It's got to be incredibly tough because they were friends. It was just obviously an accident, but you can't take it back. I mean, there it is. Yeah, I think if you're not, you know, we're obviously we're not in the film industry. We don't know.

I don't know how those things work, but it just seems almost implausible that it happened to Brandon Lee back in the day. But how does this even happen is I know that's that's kind of what I think. But anyway, we'll take we'll take a look at that. And then, of course, we're more interested in the in the law side of the criminal charges, civil, that kind of thing. And then figure if we have time, we do have a listener question what to do if you're stopped under the suspicion of driving while impaired.

So basically what to do if you're stopped for a DWI, DUI, whatever you want to call it. So that comes up a lot. We get that question a lot. So we figured we'd tackle that one with our listener question today. All right. So the outlaw lawyers getting ready for our first segue into segment one.

Great intro, guys. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners.

They're forty six combined years experience. And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia, practicing attorneys right here in the state of North Carolina. If you've got a legal question you want answered, call eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

Leave your name, number and certainly some information. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can also email your questions to the program.

We'll use them in an upcoming episode. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please go to the website and peruse the outlaw lawyer dot com. Coming up next on the outlaw lawyer, we talk the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and get into the opening arguments. Welcome in to the outlaw lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Forty six combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina.

And Gastonia, practicing attorneys right here in the great state of North Carolina. If you've got legal questions, they're going to come up during the show. If it's pertaining to you, obviously call this number and get answers. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You could also email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and we'll use them in an upcoming episode. But again, it's all legalese. We talk legal topics each and every week. Guys, I know you're going to get into Rittenhouse.

I'm looking forward to this. Yes. This is the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse and everything. Everything moves so fast now. It seems like the underpinnings of these charges, it seems like it happened years and years ago. But we're we're one year removed from the the riots up in Wisconsin that this kind of surrounded what happened. But the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has started. This is up in Wisconsin. I always add in that me and Joe were licensed to practice in North Carolina only. So when we look at these trials, we really are just looking at them as attorneys, but not attorneys that are licensed to practice in that state. So I'm not intimately familiar with the criminal code up and up in Wisconsin.

But Mr. Rittenhouse is 18. Everything happened when he was 17, but he's 18 now and he's charged with varying a couple of homicides. So we have two people who have died as a result of a shooting. There was a severe injury.

I think he's got Joe. I think there were some other charges, maybe just arms. It wasn't his gun, that kind of thing. Yeah.

You know, a few different things. Of course, the the majorly relevant and interesting charges that are going to have the biggest implications are the the charges related to the murders. A lot of interesting things about this, Josh, you know, I think starting with the jury selection, a lot of times when you get these highly polarizing type of events, you can see really long, protracted jury selection processes. And the fact that this was a jury selection that took place in one day is kind of surprising to me.

Yeah, I like how this judge this judge has made some controversial and we'll talk about it kind of decision, some kind of pretrial decisions, but I don't know much about the judge, but I like the way he's running his courtroom. I mean, they're getting stuff done, but I think I read the impaneled 20 jurors. That includes backups, but they impaneled like 20 or 21 people in one day, which seems amazing to me.

Yeah. And the fact that this is such a polarizing event is is very surprising, the speed with which this took place. And from from what I read, it sounds like about a dozen of the prospective jurors were dismissed because they basically had strong opinions about the case and expressed doubts that they could be fair.

But very interesting that they were able to get it done and get it done so quickly. That's a pretty efficient selection process, especially in light of the subject matter of the case. I didn't see jury selection.

I just read a couple of summaries about it. But one of the things I read, yeah, there was like one guy who was a big Second Amendment guy and he he he couldn't be swayed one way or the other. He didn't feel like he felt like, you know, you have your right to carry any gun you want. Self-defense is paramount. And then there was a couple of other folks who just the fact he had a gun made him guilty in their minds and they couldn't be swayed. Because I think that's what the judge was looking for.

It's OK. This is a national event that happened. You're you know, in a perfect world, a juror wouldn't have any knowledge about what's going on.

Right. You know, so if I get a if I get a speeding ticket and I take it to trial and a jury gets set for my speeding ticket, I'm sure they're going to be angry because they're missing work for me to argue about my speeding ticket. But they don't know what happened. They weren't there that day. They have no preconceived notions of what happened when I got pulled for my speeding ticket. And so that's that's the perfect jury.

And on these big ticket events, these national these things that are just covered by every corner of the media that you can't get away from. You're not going to find that jury member. You're not going to find that jury member who has no knowledge of what happened. So this is the case. Everybody kind of knows what happened or at least the basic facts as presented by the media. And there it's hard to find someone who doesn't have a preconceived notion of Mr. Rittenhouse's innocence or guilt. But that's that's part of the challenge, I guess. Yeah.

The perfect juror is I don't know that they exist anymore. Just because we talk about how that proliferation of social media, that 24 hour news cycle, it's super available. Anybody, anybody can find out, you know, what's going on. And this was a huge current event.

It took place at a time when everybody's confined to their homes and they're just digesting this this information and taking in this new cycle. It's affecting so much of the area that, yeah, I don't understand. I don't know how you find folks who are truly neutral, who haven't really heard about it.

I mean, pretty much everybody's going to going to have an opinion about it. And it's going to be very difficult to weed out and find that truly perfect juror that's just completely in the dark. So Mr. Rittenhouse is charged with a couple of counts of homicide or, you know, again, we're going to talk about these charges generally.

Not the specific language, though Wisconsin Criminal Code uses. But so he's got a couple of counts of homicides and attack. You know, he he seriously wounded a third person. But so his his defense is basically.

Yeah, it happened. You know, he committed a homicide or two homicides, but his defense is that it was justified by self-defense. And so self-defense is kind of a you know, it's difficult to prove and it kind of resets everything. So we've got three different incidents here where Mr. Rittenhouse came came into contact with three different folks that he he harmed, which he would claim was self-defense. And in each instance, but you kind of have to look at each engagement.

On its own. So, you know, we we we talked about in the intro how we're apolitical, we don't really want to read a lot into this. And that's what the court's going to have to do.

They're going to have to. This was all part of a demonstration, police abuse demonstration that was happening kind of across the country. And so they were there were some, depending on your opinion, they were either some protest or some looting or some riot, you know, whatever you want to call what was going on.

It was happening. And so Mr. Rittenhouse was was attracted to that. There's I've heard I've heard all kinds of different things. I've kind of read that he was on his own, went and acquired this AR 15 style rifle and went there on his own. I've heard that he was asked to be there by someone who was trying to protect a car dealership from from property damage.

I guess as the trial continues, we'll figure out what's correct. But either way, Mr. Rittenhouse finds himself in this in this environment, in this situation with a with a highly powered gun. Yeah. You know, when you set the scene, Josh, I think it's important to to really, you know, paint the picture around everything that was going on at that time. You know, Rittenhouse, he traveled to Kenosha from his home in Illinois. So it's you know, he he had to travel to get there.

He sought out this situation. At the time, there was a lot of unrest after, you know, a white Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake, who was a black man in the back. And there had been a couple of nights at this point of kind of, like you said, that rioting or that protest, however you look at it.

But things had had really they were extremely supercharged. There had been a lot of destruction of property. And so, like you said, Rittenhouse's argument is that he was basically there to protect property after the two previous nights, which did include a lot of arson, some gunfire, some ransacking of businesses. And that's really where the divide is drawn between the polarization of both sides of this case. You've got one side that's painting him as kind of a patriot who took a stand against lawlessness and was just exercising his Second Amendment gun rights. And then you got the other side that's that's basically painting him as a vigilante and and someone who is taking the law into their own hands and acting recklessly. Yeah, I think as a judge and jury, I mean, your goal is to you know, we've already heard the opening arguments. And so that's both the prosecution and defense are seizing on just what you said, Joe, and they're they're painting this picture.

But I think as a judge and jury, throw that out, because if your if your job is to determine if a homicide happened, you're trying to figure out who the who the aggressor was and then who was who was actually, you know, defending themselves. And so there were there were three separate incidents that they'll end up looking at. The first one, I didn't write down first names, but Mr. Rittenhouse, the first person he encountered was Mr. Rosenbaum. And this is the one where I had I had you know, we've got videotapes, I think, of all the encounters or at least like the end of moment. But I don't know necessarily that we have enough video where we can piece together exactly what was happening right before. And so this is the one I can't find much information on. I know I read Rosenbaum didn't really, of course, didn't have was unarmed. Sounds like he was shot in maybe several times, one or one or two of the times in the back, maybe while he was retreating. Looks like maybe Rosenbaum was was not even a protester, was recently released from prison, maybe had some mental health issues. This one is troubling to me because it's just from what I can read. I have a hard time figuring out who was the aggressor and how this I don't know if you saw anything different, Joe.

No, I'm with you. It's it's tough. And, you know, we did get a lot of video. There's a lot of video footage just because, again, in today's day and age, people are filming everything.

You get a lot of cell phone footage from amateurs. So you kind of have to piece these things together from that video evidence. And it is it's tough to it's tough to see.

It's tough to tell. So you're going to be looking at a lot of, you know, eyewitness testimony, people saying what they saw in that situation. And then, you know, what Rittenhouse himself is saying.

But I'm with you. It's a little it's always difficult when you've got someone who ends up being shot in the back. But at the same time, you know, it's it's it's such a highly charged situation and you're looking at, you know, what he believed at the at the time, as far as his intent when when he did the shooting, when he committed this act. So I come back when we talk about all this, man. So we talked in those in a few previous episodes about going to these protests and being involved and just how it's just not for me.

It's just not for me, period. Well, you know, I think I think the whatever the jury decides on this first on this encounter with Rosenbaum is going to be what drives the rest of the because then you've got Mr. Huber is the second confrontation and he was also fatally shot. But Mr. Huber is the one who had the skateboard and was assaulting Rittenhouse. But I think if you if you believe what what you've heard from the people who know Mr. Huber, well, he thought there was an active shooter.

Right. So Mr. Huber, it sounds like in his mind, he was he was trying to disarm an active shooter. He didn't know Rittenhouse's intentions and or what have you. And from Mr. Rittenhouse's perspective, he had just killed someone defending himself and now he was being being assaulted again. So really, I think what what the jury decides on the on the Rosenbaum encounter is really going to determine how they look at the the Huber encounter. And then that goes the third encounter. The gentleman's name, I think, was was a gross crutes.

I can't remember what his name was, but he's the one who had a handgun and came and approached. And it's just it's just going to I can't imagine a more complicated series of facts. It's almost like a law school question designed to test you on the doctrine of self-defense, because you've got you've got a lot happening, a lot of facts.

I don't envy. Of course, you know, it's it's I don't envy anyone involved with with the case. The jury is going to be very hard to deliberate. It's a hard case for both sides. It's going to be interesting to watch from a from a from our vantage point, but just a tough, tough, tough case.

Yeah. Like you said, Josh, everything kind of builds on everything else. And once the shooting starts, you know, everything from that point on is escalated so so greatly. And and you can you can it's it's a tough situation because some of these defendants, you know, if you are some of these victims rather of the shooting, if you look at from their perspective, like like Huber, for example, if he genuinely believes that Rittenhouse is an active shooter and he's trying to do something heroic himself, you know, it's tough.

And you can't ask him what he thought because, of course, he's he's deceased. It's just tough, man. And everything does kind of build on each other. So I agree with you that that that first shooting is relevant as far as how it is seen and how it is judged. And even it even if it's looked at unfavorably, everything that follows the other two cases, all they still hinge on the circumstances which were the were that there was a shooting that had taken place and that that that highly charged environment. And and again, you're looking at you know, you're looking at each individual incident separately, while at the same time having to look at that context that's created from that first shooting.

So like you said, it's remarkably complicated. And Joe, I know we're up against a break, but I want to add this is this is one where, you know, in a criminal case that this of this these serious charges like this, you know, most of the time the accused does not take the stand. You're going to make the state prove their case and you're not going to you're not going to add to it. You're not going to put your your guy up there, your defendant up there for cross or anything like that. But the word here is that that's on the table, you know, depending on how everything goes.

Mr. Rent House may take the stand to defend himself and to answer questions which would subject to him to cross, which you just don't see very often. So this will be a very interesting case. I'll be very interested to see how it plays out. But this is not good for anybody. I don't think this is one of the things I think everybody will walk away wondering if anybody really got justice. But it's just it's just a crazy set of facts. But we'll see how it goes.

Tough case. Great discussion. And again, if you've got questions, you can certainly call the program.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That'll get you in touch with the outlaw lies. You can also email questions to questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. We are going to take a short break and be back with more of the outlaw lawyer right after this. The legal discussion on the Texas heartbeat law continues in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We'll talk about it next. The outlaw lawyers on the air, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Forty six combined years experience between these two.

And they have offices, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. We talk legalese legal topics each and every week here on the outlaw lawyer. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. And again, real estate closings, estate planning and administration, personal injury, criminal traffic, family law.

If it's legal, they're talking about it and all the hot topics. If you've got your questions pertaining to maybe a situation you're involved with and you need answers, here's the number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your name and contact information and brief intro into what you have questions about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch again.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You could also send questions to the program. We can use them on an upcoming show. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please visit the Web site at any time. The outlaw lawyer dot com and past podcast will be there for you. And you can click and listen to your heart's content.

Guys, what's next? Well, Morgan, Joe and I have talked about this a lot over the past couple of weeks because it's just such an interesting at least to us. It's just a very interesting topic.

But this Texas heartbeat law. Finally, you know, there's been several challenges. It's been a hot topic. It actually got to the Supreme Court very quickly. There were two challenges to it.

But before we get there, Joe, just as a reminder, what was this law trying to do? What was so what was going on with this one? Yeah. So this was a weird one. And we've talked about it extensively.

So if you are a consistent listener, you know, we're going to we're going to rehash it a little bit. You may have heard this before, but basically in a nutshell, this law, it attempted to ban abortions after, you know, six weeks. And it did it in an interesting way. It didn't outright ban those, but it essentially gave a cause of action to individuals to, you know, sue to prohibit these abortions after that certain period of time. So it almost kind of deputized regular individuals and and gave them standing to to bring a case to prohibit this from taking place.

So it went about it in a very interesting kind of a backdoor type of way, as opposed to being an outright prohibition. So there were arguments that happened. I think it was Monday, November.

Yeah, I think it was Monday. There were arguments that took place were based on two challenges. So the adjusted the U.S. Justice Department made one challenge just basing that, you know, this law, since it's been in effect, has basically banned most all abortions inside a chilling effect in the whole state of Texas and was basically violating the constitutional law, the constitutional rights of anybody who was seeking an abortion after six weeks. And then there was also a challenge from Texas abortion providers. These were folks who had already been sued under the law who said, hey, I performed an abortion under this law.

If you think you can sue me and succeed, do it. And then they got sued by folks who were looking for that to at least ten thousand dollars in damages for being a private citizen who enforces this law. So those were the the two challenges that were before the Supreme Court. They took them and had oral arguments and oral arguments are always interesting to me because you've got the courtroom there and you've got all the justices asking questions. And so we think, you know, a lot of times we again, we live in kind of a political society. And so if you know someone's Republican or you know, someone's Democratic, you kind of have these preconceived notions of what they support and what kind of questions they would ask.

And and with the Supreme Court, it's still important, but it's it's just different because these are justices. And so these are folks who are well schooled and all things legal, how law should work, how constitutional rights should be protected. And so their questions are just very interesting because they you know, they're not here to necessarily show you their hand. They're not here to show you what they maybe think their judgment will be.

They're here to try to flesh everything out. And so Justice Kagan had a lot of good questions, but she recognized, like, you know, if you if we allow this Texas heartbeat law to stand, you know, what's next? What constitutional law can you constitutional right?

Can you not get around? Yeah. And that's a good point. And that's part of the reason why this is so interesting to us and why we've we've talked about it several times now, because it's it's such an interesting way to go about and kind of circumvent what, you know, what I think be clearly unconstitutional based on precedent. And it's just such an interesting enforcement mechanism. And it's created a lot of interesting nuances in the way that it's being challenged. And it's created a lot of problems, frankly. And and these things are having to be navigated by the people who are trying to challenge this law.

And it's just it's just created kind of an interesting cluster that's going to be very interesting to play out. Yes. So just again, kind of rehashing. So the way this law set up is clearly the Supreme Court.

We've talked about it before. There is a constitutional right for a woman to receive an abortion under certain circumstances. And that is just the way the law is. And so we have all these challenges where a state will try to limit access through all different kinds of ways. And those get struck down.

And that's kind of the conversation we're usually having. The reason this is different is because the state's not doing anything. The state is saying, hey, we're not going to prohibit you from getting an abortion after six weeks. But if you do, then Joe Smith here can sue you.

The person who drove you there, the guy who, you know, the doctor who provided the services for damages of 10,000 apiece. And so what they've tried to do is create this way where a non-state actor is going to prevent you from exercising a constitutional right. And again, we just don't. It's kind of a novel approach.

And we haven't seen that. And so, you know, Justice Kagan was the first one to kind of start fleshing this out and Justice Kavanaugh. And this is interesting to me, because if you know Kavanaugh and Kagan, they're kind of on opposite sides of the fence. Kagan, much more liberal. Kavanaugh, in theory, much more conservative, although we don't have as much to look at from him.

But he kind of piggybacked on what she said and was like, hey, what's next? If you can use this method to get around a constitutional right to abortion. What about gun rights? You know, what about religious freedoms?

And and and it just it just kept on going. And I think the and this is what we predicted, Joe. There's no way this law should should be able to stand in one way or the other. It's not actually going to get to whether I think a lot of people initially thought we would get back to, hey, is the constitutional right to abortion going to be overturned in this case?

And the answer is they're not going to get that far. I think this one dies for a lot of other weird, you know, novel reasons. And it doesn't you don't even get to the abortion argument in this one. Yeah. And I tend to agree with you, but I think it should be alarming to anybody because it's a good point. You know, when you got people from both sides of the aisle kind of agreeing on an issue like this, you know, it's something that we should all really be concerned with, because whatever your opinion on abortion is, you know, you probably have a strong opinion about some other constitutionally protected right. And if you're able to circumvent this abortion, you know, the fact that abortion has been deemed constitutionally permitted, then the risk that this same enforcement mechanism is used to take away some right that you care about is very real. So everyone should be concerned about it, because just because it may benefit your belief system now doesn't mean that that same thing can't be used to take away something that you really value.

So I think we should all kind of be concerned about this approach. And I'm with you, Josh, but I'm also very interested to see how exactly it is struck down. Because I think the courts kind of struggle with that to an extent, like everybody agrees that this can't happen, it can't be permitted. You're essentially just allowing all the states to just take the constitutional rights that they don't prefer and kind of nullify them with a law that's similar to this.

But again, I don't know how exactly they are going to go about actually striking this down. And if you look at what the Texas Solicitor General who's arguing on behalf of the state of Texas says, they basically, he's saying that the state of Texas hasn't nullified anything. And that right to have an abortion hasn't been wholly extinguished, and Texas judges are still bound to follow the court's precedent regarding abortions. But at the same time, abortions have dropped 50 or 60 percent. So you can see it's clearly having a massive chilling effect on, you know, people getting those abortions. Yeah, it will be.

And that's the best. It will be interesting. I think the I think the Supreme Court gets to a way to I mean, they have to they have to they have to figure this out. But yeah, definitely, even if you're against any abortion and you don't think it should be a constitutional right, this Texas heartbeat statute is not a victory for you because it will just be used as a model.

Like you said, Joe, to take something else away that that that you may think you are entitled to. So we have to we have to look at it, you know, as precedent. You know, we have to look at it in the grand scheme of the legal structure.

And it shouldn't be allowed. But it's it's definitely it's definitely a novel approach that's taken. It's it's it's just very it's fascinating, I guess, from a legal perspective, it's just fascinating. But anyway, we'll see. You know, abortion is going to be talked about a lot. There's the Mississippi case that we talked about on the earlier show. I think that's up for oral arguments on December one. And that does go to, you know, strict limitations on abortion by the state. That's more of a traditional argument that we would see before the court. Of course, the court, we've got some new justices who haven't heard a case on abortion restriction. So that'll be, of course, interesting as well.

But the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners, their forty six combined years experience. And we've already tackled topics from the World Series and the hurricanes to Rittenhouse. And now the Texas heartbeat oral arguments. And we've got some interesting topics coming up.

We'll take a short break. If you've got a legal question of your own, you can call the firm eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave a brief message and your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. You can also leave questions for the program at questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. Again, website the outlaw lawyer dot com. You can find all of our previous podcasts, our previous shows in podcast form right there. The outlaw lawyer dot com. Coming up next, we talk the tragic Alec Baldwin shooting on the set of his new movie, Rust. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, are your host managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

Forty six combined years experience offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and we talk legal topics each and every week. And it's the Josh and Joe show.

So, guys, what's next? Yeah, Morgan, we're going to talk about a real tragedy, something that's just seems to really be a completely unfortunate accident, something that you don't see a whole lot. You know, I think this is something that's occurred very sparingly throughout the history of movie production. But we're talking about Alec Baldwin, the accident that occurred on the filming of his new movie Rust, which is being shot in New Mexico.

Which, ironically enough, his character in the movie is apparently an outlaw, which is fitting for this show. But basically what we have is we had an assistant director on this film grabbing one of three prop guns that were being used in the film and that the film's armorer had set up outside where they were shooting on a gray cart. And the assistant director basically grabs this gun, hands it to Mr. Baldwin and yells cold gun, which generally will indicate that it's a gun that has no live rounds in it.

It's safe to be used for production purposes. So, you know, Baldwin takes the gun and when he's filming, he fires it and it actually strikes and kills the film's cinematographer and wounds the director. I think he caught the director in the shoulder.

He caught the cinematographer in the chest and she was transported to a local hospital where, unfortunately, she passed away. But what we've got here is what seems to be a truly tragic accident and I think it's safe to say we don't know exactly what the ramifications are. But there's going to be some legal ramifications from this, whether it be some kind of criminal penalty, which, again, we don't know. It's an ongoing investigation. There's not been a lot of commentary because of the fact that it's been an ongoing investigation.

But at the minimum, there's going to be some real civil fallout because even though this is an unfortunate accident, there's some kind of negligence involved to allow this to happen at minimum. Yeah, we were talking about this earlier, Joe, and I'm not in the film industry. I've never represented anyone in the film industry. I don't know how these things work, but it just seems bizarre. Why would there even be live rounds anywhere near the set? Maybe there's a reason for that.

I don't know, but I sure can't figure out what it would be for. I also am not a film actor. I have also not appeared in any movies, so I don't have insider knowledge.

But in the research that I've done, there shouldn't be. From what I can tell, reading from all of these folks who have commented on this, who are in the industry, who have experience, who handle props or stunts or what have you, one of the first primary tenets of filming a movie where guns like this are involved is that you don't keep any live ammunition on the set. And that doesn't mean that no one's going to get hurt. There's still some danger involved in this, and usually blanks are going to be used. But even blanks can cause secondary injuries, be it something firing out of the gun, sparks are produced, fires produced.

There is a reaction by these weapons to make that look realistic. But generally, from what I understand, the most common thing that's going to happen and the worst thing that's going to happen is you might have an actor that burns their hand from a flare for the gun shooting. You should never have anything like this happen.

And it's happened super infrequently because of those safety protocols that are so well established. We were talking earlier about what happened to Bruce Lee's son, Brandon Lee, and how he was killed in a similar accident. What was the name? I can't remember the name of that movie. I never saw it. It was actually the original.

The only reason I know this is because, again, that was like right in my teenage prime heyday where I was really into it. So it was actually the original Crow. And the scene is, it's a scene where he kind of comes into like a room of henchmen and he's on the table and he's kind of like shooting everybody up and they're all shooting at him. So you had tons of people firing at him, these blanks at the same time. And what happened in that incident, apparently there was a live round that was lodged in the barrel. So they had loaded it with blanks, but there was one lodged in the barrel and that's actually what fired out and killed him in that instance. So yeah, I was a big fan of the movie The Crow and they came out with The Crow City of Angels was the sequel. And due to his death in that movie, Vincent Perez was the actor that they hired to replace him.

Honestly, the movie suffered greatly from, again, just a huge loss in general because I think Brandon Lee had a lot of star potential and there's no telling what he could have done in film had his life not been tragically cut short like that. So here from a legal perspective, Alec Baldwin, we're going to assume unless something comes to light and he seems to have been friends with the cinematographer who passed away, but right now we don't have any evidence that Alec Baldwin or anyone else for that matter had the intent that would go with a murder charge or second, you know, there's no intent here. And I don't know how you find any negligence on the behalf of Alec Baldwin either. If you think about the procedure, you know, an actor is not going to be expected. I think they're going to be trained in gun safety protocols, but they're not going to be expected to really examine these firearms. I mean, that doesn't necessarily work for the flow of production.

You're relying on all of the other people who have these these guns in the chain of custody to do their jobs and to provide you with a safe weapon. So I think it's super unfortunate that he, you know, because he's going to absolutely have some remorse and some guilt, even though I don't think there's anything he could have done differently. And that's part of the really part of the tragedy here. So you might not know this, but I was reading I don't remember what I was reading, but I was reading that this is something Mr. Baldwin is a he got like a producer credit or assistant director credit or something. But they I had read that since he wasn't solely an actor. So there may there may be some, you know, if they want to base criminal responsibility, he he has another role in the film that that might give him some, you know, if they want to look at like a manslaughter charge or something like that, where you you're kind of looking at criminal negligence, you know, there might be something there, but I didn't I didn't read too far into it.

Yeah, I think he was some producer of some sort, but then you've got a lot of producers, too. So I don't know how any kind of criminal charges play out from this, but I can guarantee that there will be substantial civil lawsuits as a result of this. And it's something that someone is absolutely going to be held negligent on. But one of the complicating factors in that reading about this, there's a lot of covid-19 restrictions on these movie sets. So that that's kind of led to a modification of the traditional protocol. And I think they've had some difficulty kind of tracking who handled these weapons, who put what where. And I think that's kind of complicated how they've been obtaining evidence and trying to kind of get to the bottom of what exactly took place in this case. So it's going to be interesting to see how they reconcile and deal with all that. The outlaw lawyers tackling, again, the Alec Baldwin case where there was a shooting on set on one of his recent movies.

It's been all over the news and and certainly is going to continue to be there as the investigation continues. We want to remind you, too, that if you have any of your own legal questions pertaining to what you're going through, you can always call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186 and leave a little information, obviously your contact information, your name and what you're going through. And a lawyer with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm will be in touch with you again.

That's 800-659-1186. And also, if you want a question thrown out on one of the programs in the future, you can email that to us. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back to wrap it up right after this. Up next, Joe and I talk about what to do if you're stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence. The outlaw lawyers on the air and man, I tell you, the show has flown by. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find them managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, 46 combined years experience in offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

If you've got your own legal question, you need some answers. Here's the number to call. 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. You can also email your questions to the program and we may use them on a future program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com.

And please check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com. All of our previous shows in podcast form are there for you guys. What's going to be this wrap up? I love the question and answer.

Yeah. So we get a lot of we get a lot of questions about DUIs and driving under the influence. We get a lot of questions about what to do, you know, if you're stopped. And so I think before we we delve into this, we have to go ahead and preface this with Joe and I would recommend that you just don't drive under the influence at all. So this isn't a primer on how to conquer a traffic stop. This is this is just this is what your legal rights are if you are stopped by an officer. But our overarching message is don't drink and drive.

I think that's right. We don't we don't take a lot of we don't take a lot of firm stances here, but I think we can take a I think we can take a firm stance. Don't drink and drive. I'm comfortable with that. If you you know, and so the question that we get posed and again, I've kind of condensed these down.

So we get a lot of specific questions that we don't we don't share on the air. But this is kind of boiled down from a bunch of different questions is basically if I'm stopped because the cop is suspecting that I'm driving under the influence, whether I am or not, it's being they have suspicions. What can I do? What can I do?

What should I do? And so I think most attorneys would would tell you, hey, first of all, be be polite to the officer. You know, the officers pulling you over. You can answer questions.

You can show your driver's license, things like that. But Joe, there's a there's a couple of things you don't have to do. Yeah. And, you know, you make a good point. And I think practically speaking, we've said this several times, but being being intentionally difficult with an officer and, you know, abrasive is it's just not something that's ever going to really be beneficial to you. So if you've got an officer that is being super abrasive to you or is overstepping and trying to infringe upon any, you know, justifiable rights you may have, of course, protect yourself. You know, don't don't over speak. But at the same time, just just being generally pleasant is is almost certainly going to make things better for you as opposed to worse, I would say. Yeah, I'm always thinking about it. I don't I don't practice criminal law.

They would over at the law firm, we have several attorneys who do practice criminal law, but, you know, they are always looking at it from the perspective of they're in court with the judge and the charging officer. And any time you're polite, that always goes a long way with with those folks, assuming it's the situation where, like Joe said, you're not being taken advantage of. You're not being mistreated. But there's a couple of things you can refuse. So, you know, if the if the officer has his suspicion that you might be driving under the influence, whether that's drugs or alcohol, you know, he can ask you to take what's called a portable breathalyzer, the roadside test for alcohol. And Joe, you don't you don't have to take that. Yeah, you don't have to. And but again, I think it's important that you note if you don't take that there can be consequences. You know, you can refuse these certain things, but you're going to you're going to potentially have consequences. And it almost comes down to a strategic type of decision, how you approach some of these things. And it's difficult because, you know, normally you're not an attorney in this situation. You can't really consult with an attorney on the fly. So it's hard to really discuss strategically what the nuances would be as far as when refusal might make more sense than not refuse. Yeah, I think I think the big thing is to know just to know your rights, you know, and we always recommend that, you know, you politely decline.

I think I can only tell you what I would do and I would politely decline any of the roadside test, you know, the walking in a straight line, you know, things like that. That's that's something that you don't you don't have to do. You never have to tell an officer where you're coming from or where you're going, even though they're they're asking you those questions.

And again, don't have to be rude about it. It's just legally you don't have to answer those questions. There's I think most attorneys would tell you to not answer those questions. And so and this goes for any traffic stop. You know, we could go down a big rabbit hole on DUI stops about, again, what to refuse. What test do you have to take?

What you know, there's there's all kinds of planning that goes into those kind of things and those kind of decisions. But you do have constitutional rights. You know, you do have rights. There's things you don't have to do. And I guess that's the biggest thing, you know, that I would tell folks is, you know, I'm very fortunate I've never been charged. I've never had to deal with a DUI personally. Joe, I don't think you have either.

No, I have not. And, you know, we were kind of up against the clock a little bit. So there's, you know, I think we could talk about this topic a lot. But I think one thing that's important to stress and that we really Hamer home is the fact that I think there's a lot of misconception about the relevance of those field sobriety tests or, you know, a roadside breathalyzer. An officer can arrest and arrest you and charge you without that breath or blood test. What is relevant to the officer is, you know, evidence of your appreciable impairment. So it doesn't he's not all of those things are, you know, they contribute to that evidence, but he could have sufficient evidence without conducting a field sobriety test or without giving you a breathalyzer if, you know, you're just clearly stumbling drunk.

Yeah. So the officer is not is not blind and he's not he's not deaf. So he can use what what he senses. You know, he's already seen you do something in theory to make him pull you over, make her pull you over. So he's got your driving to to look at. And of course, he can smell you can smell alcohol, you can smell drugs.

He can you know, the officer can look at how you're acting and those can all go towards his decision, his or her decision. But we can talk about this for days if we had to. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, they're managing partners there, guys. Great show, as always. Looking forward to what's coming up next. And I know that we've got plenty of topics to talk about. We do. Morgan, you know, I think one thing we're going to get back into, we mentioned it last week, but we're absolutely we've promised that we will get into our extravaganza legal movie tournament. That's why we're still fleshing out. And that's coming. That's coming. We will have something on that in the next episode for sure.

Fantastic. Well, the outlaw lawyers, we have another episode in the books. Just a reminder, if you've got your own legal question, you can contact the firm eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact information and a brief description of what you're going through. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm will be in touch with you again.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Or you can leave a question for an upcoming show. We'll try to answer it for your questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please visit the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back next week. 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.