Texas Heartbeat Abortion Law, Leandro case refresh, and NAACP vs Moore

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Joe and I talk about the Texas heartbeat law.

We revisit Leandro, and we take a look at the NAACP versus Borg case. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer is on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. Forty-six combined years experience between these two and offices practically everywhere.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and soon to be in Gastonia. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and big voice. We just talked and we have a lot of fun with the legal conversation. And if you've got any questions about what's going on with your legal situation, here we go. Here's the number. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. You can also send a question to the program and we will use in an upcoming episode, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com.

And please go visit the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. Well, fellas, we're about to get into this. So welcome in. It's been a couple of weeks. Hope you hope everything's good. Morgan, we're doing good. We're we're happy to be here this morning. Joe, you're doing doing well. Hey, Josh, I'm doing fantastic.

And I'm so glad to be here hearing your voices. So every time we sit down and talk for the show, it seems like you're you're coming off. You're coming off a late night. So you had a you had a late night last night.

I had a late night last night again. I was you know, we've got the PNC tickets and it's been it's been a both a blessing and a curse because we feel I feel obligated to go to like everything. Sure.

Things that aren't really in my wheelhouse. And yes. So we had the the Michael Buble last night. So when you say the PNC tickets, I say the Whitaker and Hamer suite at the PNC arena. I think that sounds more formal. Well, well, they're there. Yeah, that's cool, too.

We can we can go with that. But yeah, we had the Buble last night. I tell you what, man. Not I'm not I'm not the biggest Buble guy.

It's not 100 percent in my wheelhouse. But I tell you what, that guy seems like a seems like a gentleman, man. Seems like a good guy. Seems like the type of guy that I would want to be my grandson if I had grandchildren. I heard he I heard he's a good entertainer. So he's got, you know, even if you're not a huge fan of his music, I think he kind of does some classics. But it sounds like he's pretty good entertainer.

Keeps the crowd laughing, things like that. Friendly guy, man. Very friendly guy. Funny, personable. Did a lot of covers, which is I don't I'm not I know, like two songs, maybe.

Which maybe that's all there is. Two or three that really resonate. But yeah, man, entertaining dude. Seemed very nice. Big hockey guy. Very played on the played on the hockey aspect of PNC. Talked a little bit of smack. But yeah, man, all in all, not the worst thing I've been to at PNC.

Not my favorite. Very, very older demographic there. An older crowd. But and not a lot of it wasn't a very raucous crowd, I guess you could say. He did his best to get people into it and to and to get everybody moving.

But again, a much older demographic there. Well, I mean, Buble is a crooner, so it's almost like the 60s and the 70s when you had, you know, the Sinatra types. I mean, he he's got that crooner voice. He definitely does, man.

And like I said, I hope I hope my grandchildren one day are just like him. The way you were while you're enjoying Buble, I was watching game one of the World Series. That was a pretty good game. And we saw the Braves. I'm sure everybody in our pretty good game, pretty good game. I mean, a lead off home run.

First time ever. That was awesome. Me and the me and the boys are pretty excited. That's I know everybody in our listening area is happy the Braves are in.

So it's we're excited about the World Series. Well, that sounds cool, man. But did you see Michael Buble live? So I think if you compare our nights, you know, I think one of us is much more manly than the other. And so I'll let the listeners decide who's the manlier man between me and you based on our evening last night.

I think my my comfort level and my masculinity is demonstrated by the fact that I forego watching baseball and choose voluntarily to watch Michael Buble sing and dance and interact with the people, interact with the the people of Raleigh. So I think you missed out in that because you can watch the game any time. You can you can. I can watch the game later. You know, it's DVR.

I can do that. But I can't see Michael Buble live in person. It had been a couple of years because he had to reschedule. So he rescheduled four times, man. He canceled.

He rescheduled. But I didn't realize that because, again, not a huge fan, didn't have tickets originally to any of the previous three scheduled performances. We got the PNC tickets and we've been going to kind of everything, whether we like it or not. We show up because we've got the tickets. So but yeah, man, he kept it. He's a very friendly guy, very funny guy.

I'll give him credit for being super funny and personable and almost funnier than he was a good singer. We talk about being obligated on tickets. I still, you know, I got season tickets to state football. So this Saturday I got a I got a man up and go, even though they haven't given us a whole lot to be excited about.

But I'll be there on NC State football. I mean, they they've been all right. Josh, the Miami game. That was a tough game last week.

But we're we'll keep on we'll keep on fighting. At least the hurricanes are doing good. Hurricanes are something we can all be real proud of. Yeah.

States. I mean, states been as a as a Duke football fan. It's tough for me to listen to you complain about anything football wise.

But, you know, I think we're both Panthers fans. And that's that's been pretty depressing. It's been a pretty depressing thing to watch unfold. Started out so good, man. So optimistic and just complete, complete opposite now feeling about the Panthers.

I think I've mentioned this before, but my in-laws are all Western New Yorkers. And so my boys have really latched on to Josh Allen and the Bills. And I keep trying to push the Panthers on them.

And you can't do it, man. They're they're all Bills. I think I've lost them for life. I don't think I'll ever get them back to the Panthers.

Yeah, I don't know that you lost them for life, man. I mean, you look at the Bills prior to recent history and it's going to take the Panthers just being good again. You know, I mean, it's that's their hometown team, man. That's that's they can get on. They can get on the bandwagon.

They just have to be decent. They had to give them something to believe in, man. Well, if this is the first time you've listened to the show, me and Joe don't always just ramble on about sports. The show, The Outlaw Lawyer is intended for us to pick news items out of the mainstream media that have to deal with cases or statutes. And we'd like to talk about them as two practicing attorneys, kind of give them the legal treatment that these things don't always get in the in the mainstream media. And so today we've got a couple of things we want to talk about.

And, you know, we want to give you a couple of updates. So we've spent a lot of time talking about the Leandro case here in North Carolina, and there's been new developments in that. So we're going to spend some time talking about that.

The Texas abortion law, I've heard it called the Texas heartbeat law. There's been some updates with that. And we've discussed that a time or two.

So we want to spend some time talking about those things. And then there's a new there's it's not a new case. There's a new case to us because we haven't discussed it on this show. But the NAACP versus Moore is a very interesting case that's getting a lot of traction in local and national media.

And so we're going to we're going to dove into that. But that's a very interesting case. It's about a couple of things. But the focus is on one of the constitutional amendments that voters approved here in North Carolina for voter I.D..

So that voter I.D. amendment is kind of at the crux of this case. And it's it's interesting to attorneys and I think it's interesting to everybody for for a lot of different legal reasons. So we're going to we're going to spend some time talking about that. And then, Joe, what do we we got? We got something that's a little less serious that we want to spend some time talking about. Yeah, man. You know, we do a lot of serious talk.

So and again, the goal always being to kind of approach these issues from a neutral attorney based perspective and look at everything from a factual, you know, kind of presenting both arguments type of of manner. But we wanted to switch it up a little bit, keep things a little bit interesting, you know, do some things that can kind of be recurring segments that we can refer back to. Keep it light. Keep it light. Keep it light, man. It gets heavy in here sometimes. Does the abortion talk and the the hot button issues we hit on.

So we wanted to keep it a little light, man. And, you know, we like sports. We do a lot of the sports talk. So we wanted to combine two of our favorite things, that being legal movies and. A sports based tournament and kind of combine those two things, so we're going to kind of start outlining this this idea, start fleshing it out. We're going to seek some feedback from you guys and we're going to we're going to set up our legal movie tournament to determine the greatest legal movie of our time. I like it.

Right. So we want to we're going to throw out some some movies and we kind of got a we got a couple of polls that we're going to get going. But I think over the next couple of weeks, me and Joe, we're going to sit down and spend some time and try to debate and through and through listener votes, determine the best legal movie of all time. I don't know that we'll have 64. I don't know if we'll get a true NCAA tournament bracket because, you know, the NCAA tournament bracket is the best way to solve any any issue like this. Of course.

Fair is the only way. Yeah, I think you could do a sweet 16 easily. I think we're going to have to get some deep cuts in there.

Yeah, I mean, we actually need people to have seen these movies. So, yeah, I think sweet 16. Maybe you bump it up to 32 if you if you run into that.

But I think 32 you're going to be stretched. Yeah, I think I think 16 sounds like the magic number, because, yeah, we don't need the 1932, you know, black and white before there was sound type movies in there. And what I think would be hilarious is to get your legal minds, the two of you behind one of the pair and you guys debate against each other the merits of your movie. I like that. I like it, too, man.

I like it, too. And that's why we're going to flush this idea out live. We're going to do the brainstorming process literally on the air so we can we can turn this into something, something that you guys deserve to hear. And at the end of the show, if we have time, if this if we if we are brainstorming doesn't fill up the whole rest of the show, we do have a listener question, a good listener question about personal injury. We have a lot of folks who call us when they have a car accident or that, you know, and we call that personal injury law. And that's a popular area of practice.

You see a lot of commercials, a lot of stuff on TV. But we have a very practical question from a listener. So we figured we throw that out there and talk about that.

But in a nutshell, that's what we're going to cover today. The outlaw liars, Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer Whittaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're the managing partners.

Forty six combined years experience again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and soon to be in Gastonia. And we talk all kinds of legal family law, criminal and traffic, personal injury, estate planning, administration, real estate closings, all of that. If you've got any questions about what's going on in your legal life, call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email questions to the program and we will use them in an upcoming edition. You can also your favorite legal movie that'll help us out to questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. You can also visit the Web site and that Web site is the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Coming up next, we rehash and update the Texas heartbeat abortion law, the Leandro case and the latest updates in the Gabby Petito case. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years experience. And folks, they have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay, Verina and soon to be in Gastonia. We talk legal each and every week.

It's very serious stuff, but we also have a lot of fun with this. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate and again, family law, criminal and traffic, personal injury, estate planning and administration, real estate closings. If it's legal, they're doing it in the offices of Whitaker and Hamer.

Again, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay, Verina and soon to be in Gastonia. If you've got a legal situation or a question, get on the phone. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Whitaker and Hamer and an attorney will return your phone call. So leave your name, number and a little detail on what you've got a question about and they will be back and touch. And you can also send questions to the program questions at theoutlawlawyer.com and please visit the website, theoutlawlawyer.com.

You can find older shows in podcast form there for you and just pick your subject matter and listen to your heart's content. Gentlemen, I know you've got updates for us. Yeah, Morgan. So we've got a couple of cases that we've talked about on the show that have had developments over the past couple of weeks.

And so we thought we'd bring everybody up to speed. And the first one, Joe, I think you followed it more than me. But the Petito investigation that has seemingly come to an end, it looks like. Yeah, it's seemingly come to an end, Josh. A tragic end, you know, no matter how you look at it. And basically, I think most people, this has been one that folks have followed, but remains found. Believed to be the remains of Brian Laundrie, the suspect in the case and Petito's boyfriend. Tragic, you know, for for the Laundrie family, tragic for the Petito family in the sense in one sense that, you know, you don't you don't get answers that you probably wanted. And you don't see, you know, justice done in the way that you probably wanted.

But then at the same time, you could look at it as resolution. Just just a tough case all around, man. It was, you know, we had talked about it on air and someone I was I was around town here and someone was talking to me about it. And I think we had mentioned, you know, maybe the feds would eventually charge Laundrie's parents, maybe his accessories.

You know, if he was out there hiding, that might get him to to come out if the if the feds thought that maybe the parents had done some aiding and abetting or had been an accessory after the fact or helped him hide things from the crime, which is always difficult. But then they they mentioned something to me that I hadn't really thought about. It was like, well, if that was your son, you know, and let's assume he did it.

So if your son had done something horrible like that, like what would what would you have done, you know, in that kind of situation? And that was a hard I just spent some time thinking about that. And I was like, that's a hard thing to reconcile in your in your brain, you know? Man, it's a terrible it's a terribly difficult thing to reconcile. And, you know, you'd like to think you raise your kids right and you do everything you can to teach them the right way to live and, you know, bring them up the right way. But at the same time, I guess you never really know, man. I guess you never really know how things are going to go, what outside influences are going to come into your kids life and how they're going to grow and develop. And you never want to have to deal with that.

But but you're right. It's a question that I never want to have to answer, man. I don't even want to. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It just is just one of those things that was tough to think about because your kids are still your kids. And I don't know, it's just a was a terrible, terrible story all the way around. And hopefully we don't have to hear about that kind of stuff so much when that gets the mainstream media takes, you know, an interest in something like that.

You hear about it for weeks and weeks and weeks. So hopefully that's that's behind us. But obviously those families will never be the same. And like you said, there's probably some answers and some closure that folks are never going to get. But so that one seems like it's come to and come to an end.

And our next update is something that's not going to come to an end for a little bit. But we had spent some time talking about abortion law, a unique anti-abortion law in Texas that some folks have dubbed the heartbeat law. Texas's heartbeat law. Do you remember what that was about?

I do. You know, we talked to we talked a lot about the Texas law. We we kind of did one of our classic deep dives into it. And we talked about the way that the legislature had kind of tried to circumvent and almost deputize the public as far as, you know, how they were going to kind of go about a unique way of essentially prohibiting abortions and had some real interesting legal nuances to it that we we kind of looked into. And if nothing else, I think we agreed that it was it was definitely an interesting approach to the way that they were trying to, you know, almost circumvent the the precedent. And that stated essentially that, you know, abortions were were permitted. Yeah, I heard I read it heard I read somewhere after this and I haven't checked the stat. They said this because of this law, abortions were down 80 percent in Texas.

And of course, depending on what side of the fence you sit on, it's either good or bad news. But this this law is very weird. You're right. This this law went out of its way to avoid the state taking any action. And and I think at the time we predicted there's no way or at least I think I did. I don't know what you predicted, Joseph, but I predicted that there's no way this law makes it through any kind of any kind of really examination, legal examination by like a Supreme Court. And there was a I can't remember who now, but there was an emergency challenge that there was trying to get to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court voted not to hear it, saying that, you know, there was no standing, no one had been harmed yet.

And that was, I think, a five four decision. And this is, of course, this there's there's some abortion, there's some big abortion cases. And we talked about that a week or two ago coming up on the Supreme Court's docket. And it's going to be, you know, if nothing else, it's going to be interesting to see what the court, this new court, you know, has to say. But on this on this Texas heartbeat law, I know the Justice Department made it an emergency appeal to block the Texas law. And that case that's going to be heard on November one. So the Supreme Court went ahead and is kind of an emergency added to the docket. And so oral arguments are going to be on November one. As to how this Texas law operates, you know, and so that'll be interesting.

They got to the Supreme Court fast, as it probably should. And so it'll be interesting to see what they do with it. You know, you talked about my prediction and I have a rule with predictions we make on the show. And that's generally we're fairly like minded individuals and you've got a wisdom about you.

So I usually just predict. So if you're if you're curious about what I predicted, what I predicted, you have a wisdom about you. He's calling you old, dude.

He's calling you. He's wise. I got a I got a I got a lot of gray in the beard. There's a lot of old people who, frankly, are dumb. And and so being old doesn't doesn't necessarily mean that you're wise. You're wise, man. There's young people who are wise. You're one of those.

You're you're somewhere in the middle age wise. There you go. But you're wise, man. You've got that wisdom. All right.

Good save. I'll it's going to it's going to be interesting this this abortion law. It it has more, you know, clearly, you know, you've got justices that are for or against abortion. And the Supreme Court justices are supposed to respect the precedent. And the precedent is that abortions are legal to a certain extent. There can be certain limitations.

There's a there's a test for that. This law not only affects, you know, whether abortion is legal or not legal, but it also has just a bunch of weird, weird legal theories in it and stuff that's never, you know, giving standing to people that have not been harmed. It's just a weird law. And this law, for reasons they don't even have anything to do with abortion. I can't imagine this law. They even get to the abortion part. This law is probably just going to get struck down, I would think, just on its weird, weird theory of deputizing private citizens and giving them standing to recover damages against people that have nothing to do with their day to day lives. I think that'll be a pretty easy one for the court to to get rid of. But who knows?

I've been surprised before. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to agree with you wholeheartedly based on your wisdom. And it's just sound logic, man. Like you said, there's abortion is challenged constantly and you get the kind of the run of the mill challenge. You get you see the same, you know, the arguments that are that are playing out. And I think some of those we talked about are coming up before the Supreme Court. But like you said, the thing that really grabbed us in this case was just the weirdness of it and the way the strange way that the enforcement mechanism was was implemented. And basically, like you said, deputizing individuals. And I'm with you there. It's we say it a lot. It's a slippery slope. And allowing this to proceed opens the door for similar kind of backdoor ways to to create these these methods to work around constitutional protections.

And and I just I don't I don't think it stands up either. The the last the last case I want to hit real quick in our in our kind of update segment that we're doing is Leandro. And we've talked about Leandro two or three times now.

But Leandro, if you remember, is the case the twenty five, twenty five plus year old case in North Carolina where it was where it was discovered or one of the one of the things they found. One of the facts that they found in this case is that kids growing up in counties that aren't awake in Mecklenburg aren't always getting the same kind of school funding. I think we did a quick review, but, you know, a lot of schools get funding from the state and then the local level.

So county, town, cities. And sure, if you live in Wake County or you live in Mecklenburg County and you got Charlotte and Raleigh, your public schools get a lot of funding above the state level. And if you're from a county that doesn't have as much population, then your schools might not get as much funding. And so Leandro found a constitutional right. Every kid in North Carolina has a constitutional right to the same education as every other kid. And Leandro in the case, there's a Judge Lee who's presiding over the case, has said we need I can't remember the exact number, but it was like one point seven billion in additional funding to these counties to make sure that they're getting the same level of education as as other kids. And of course, we talked about how, you know, the court isn't really the one that makes the budget right. That's reserved for the General Assembly in North Carolina and the General Assembly kind of said, hey, we're not doing it. And it basically said in a nice way, we're not doing it.

You can't make us. And so just the past week or two, this bounced back to Judge Lee and he said, well, the judge, the court has a way to do this. I think me and you talked about contempt and we didn't really get to the correct term. But the judge has a weapon that it can use a tool and it's a writ of mandamus, which is a very awe inspiring name.

There sounds like a really old school Lord of the Rings type weapon or something. But, Joe, you know what the writ of mandamus is? Yes, Joshua, I am familiar with the writ of mandamus, one of my favorite terms. I almost think we should change the name of the show to writ of mandamus because it's that good. But basically the writ of mandamus, like you said, it's a tool. It's basically an order from a court to an inferior government official that orders that government official to properly fulfill their official duties or to correct some abuse of discretion.

You know, I kind of feel like I'm back in sixth grade playing a little Dungeons and Dragons and got hit with the writ of mandamus. But yeah, so the court has this tool. It doesn't get used often, but they have a tool where they can order under the penalty of contempt to do something, a government official. And the examples that I saw, there was a similar case and I think out of Kansas and they fined officials every day for not complying and the fines got pretty big. And then there was another state where they shut down all the schools until this was done. That was what they think of. The court kind of crafted an order and was like, well, if these kids can't get the same education as the other kids, then we're going to shut down all the schools until, you know, it gets funded. And Judge Lee has said he doesn't want to do either one of those things if he doesn't have to. All the parties are talking, but this will be a really interesting showdown at some point because both these sides are determined not to not to find level playing ground. So anyway, we'll talk about that one again because something's going to happen. I think the deadline was November one on that, too.

So I got a lot of stuff happening in November. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They are the managing partners, 46 combined years experience.

And again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and now in Gastonia. If you've got a legal question of your own, if it deals with family law, criminal and traffic, personal injuries, state planning and administration, real estate closing. If you've got any questions, you can call the firm. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And an attorney will be in touch with you. Leave your name, number and a brief message. Also, if you've got a question for the show that you'd like to for us to answer in coming weeks. Well, you can email us questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and go to the Web site. The outlaw lawyer dot com.

We're back right after this. Up next on the outlaw lawyer. We talk about NAACP.

The more. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, your host. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners there. Forty six combined years experience and folks, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro and Fuquay, Verina offices located there.

Also now in Gastonia. If you've got a legal question, we want you to call the show. It deals with family law, criminal and traffic, personal injuries, state planning and administration, real estate closing. If you've got a legal question, call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. And leave your name, number and a brief description of the situation. And an attorney will be back in touch with you. If you've got a question that you want read on the show and answered on the show, you can email it at questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. That's questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please go to the Web site, the outlaw lawyer dot com. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, big voice and referee between these two guys. I know that you're going to get into the NAACP versus more.

Well, you know, Morgan, I think it's important and you did a good job reminding everybody. But Joe and I, we are practicing attorneys licensed in North Carolina and we spend all day when we're not here with you. Consulting with people who have legal issues. And so case law is really important to us. Understanding what courts will do. That's what people come to us for. They want us to be able to say, hey, I've got this legal problem.

What can I do about it? If it goes to court, what do you think will happen? And so me and Joe are keen observers of what's going on in the courtroom. And when that stuff makes news, especially big news, we really geek out on it for better or worse.

And so we haven't spent any time talking. This case has been around for a while, but the NAACP v. Moore is a case that's before the Supreme Court right now. And it's very interesting for a lot of reasons.

I think this guy dubbed the usurper case when it got started. And it's about to come to to an end one way or the other. But before we start talking about the case, we need to make sure everybody who's listening knows what gerrymandering is. So, Joseph, what is gerrymandering?

Man, I thought you would never ask. So simply put, gerrymandering is the manipulation of boundaries of an electoral constituency. And it's generally done by one party or another to favor that party. So, you know, in the past, it's kind of been used to manipulate lines and make districts more favorable based on demographics to, again, certain political parties. Throughout history, there's been a real racial aspect to that as well. And it's been it's been used and it's a kind of, you know, suppress votes from from certain classes. And it's it's basically a political tool that's designed to, in a way, manipulate the process is the way that I would describe it. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely is.

So it's very interesting. You know, the people you elect, you know, it's different for the, you know, the U.S. is different for states. Every state's kind of a little different. Every county draws districts, you know. But basically somebody is always in charge of figuring out what what your district is for for voting purposes. And a lot of times, like in North Carolina, the General Assembly usually has a big hand in drawing these district lines. And you and you may be aware of these districts, these voting districts don't often conform with a, you know, county or town. You know, some counties get split in half. There's a district in Wake County that's like, you know, a sliver of Garner and half of Fuquay and somehow gets into Zebulon.

It's just like a weird district. But so these districts get drawn up. They usually get drawn up at some point in the past by General Assembly that's controlled, you know, either by the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. And so I'm going to make a controversial statement here is that everybody gerrymands, you know, depending on who's in charge. Like right now, the Republicans have had control of the General Assembly here in North Carolina for a while. And so what we're talking about, they're being accused of gerrymandering and more than accused.

There was a we'll talk about that anyway. So gerrymandering is the thing that happens. And I guess the thought is the party in charge will attempt to gerrymander districts to stay in charge.

I think that's kind of the accusation that that comes out. And so here in North Carolina, there was a big federal case a couple of years ago. Some districts that were drawn up were found to be racially motivated, which, of course, is a big no no for all kinds of reasons. And so there was some there was a you know, there was gerrymandering. So with some of our I think it was I didn't write it down here, I don't think.

Oh, yeah. So I think there was 28 districts that were near this this federal court case found that had been gerrymandered. Race was used as a factor.

And that's a no no. And so the federal government, the federal court made North Carolina draw new districts, which has been happening over the past couple of years. And so that kind of brings us up to where we were. But that happened, I believe, in like 2016, 2017.

And in 2018, the General Assembly put two constitutional amendments up for a vote. North Carolina, you remember what those were, Joe? Well, first off, I want to say, Josh, a couple things. You know, we're coming out with some some the outlaw lawyer swag. Everybody be on the lookout for that. We're going to have some T-shirts. We're going to have some hats, things like that.

You gave me a couple of really good T-shirt ideas and your in your explanation set up. The first is everybody gerrymands. And then the second is that's a no no. I think both of those on the back of a shirt make a lot of sense.

Wildly be wildly popular. Those those phrases. So, yeah.

But but but you're right, man. Everybody does gerrymand and and it's and it's one of the imperfections of our political system. You know, each party, they get into power. And then I guess it's human nature, man. I don't know any other way to describe it, but they're they are looking for ways to they're looking for ways to to protect that power.

And that's kind of where this this came about. It was a way to protect power for political parties. And you referenced those two constitutional amendments. And simply put, those two things are really voter ID based and then based around state income tax limits. And when we talk about constitutional amendments, this was North Carolina. This was amendments to the North Carolina Constitution. The General Assembly had a vote to to draft these and then put them on the ballot. And they both I guess this was twenty eighteen.

They both succeeded. Right. So we have a we have a voter ID basically to to vote.

You need a voter ID amendment on the books that no one's real sure how is going to be enforced. And there's some other things going on there. But the NAACP, the more the there the whole basis here. And it's kind of complicated. So we'll try to make it.

I mean, there's no reason we don't have enough time to get super complicated. But basically, the theory was, hey, the Fed, the federal court said you gerrymandered. Twenty eight members of the General Assembly were voted in districts that were found to be illegal. So you didn't have enough votes to even put this on the ballot. So these these constitutional amendments that got voted in should have never been there in the first place.

They were void and they're not effective because of these these twenty eight districts that were that had illegal members voted into the General Assembly. So that's kind of that's kind of the theory. And that's interesting, because if that logic is is correct, you know that if the courts say, yeah, that's that's good.

Then in theory, any law that was passed in the past couple of years could be attacked under the same logic. That's right, Josh. And this is we're going to take a big detour here. But, you know, we talked about the writ of mandamus. Cool word, right.

Gerrymandering also very interesting term. I just had it. I had to put our research team on it. And again, they're they're amazing.

They get get things to us quickly. And the term gerrymandering actually it actually comes from the word the name Gerry and the word salamander. I don't know if you knew that, Josh, but I just wanted to to let you know. I have never heard that.

I never. Yeah. So apparently it originated back in Boston and a district was was remapped and drawn in a strange way that actually resembled a salamander. And that's where the term comes from. So the more you know. And that's interesting.

You figure a word like that's got to have a good back story. But, you know, back to the case at hand. And we don't have a lot of time to spend on this. But, you know, the first court level, the Superior Court agreed with the with the plaintiffs that, yes, this these amendments should have never made it to the ballot void. And basically, we're going to say they don't they don't exist. They're not amendments. Went to the Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals had a couple of things to say about this. The plaintiffs don't have standing.

You can't. This is bad law because everything can be challenged. And again, everybody gerrymanders, you know, is kind of the the two Senate summary. And so now we're before the Supreme Court. So the case itself is interesting enough.

Obviously, there's a lot riding on it. A lot of people in politics are paying attention to it. So now it's before the North Carolina Supreme Court. And we've got two justices on the Supreme Court who were theory were in the General Assembly or somehow related to the process when these things got voted on and may have even been parties to this lawsuit at different times. And so now the big question is, should these justices recuse themselves from this very important case?

And, Joe, for everybody, I think most everybody probably knows. But what does that mean when a judge or a justice recuses themselves? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, whenever you have a judge that has some kind of interest that would create any kind of a conflict in a situation where they're going to be voting on something, you know, generally you would see that judge recuse themselves and kind of take themselves out of the process. Because, you know, you're supposed to be judging based on the merit, based on the law, and you don't want any kind of bias to interfere with that. And there are certain situations where, you know, a judge may have a personal relationship with an individual or there could be some other factor that would potentially insert some bias into that decision making process. And you see, you know, either they will voluntarily recuse themselves or there'll be some kind of a motion made to have them recused.

And it's interesting in this case because you've got attorneys for the plaintiffs that have actually, you know, moved to have a couple of the justices removed and recused in this case because of the fact that, like you said, they were in some way involved in voting on the original legislation. And, Joe, there's another level to this, too. And I don't like politics. I don't like Democrat versus Republican.

I think we all should be looking at things just from our own common sense perspective and not along party lines. Unfortunately, judges belong to political parties. Judge elections have become political, which I think is bad for a lot of reasons that we won't get into here. But the court is split between Democrats and Republicans, and the two judges that are being asked to recuse themselves happen to be Republican. And if you look down the party lines, if they recuse themselves, then this case will probably go to the plaintiff. If they don't, then, you know, it's kind of 50-50. But you never know what a justice is going to do. Justices don't necessarily decide things on political party lines.

They take everything into consideration. But it's just an interesting case all the way around, and it's something we'll be watching, and you'll certainly see it on the news. The voter ID aspect of it actually is just a really small piece of it. The legal process behind it, to me, is much more interesting than whether the voter ID amendment stands or is voided out.

But anyway, it's an interesting case. The Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina, also managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, 46 combined years of experience in offices, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Gullsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and Gastonia. If you've got a legal question, 800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186. You can also email your question to the show, and we'll use it in an upcoming episode. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And please visit the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. And as you just heard, there's going to be some merchandise available. I love it. Merch, the Outlaw lawyers.

We're back right after this. Coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer, we will begin to brainstorm and outline our tournament of the greatest legal movies of all time. The Outlaw lawyers on the air.

Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys right here in North Carolina, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Gullsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and Gastonia. If you've got a legal question involving, well, almost anything, family law, criminal and traffic, personal injury, estate planning and administration, real estate closings, they are here for you. 800-659-1186, leave your name, number, brief message, and they will be back in touch with you.

800-659-1186. You can also email questions to the Outlaw Lawyer program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com, and please check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com, where you can find our podcast, and these are our shows, and you can just click on the subject matter, have some fun with that. Well, guys, now we're getting into the really hardcore stuff. It's the legal movies, and this opens up a huge can of whatever because there are so many, but we've got to limit the number, I believe. Well, Morgan, we've been talking about a lot of meaty topics today, so abortion and voter ID and writ of mandamus and gerrymandering, and so one of the things we want to do on the show is we don't want it to be that heavy all the time, and so me and Joe were kind of in an argument amongst ourselves as what would be the best legal movie of all time. So a movie that involves attorneys or a court case or an investigation, we're going to be very broad, but I think what we want to do, I don't think we can do 64. I think we want to have a 16-movie tournament, so a sweet 16 to crown the best legal movie of all time. Man, we talk a lot about how the fact that the law permeates everything, so I don't think we can be too broad because we could basically just turn this into a best movie ever tournament if we get too broad with it, and I think that's part of what we're doing, man. We're fleshing this idea out because you got so many movies, man.

You have so many legal movies, some good, some bad, some so bad that they're good, depending on what your interest is, but I think 16 is a good number. The committee can meet and discuss next year expanding the tournament if we need to, depending on if any contenders get left out, but I'm with you, man. I think 16 is where we start, and I think that gets us a lot of meaty entries in there.

Guys, I just want to throw this in. You can have listeners. They can contribute, maybe set a date on when you want to start and when you can unveil the 16, and you can have some fun with those discussions, and then you can do the pairings, bring that back another week, and then you can talk about the matchups, and then you can go into those matchups each and every one and just have some fun with it. Yeah, Morgan, I like the sound of that. I think we kind of put the next two weeks, so two weeks from now, we'll kind of try to set our field, and then we'll have a matchup each week and kind of go from there, and we'll put a poll up on the Facebook page and the website.

We'll try to get some listener input. I'm looking right now. I had printed up the American Bar Association actually has the 25 greatest legal movies. They already have their list, and so I'm kind of perusing this list because one of my all-time favorites was To Kill a Mockingbird, which I think a lot of lawyers like that movie, but that's their number one, To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm kind of just perusing. A lot of these movies are older.

We need some new movies. We can't trust their list, Josh. I think we can't trust that list.

It's older. Make your own list. And what we need from you, Josh, because our loyal listeners of the show, the people who have really listened to every episode and have been with us from the start, first of all, we love you all. Second of all, they may remember that you've seen three movies in your entire life, so that's going to be a problem. What you need to do is when we finish this show, you just need to go and binge watch every legal movie that we can possibly find.

Oh my, I just noticed that one particular list I'm looking at has Animal House listed as a legal movie. Oh, how did they pull that off? I don't know.

There is the student court, remember? Oh, I think that's too loose. I think that's too... I've seen that before. That would qualify the movie as old school as well. Oh yeah.

Oh my goodness. Absolutely. So this list I'm looking at is American. They're all black and white though.

It's like Miracle on 34th Street, young Mr. Lincoln from 1939. I guess that's a movie. Okay. It's good the people who made those lists are dead of old age, Josh. And that's why we're updating. We're coming up with our own list and we're going to do it in the right way because we're not going to list the 16 best because no one cares about the 16 best.

I think we need the number one best. Guys, I think we need to have a show meeting and to quote Will Ferrell from old school, we're going to go streaking right after the show. We're going to have this conversation.

We'll run down, I don't know, downtown Fuquay or something. No, I'm kidding. But no, I think this is going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. Well, we'll get our list together.

Me and Joe and Morgan will have some suggestions and we'll put some suggestions to our listener and we'll settle on our 16. We'll seed them and we'll take it movie by movie. But a lot of these, yeah, I got to get busy because a lot of these movies I've never, Anatomy of a Murder 1959. I'm not familiar with that one. Yeah.

You're focusing on the wrong things, man. There's, you know, I think we need the listener suggestions for sure because I think 99% of our listeners have seen more movies than you have, so they're going to be more qualified. And we do want this to be fun. I think we have to be medium loose.

I think not too broad, medium. So it has to be, I think the primary subject matter has to pertain to the legal field and, you know, it can't, it has to have some strong legal tie, you know, and we can't just go with a student council process. It needs to be legally based. If Animal House gets in, if Animal House gets in, that's the best legal movie of all time.

I've never thought about it in that way, but that's a clear cut, no contest winner. I'm sure that's required viewing at most of the elite law schools in the country. Well, Morgan, we're looking forward to this. I think this will be a lot of fun. And like I said, we'll go and get something up on social media and the website. And then if our listeners want to shoot an email or give us a call with their suggestions and we'll talk about it, we'll get to our 16 and then we'll have some fun with it.

All right. Well, we've got a wrap up segment coming up here on the Outlaw Lawyers. And remember, you can call 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. That'll get you in touch with Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, the managing partners there.

Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay and Gastonia. And folks, this is an opportunity for you. If you've got a legal question, you can ask it. An attorney will be back in touch with you with those answers.

And if it's family law, criminal traffic, personal injury, estate planning and administration, real estate closings, again, if it's legal, they can answer the question for you. You can also email questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And as you heard Josh say, social media is going to be packed with our question. Of course, we're going to have that sweet 16 for legal movies.

Have a little fun with that. And you can send your suggestions to questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We've got one more segment that's coming up right after this. Up next, we've got a listener question about personal injury.

What should you do after an auto accident? The Outlaw Lawyers on the air. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm.

46 combined years experience. Again, offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and now in Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

And covering family law, criminal and traffic, personal injury, estate planning and administration, real estate closings. Folks, if it's legal, they can answer your questions. We'll throw this number out. If you have one, you can certainly leave a message and your contact information and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm will be in touch. That's 800-659-1186.

800-659-1186. And you can email questions to the program, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. Gentlemen, we have one final segment and I believe you have a listener question. We do, Morgan. So we get a lot of listener questions from the show, which I enjoy reading. We try to respond to everybody who sends us in a question and just so our listeners now have a big stack of these. And I kind of just rotate through, try to mix it up. I had a lot of good questions this week, but most of them were kind of about things we've already talked about.

So we're trying to mix it up. And me and Joe were talking earlier and this question on personal injury, I don't think we've talked about personal injury a lot on the show. But our listener question, again, I kind of generalize it and sum it up a little bit, but basically it's you've been involved in a car accident. What do you do next? So you've been in a car accident.

How do you proceed? And so that seems like a kind of a weird question for folks who've been in a car accident because you're kind of on some adrenaline there and you're not really in your right mind, I would say. But Joe, what do you think the first thing you would advise a client who's been in a car accident to do? Well, first off, you said it, Josh, it's kind of a strange thing to think about, but it's another one of those things that preparedness really makes a lot of difference because this is going to be a situation, especially if it's a relatively serious accident where there's going to be some shock, there's going to be some adrenaline. You may not be thinking as clearly as you would normally. So the more that you can have this burned into your subconscious and kind of understand what the process should be, the more you can recall that and the better off you're going to be in the long run. So I think answering your question, Josh, the very first thing you should do is you should call 911 for assistance immediately.

I think that's step one. Yeah, a lot of this will depend on obviously if you're in a serious accident and you're injured or you're knocked out, of course, this is going to kind of our advice will kind of vary between, hey, is this an incident where we just have some property damage or is this an incident where you've been severely injured? But yeah, if you're able to and you're in an accident, you want to call 911. And what I tell people is that police report is very important. Like if you're in any kind of accident at all, you know, the police reports are important.

You know, we've had folks call us and they were just they backed up to each other in a parking lot. You know, the officer didn't give a ticket, but that officer's investigation, even if it's brief, is going to be very important to your attorney. Yeah, like you said, man, that the police report is of extreme relevance and it's going to be important to the attorney. It's going to be important to the insurance company, assuming that you get to the point where you're you know, you're negotiating with them or your attorneys are negotiating with them in the in the off chance that this is something that gets litigated and goes to trial. It's going to be extremely important for for the jurors and the people considering the case. It's it is one of the most important aspects.

And, you know, it's it's because it's it's technically kind of a neutral observer's observation of of what took place. And it gets a lot of it gets a lot of of consideration by those individuals looking at it on the back end of the process. So making sure that you do that. And then again, you know, it's you may need that assistance regardless.

So I think step one is that, like you said, and and again, we distinguish it's important to distinguish when we talk about I've been in an accident, you know, property damage versus personal injury, because those are going to be handled much differently by attorneys as well. You know, one thing, Joe, back when I started driving in the early 90s, I had a I had a little 35 millimeter camera in the car that was in there just to take pictures. If there was an accident or something happened, I can get out and snap some pictures of the accident scene.

And now in the in the 2020s, we all got our phone. So there's no excuse for you not to be able unless you're hurt. Right. But if you get out, take pictures of where the cars are, any brake marks, anything you can see on the accident that that would be important to a third party who was looking at it. You want to document that. And now that's not nearly as hard as it used to be. And honestly, man, you know, taking it a step further, and this may be overkill, some people may think it's overkill. But you know, dashboard cameras are very easy to come by now. And that's something that you you may not think you need it until you need it. And having that is going to be like the most slam dunk, surefire way to prevent someone from trying to say you did something you didn't. And it could just be very valuable. Now, again, I'm not telling everyone to go and get a dashboard camera installed.

But it's it's something that is worth considering for sure. The other thing that I always try to stress is, you know, once law enforcement, you know, whoever, sheriff, trooper, whoever's coming out there, you cooperate with them, answer their, you know, answer their questions to a certain extent. They have to do their own investigation. And certainly if you're in the right, you know, just, you know, and that's that kind of goes against someone. Like if you think you're going to be criminally charged with something, that would say, hey, you know, talk to your attorney. But if you, you know, the guy turned in front of you, I mean, you can give you can give the law enforcement some basic information so they can complete their report.

That's what I would say. I guess some attorneys may tell you different, but you haven't done anything wrong. Exactly. There's a fine line between, you know, incriminating yourself and then not coming off as combative and coming off as combative and uncooperative is generally going to be not beneficial to you whatsoever when you're dealing with law enforcement in any situation. But at the same time, you know, you you do have a right to not incriminate yourself. And there are times when it's absolutely best to not, you know, speak too much to authorities. So you kind of almost have to use common sense and and and kind of be able to distinguish between those two situations. But generally speaking, you don't want to be unpleasant.

You don't want to be outright difficult, rude, abrasive to law enforcement because it's it's never going to benefit you to take that approach. Not in this situation, for sure. You know, and and the officer, when they get on the scene, of course, they're going to want to know if it may be obvious you need medical treatment. It may not be, but certainly, you know, they'll always get the EMS out there if they think you need it or you request it. But, you know, if you need medical treatment, get it. You're going to go and want to contact your insurance company, which is a lot easier now.

Most of these insurance companies have apps and things like that. But but yeah, it's kind of a common sense thing. But definitely record and preserve as much as you can.

I tell you, guys, that's that's great information. So many of us are in these fender benders and just have that kind of step through process where you can make sure you do it all. You know, call 911, obviously secure the scene if it's a serious accident, exchange information, document the details, cooperate with law enforcement, seek medical treatment if needed.

You know, contact that insurance company and, of course, talk to an attorney if needed. Again, great checklist. We are wrapping up the program, guys. Another great show.

Looking forward to next week. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, the managing partners there. Offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.

Forty six combined years experience. If you've got a legal question, call this number. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. You can also email questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com and check out the website, the outlaw lawyer dot com.

We'll see you 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 content of the show, contact us directly.