Bill Cosby Case and Venomous Snake Case and More!

And now, the Supreme Court has said, unanimously, this was wrong, fact-based. Your belief at the time doesn't necessarily jive with what the actual law is.

It's reasonable, informative. Now if you take in facts and you think about them and you don't jump to an instant opinion, you're the outlaw. And now, Outlaw Lawyer with Josh Whitaker. Welcome to this week's The Outlaw Lawyer. I am one of your hosts, your co-host, Josh Whitaker. With me, as always, is Joseph Hamer.

We are attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer, a law firm that has offices in Raleigh, Clayton, Garner, Goldsboro, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here today, not in our official attorney lawyer roles, but we're here today to talk about news, legal news, that we want to address and kind of take a look at as attorneys. So, Joe, how have you been?

Josh, I've been doing fantastic. I look forward to being in here with you every single week. And it just seems to get better every single week, spending this time with you, hearing from our listeners, answering listener questions, and just getting to talk about the law, man.

Well, I think it's important. This is our one hour that we have a week where we can reach out to our listeners. And if you're listening for the first time here on The Outlaw Lawyer, what our goal is, is to take these legal news items, Supreme Court case, Court of Appeals case, things in the news that are legal have to do with statutes and kind of look at them from an attorney's perspective.

Look at the primary documents, look at the statutes, look at the legal opinions, kind of go behind the scenes. I know a lot of these media outlets, when they present legal news, it's not an attorney that's presenting these. You know, it seems like now there's just always a lot to look at. And I think the little, you know, one, two paragraph treatment or, you know, 30 second story on the major news networks miss a lot of stuff. I was going to ask Joe, Joe, Joe, for the folks who may be listening for the first time is, is a little bit younger than me, but I was going to ask Joe if he knew there was a time when the national news was 30 minutes long, every day, 30 minutes of news.

That's all you got. Josh, you're telling me that there was a time when there weren't multiple 24 hour a day news channels? No, I'm telling you that when we, we used to get back from school or work and you'd watch 30 minutes of local news, you'd watch 30 minutes of national news. You'd have a newspaper where a lot of that same information was.

And then that was it. Um, so now you've got, you know, CNN, Fox news, the New York times, the wall street journal, you got your local news outlets, you got aggregators, like the Drudge report that kind of pulled different AP stories and things together. And I don't know if we even all agree anymore, uh, on what news really even is like, we can't agree to what the top stories of the day are between if you look at all these outlets.

Um, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm younger than you. I do recall the times that you're referring to. Um, but, but I think that, that, that 24 hour news cycle just really stretches the definition of what's newsworthy period. So, you know, not only do we see the political viewpoints kind of shaping and molding the narrative, but just the need to push out sheer content to fill that 24 hour cycle really kind of redefines and has redefined what the average person even considers newsworthy at this point.

And I think you can really argue that it's impacting society. And that's why one of our primary goals here at the outlaw lawyer is to look at everything with no political bias, no political slant from the neutral perspective of the law. I try to take these items that we, we pluck from the news and look at them like they came into my office, like they're coming into my office as a consult.

I don't have any sides. I'm just looking at the facts and saying, uh, you know, this is a, this is okay. Or, or, or this is not okay. This is a, a good lawsuit.

This is a bad lawsuit, a good statute, a bad statute. Um, you know, so, you know, just to point out, you know, if you're getting your news, you know, I got a lot of, I've got a lot of contacts and they get all their news from, you know, they'll watch CNN or they'll watch Fox news and they're not, you know, or they're not reading any kind of newspaper or, but if you're getting your news from one source, I mean, you almost have to be, it's almost like a part-time job to really get enough coverage where you can put, you know, if you put the CNN article and the Fox news article and the New York Times article together, you may get a, you know, a small amount of facts out of there and you may be able to use that to actually figure out what really happened and figure out why it's, why it's news. But that's, you know, when back in my NC state days, that's what they used to tell me, you know, it's the five W's the why, when, where, how, you know, what happened, what actually happened, you know, let the, let the person reading, let the person listening, give them the actual facts and let them figure out if it's newsworthy or if it, you know, what side they would, they would take. But yeah, that's not really the way it is now.

So it's, uh, it's different. It's almost become a skill to discern and, and you really have to actively try to seek out the truth. And a lot of people just, you know, like you said, they, they get it from one place. They just, they, they take it at face value and there's a lot of just disinformation, misinformation out there. So that's why I recommend our viewers and listeners rather get their news only from here.

The outlaw law here is one hour a week tune in Saturdays at four for all of your, we may only cover four or five topics, but that's what's important in your life. Well, we really try to approach this just, you know, we go out of our way to try to be reasonable and objective. And uh, I think when you do that, you know, good things, good things happen and you can have a political leanings and you can have issues that are important to you, but you know, just try it.

We try to look at things like the average with tarp, the average reasonable person as another legal term that comes up. But in that same vein today, we've got a couple things we want to tackle. And so I think the biggest thing we want to tackle is, is what's going on with bill Cosby, what's going on with bill Cosby. We're going to talk all things bill Cosby. We're going to talk his rise. We're going to talk his fall. We're going to just talk the recent developments with Cosby, um, recently being released from incarceration, just a, a whirlwind of a story involving bill Cosby. And so after we take that deep dive into bill Cosby's trial and his recent release, we're going to jump to, it was a big story. You might've heard about it. Uh, there was a, was a zebra, a spitting zebra cobra that was loose in North Raleigh, spitting zebra cobra, uh, when I'm on my top five species of cobra.

But yes, that is, that is correct, right? So that, that gripped rally for a little bit. And so like anything in the news, you know, the news covered it cause people want to see it.

I think I saw it one time I clicked into the live stream. There was like 3000 people watching animal control cornered as Viper on his guy's porch. You know, there's people that wanted to see that.

Well, you know, North Carolina actually has a statute on what governs, how you can keep venomous stakes and what you can do. And so we're going to take a look at the statute, the legal information behind the news story. I think we can all agree that was news, local news, at least. I think that was a definitely news. It was relevant.

I cared to know that there was a venomous snake on the loose. We're also going to talk a little bit about sperm. We're going to talk about whether a sperm donor can actually owe child support for their child that is grown from their seed. So that's a, that's actually a topic we're going to cover, cover as well. And then we're going to talk about some estate horror stories. We mentioned that a lot and we're going to cover that in a little more detail and talk about what can go wrong and why you always need to consult with a licensed North Carolina attorney. John Greenewald This seems like a good time to remind you that Joseph and I, and many of our guests are licensed attorneys who are licensed to practice in North Carolina.

They do not appear. We do not appear on the show to give you any personal legal advice. We're here just generally to talk about legal news. If you do need legal advice, we are attorneys, Whitaker and Hamer. So if you need to get a hold of us at the Outlaw Lawyer with any questions or concerns, or you need to meet to consult with an attorney at our firm, you can call us 1-800-659-1186. That's 1-800-659-1186.

That is a number that's set up for you to leave a message, which will come directly to us. And if you need an attorney, we can certainly reach out to you to set that up, set up a consultation. But if you have any questions or concerns for anything that we've talked about on the show, you can also leave that there and we'll get it. If email is better, our email address is questions, that's plural, questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. And again, that these important, our website is theoutlawlawyer.com.

All of our past episodes are there. There's another widget there that can get you in contact with us. And then on Facebook and Twitter, we're The Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer. I don't know who the regular non The Outlaw Lawyer is, but we are The Outlaw Lawyer. And we're coming for you regular Outlaw Lawyer without the the. I would also like to mention, uh, for those of you who may live down near the Coroner, Clayton, South Raleigh, Fuquay area, the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer is sponsoring a beer pong tournament, which is the normal thing that law firms do.

I hear. Yes, frequently, but you can, you can reach out to us if that's something you want to take part in. That's always a lot of fun, but that'll be down in the, uh, in the Garner, uh, South Raleigh area, um, at a little bar called shady.

So if you're interested in beer pong, and I'm certain every one of our listeners are avid beer pong players, you can reach out to us that way too. Otherwise we're going to go and take a break and get ready for our deep dive into Mr. Bill Cosby coming up on the Outlaw Lawyer. We will talk all the legal details of bill Cosby's legal woes and recent release from prison. All right, Joe and I are back and we're ready to talk about bill Cosby.

That was a, that was a big news story. So everybody, you know, really, I guess of a certain age knows who bill Cosby is. It's hard not to know who bill Cosby was and his legal troubles kind of mounted on him there and, uh, in the mid to late two thousands. And he was, uh, sentenced to prison. We'll talk about all this, but he was recently, uh, released. So the court of appeals in, in, in Pennsylvania heard his case and, and now he's a completely free man. All of a sudden he's a free man.

Uh, that's right. You know, when we talk about shocking allegations and, you know, celebrities who have kind of fallen from grace, there's really few that can compete with the story of bill Cosby. And, you know, it's funny you mentioned when we all think of bill Cosby, I was, uh, I was asking some of our younger employees at the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer just about bill Cosby in preparation for that.

And it's amazing when you hit a certain point, how those opinions change and how the younger generation doesn't know him as anything other than essentially a convicted sex offender, which is, you know, crazy thinking of where he came from. Yeah. So bill, you know, bill Cosby, I think most of our listeners are probably of the age where we don't have to, to tell them who bill Cosby was, but I, I, I think it's hard to understate how popular bill Cosby was for much of the seventies, eighties nineties. Um, you know, I think a lot of people refer to him as a, as America's dad, you know, we grew up with the Cosby show and then I even, I watched Cosby, Cosby. Yes. I watched the, the, the, what it was like three or four years later, the Cosby show was done.

And so they brought, uh, they brought them back and did Cosby. Hmm. I see.

I see. I know the Cosby show overwhelmingly popular. I think I saw 30 million viewers on average for that show, which is just a ridiculous number. And, um, you know, got syndicated was around for a long time, several years after it was canceled, you'd still see episodes and just a guy who really permeated all of, of pop culture, exceedingly popular. Like you said, a lot of affectionately referred to by many as America's dad. Um, it just really was a generally well thought off wholesome figure. Did the show kids say the darndest things. Um, and it really had this Sterling kind of image in the, in the public.

I remember my grandmother loved bill Cosby, big fan. I remember, I remember in the mid two thousands when this was all coming to light, you had some standup comedians. I think maybe Hannibal Burris was a standup comedian who like the, there were rumblings in Hollywood. So some of the things that we're going to talk about, like they were, they were things that were known.

They just weren't known publicly. I think that was actually one of the main things that actually shed some light on it was Hannibal Burris. Like you said, just, I think within the community of comedians, um, like you said, rumblings, uh, and, and there was some talk about it, but it wasn't really until 2005 when, you know, more concrete allegations kind of started to come to light.

So the first, the first allegations that kind of led to, to Cosby's, uh, fall from grace or from Andrea, uh, Constand and, and she was an individual who had brought these charges up, uh, again, around 2005 after her, I think, uh, I mean around 50 more women accused Cosby of some sort of sexual assault or, or flat out rape. Uh, but there were statute of limitation issues because these, a lot of those complaints were just too old and, and the statute of limitations for folks, there's statute of limitations for almost any kind of claim, any kind of case, criminal civil. There's a certain amount of time that's passed where, uh, the court has said, Hey, it's too old.

You know, we can't get good evidence. Witnesses recollections have been harmed. This is too old to pursue. This is too old to be a claim for relief. And so the statute of limitations cut a lot of these off.

Yeah. So, you know, to talk about the case and how, where we are now and the recent developments, I think you really have to start back when those allegations first started coming to light. So if you kept up with the news around that time, uh, you'd remember there was a lot of smoke. Like you said, once those first rumors started coming out, it kind of became a running thing where you would just continually hear about more and more people. And like you said, Josh, over 50 women, I believe independently accused Cosby of some form of sexual assault. And every story was essentially a variation of the same story, um, which was basically in essence that Cosby would, would have these women over, he would give them some sort of pill or drug. Um, and they would eventually pass out and wake up having been sexually assaulted.

And so those are certainly disturbing allegations and, and they all deserve to be taking taken seriously. And, uh, and so that's what, that's what happened here. And so Andrea's, or I guess we should say Mrs. Uh, Constand, is that right? Constand, Constand.

That's what we're going with. So you, I'm terrible at pronouncing even the most common names. Like I just have this, I have a, I have a, I have a disability where even like Johnson can throw me like in the wrong side.

I don't think that's a formal disability, but we'll give it, we'll give you that. So Mrs. Constand, uh, brings her charges, uh, you know, brings those to light. And, um, I was, so when they first came to light, Joe, the, the, the district attorney in Philadelphia, where these events were said to have occurred, didn't ever file charges.

Yeah. And we'll, we'll get to that. So, you know, that's the interesting thing is, is these allegations are made by Constand and several other women, but Constand, she was the one person whose allegations were recent enough to where that statute of limitations wasn't a bar to criminal prosecution. Um, she also brought a civil case, which we'll also talk about as well. But, um, ultimately, uh, she, these charges are brought. Cosby ends up being convicted on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault. And he is sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison. So as defense team, after the convention conviction, they file an appeal and their argument is basically that the Montgomery County district attorney, who's a Mr. Bruce Castor had agreed not to file criminal charges.

If Cosby provided a sworn deposition in a civil case that constant had filed prior to the criminal case being brought. All right. So we have an agreement. We have an acting district attorney has agreed not to bring charges based on these facts in exchange for Cosby, pretty much, uh, cooperating with, uh, Constand civil lawsuit. Exactly.

Exactly. And so, so Cosby does, so Cosby has this, uh, free pass basically from the DA saying, yep, you can be truthful. Um, and so in these civil depositions, Cosby did admit to furnishing drugs, uh, quaaludes to women and admitted to be sexually involved with Constand. So he, he did not plead, you know, this isn't, this is civil. So he didn't plead the fifth cause they was, he had this free pardon to, uh, to talk about this stuff.

Exactly. And that's the thing about the, the Cosby allegations is he never really came out and outright denied sexual activity with these women. So his defense wasn't, and I never, I never met, and I'm sure for some of the women he, he never met or never remembered, but generally speaking, if I remember it correctly, his defense was always, every woman that this happened with did, they participated knowingly, willingly with consent. They knew they were taking the drugs they were taking. They knew what the deal, essentially they knew what was going to happen. And we may not find that a strong defense, but that is what his argument was, is that they, this wasn't something he sprung on him.

He was, he was explaining this to every woman he did it with and they all were like, you know, they consented to it essentially. So again, Cosby's ultimately convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand. Um, that conviction is upheld by the lower court in 2019. And as a result, Cosby's lawyers appeal at the state level. And they argue that the DA Caster's agreement with Cosby basically precluded him from being able to invoke his fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination during those depositions. And when you put that together with some bad act witnesses that, that were included in the second trial, which we'll discuss in more detail as well, that was the grounds they argued for overturning that verdict. And so it was those depositions, those civil depositions where Cosby felt that he could speak freely about drugs and women back in 2005, that was used, uh, as a big part of, uh, of the, of the prosecution's case at his first trial, which ended in a hung jury and his second trial, where they ultimately convicted him of three felonies. Um, but because the first DA, because Mr. Caster removed the threat of criminal prosecution, if Cosby agreed to making the deposition, uh, the comedian's attorney successfully established that Cosby wasn't able to invoke his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. And it was therefore unable to defend himself against the criminal charges.

Yeah. So the Pennsylvania Supreme court, ultimately when presented with this argument from Cosby's lawyers, they ruled that that 2019 felony conviction was to be overturned. And they cited that agreement by the DA to not prosecute Cosby, um, as the, the primary reason, basically saying that because of that agreement, he should have never actually stood trial in the first place. And another factor in the court's decision, we talked about it a little bit, was these, uh, so-called bad act witnesses in the second trial. And his attorneys also successfully argued that those witnesses unfairly prejudice the jury. So the court ultimately, again, agreed with Cosby's legal team.

Um, and they, you know, basically said that they were throwing this out completely. Um, at no time Cosby's lawyers would argue, did the comedian expect that his sworn testimony in the civil case would ever see the light of day, let alone be used in criminal court as the primary basis for his conviction. This is a lot to take in Joe. I think this is a good time for us to take a quick commercial break and then we'll come back and, and get more information and kind of take it from there. Up next, we have a special guest and we continue our discussion on Mr. Bill Cosby. Well, welcome back to the Outlaw Lawyer. Joseph and I are still here.

We're still diving deep into what it means, Bill Cosby's release, how it came about, why it's important. And, uh, fortunately we just got a call. We got a special guest in here. So if you listen to our first episode, you'll remember Mr. Damian McCullers, an attorney here in, uh, Raleigh, North Carolina, and my former law partner.

Uh, welcome Damian. Hello. Hello. How's everybody doing? Good. Doing good. Glad to have you. Uh, I don't get to see you guys that much anymore.

So this is awesome. Yeah, this is a, this is a, I practice, uh, me and Joe practiced with Damian for 17 years. And, uh, so he used to, it used to be McCullers, Whitaker and Hamer.

Now it's Whitaker and Hamer, but Damian is a good friend of ours, a good friend of the show, good friend of the Outlaw Lawyer. And so he's joined us to talk about Bill Cosby. Uh, Joe, we've spent a lot of time talking about the charges, the conviction, how we got there, what the problem was, what, uh, what does this all mean now?

Fantastic question, Josh. So, uh, the, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, they reversed Cosby's conviction and they allowed him to basically leave prison as a free man. He's no longer required to file as a sexually violent predator on the sex offender registry. Um, and so just one month after he was actually denied parole for refusing to attend prison workshops for sex offenders, he's just walking free now essentially.

Um, so, you know, I'll ask you a question, Josh. We know Cosby's been released, uh, but with the allegations coming out in 2005, why did the DA not initially prosecute Cosby in the first place? Why do they wait so long to do so? Well, I think Castor went on record, uh, to, and he basically said that, you know, he made the decision not to prosecute Cosby criminally because of what he called, I guess, just defects in the case. So he noted that Constand waited to come forward with her allegations for awhile. He was concerned there wasn't enough evidence to convict, but basically, uh, Constand's delay in reporting this diminished the reliability of any recollections and undermined the investigators' efforts to collect forensic evidence. So they had no forensic evidence.

They had no witnesses. And he also found numerous inconsistencies with Constand's statements to him and law enforcement. Um, Damien, do you, do you remember when all this was happening? Um, I do, and I think your points about what, uh, the DA actually said is important. I think this is also a great opportunity to take to say, um, you know, any victim of any type of assault, sexual assault, that type of thing, um, it's difficult for them to come forward.

Um, we certainly want to make sure that they understand that we, and I support them, um, in coming forward. Um, and we're here strictly talking about the law, um, and just kind of how this one played out, um, and that those comments are those of the DA that was assigned to that case, um, and what he thought the legal conclusions would be based off of what he had been given. Um, but that's, uh, that's kind of that part in a nutshell. Now, and, you know, as a prosecutor, um, that prosecutor has to, um, and I don't want to use the word value because it sounds bad. I, I think they have to evaluate, uh, their case and, and what they think would, would be the good and the bad points of their case. And it sounds like this prosecutor decided, uh, that there were a number of weak points in the case, uh, in evaluating it and decided not to move forward. Josh Burke Well, I think Damian makes a good point and it's one that we, we made a little earlier today too, but when you're, we're all practicing attorneys.

So this is, you know, this is work for us. You know, we, there are feelings involved, there's victims, you know, you, you always, you always have remorse, but the longer that you do this, you, it almost becomes like a watching a football game. If you're a football coach, you know, you, you, you're, you're, we're basically, uh, looking at what attorneys did based on facts and, and criticizing or commenting or, you know, looking, but we're looking at it, you know, we're looking at it without feeling, without, without emotion, because, I mean, that's what you're supposed to do in court, right? I mean, that's, Damian Walker Yeah. It's kind of like in law school when you stand up your first year and you say, well, I think, and then your professor says, well, I don't really care what you think.

What does the law say? Josh Burke Right. And that's, and that's a, that's a big thing here. And, you know, part of, I know what me and Joel were, were going to get to is, is, you know, kind of the me too movement and kind of what was going on around this time. And, and, and this, to me, Joe, even at the time, I, I didn't get too, I didn't get too involved in it at the time, but it seemed odd to me that this decision came down to unseal the, the, the depositions that we've been talking about.

Joel Scherer Yeah. And I think that's, that's the, that's really where the defect is that is what ultimately led to Cosby's release. So, you know, we talked about Castor and again, basically just reporting his own findings and, and his own assessment of Constand's reliability. But at the end of the day, he essentially just said, there's not sufficient credible evidence to prove Cosby's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And that's the, that was what his position was as far as not prosecuting at the time. And then again, he makes the civil cases ultimately broad. He makes the agreement with Cosby to solicit his testimony or his deposition rather, and basically says, you know, we're not going to prosecute based on this.

And then that's, again, kind of how we get here. John Green Well, and I would imagine, I would imagine at that time, it's not like Castor did that on his own. I'm sure he was approached by, I would think, Constand's attorney, Cosby's attorney saying, Hey, we got the civil thing.

We need Cosby to, to play along. This agreement was reached, I'm sure between several parties. It's not just that Castor on his own free volition just decided to do this would be my guess. I don't know, Damian, if you see that happen a lot. But that, that would be my guess is that this was to help everybody at the time.

Damian Ligon I mean, I don't know if it was to help everybody at the time. What I can tell you is just kind of, from what I've seen over the years, just in practice, is that a lot of times if there is a civil matter, or if there is a civil matter going on, that often the civil attorneys will come to the criminal settings or talk with the DA about what's going on in the criminal setting. Because oftentimes, and I'm not licensed in Pennsylvania, but in North Carolina, sometimes a criminal conviction bolsters the claim for civil court.

So a lot of times there's some positioning going on as it relates to that. Joe, what happened with the civil case? So you know, Constand filed the lawsuit in 2005 in the US District Court for the eastern state of Pennsylvania. Cosby, you know, again, he was deposed, he testified under oath at the deposition several times. And, you know, he admitted to having a romantic interest in Constand. And he also admitted to the sexual activity every every instance of it, but again, said that it was consensual.

And ultimately, at the end of the day, Constand settled with Cosby for $3.38 million. That was the result of the civil trial. And so Caster was the DA until about 2015. And so then he is, he is not the DA anymore. A new DA comes in the statute of limitations, we talked about what the statute of limitations were, where in Pennsylvania, that's a 12 year statute of limitations. It had not yet expired when the new DA got in. And almost immediately, charges were filed.

Exactly. So just before that statute set to expire, charges are filed. Following the charges, there's two trials, the first trials in 2017. And it actually ended after the jurors were just unable to reach a unanimous verdict. There's a second trial. And in that second trial, Cosby's found guilty on all three counts, as we've discussed, and he's sentenced to state prison for between that three and 10 year period we talked about.

And then after which Cosby's legal team again, files those post sentence motions seeking the new trial. I think we should take a break from all the legal mumbo jumbo, Joseph, and we should all identify our favorite Cosby episode. And I got a tie.

I'm gonna get I got a tie. I got number one, when they found a snake in the basement. That's a very fun episode, I believe. But it's tied with the one where they're celebrating the grandparents anniversary on they all sing the Ray Charles song. So those are my top two Cosby episodes. Well, I'll go next. And I will tell you, I think the grandparents episode should be taken out because it is a classic unto itself.

So I think that that can't be standard. That is God. That is the defacto number one. But as my relevant number one, a or two, I believe mine is when, well, I have to I'm kind of like you, Joshua. But so my first one is when they turn the house into the real world for Theo. So he has to pay for rent a bed and he's got to pay for everything and all kinds of stuff. So that one is that one is awesome.

And then when Rudy plays football. Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah, that's a good one. The what's the one where who makes who makes man is it? It's not Denise that makes him the shirt. I can't remember who makes. Yeah, it's Denise that makes the other shirt.

The Gordon Gartrell. Yeah, that's a good episode. Joseph, are you young enough to have a favorite or old enough to have a favorite Cosby? So I was a young boy when when these when this show aired. And I remember it was old. I remember it in syndication and I vaguely remember watching it. But I think my brain capacity wasn't quite there. So I'm going to go I'm going to go with Theo real world episode as well.

Just just because it sounds great. I have to go back and check it out. Well, where do we get to on this? So Cosby Cosby's a free man now, but he did get he did get charged. And the trials were interesting because this was all around this, you know, it didn't get reported, you know, that that there was going to everybody should have known that this was going to be an issue later. You know, everybody, the DA, the prosecutors, the defense attorneys certainly knew it was an issue. The media didn't really I don't remember the way this was reported. I don't remember this being reported. You know, it was reported to me the way I remember it is. Cosby's a bad guy. He's done all this stuff.

Everybody's finally going to get him. I remember it was it was split. I remember there was a large contingent of that. And there was a large contingent of you don't want to say conspiracy theorists, but basically people who thought these were bogus allegations. He's always been innocent. I think a lot of people bought his argument that these were all consenting adults that all participated willingly.

But at the end of the day, he's a free man. And you got to think also, the climate today with the Me Too movement and where it is, is so drastically different than it was back in 2005. You think of how much has changed there, as far as culture and the way that society works.

And it's just a it's a drastically different landscape. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of things you can take from this. And it's going to be interesting to see how future cases with more of these types of things coming out, being prosecuted are going to develop. Well, it's, you know, the Cosby's release is a recent development. I have kind of been scanning the media and I honestly have not seen nearly as many stories on it as I thought I'd say.

I mean, it was big news the day it happened. I haven't seen a lot. I don't know what you've seen, Damian, but I haven't seen a lot of follow up. I just assumed there'd be a lot of like, you know, this is a travesty of justice. And I haven't seen those stories yet.

No, I I haven't seen a lot of them. I did see where his former co-star, Phylicia Rashad, released a tweet and then that tweet got some backlash. It did. She had to retract it.

Yeah. So she kind of backpedaled on it. And, you know, and it's because she works at a university, one of the most prestigious HBCUs out there, which is Howard. And, you know, they I think they as a university took a stance that they could not accept what she said and keep her as a professor there. So she kind of had to. She was actually the dean.

Yeah, she was one of the deans of the school of theater, I believe it is. So that that was kind of the biggest after effect that I've seen thus far. And it's important to say, you know, they didn't the Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania, they didn't remand this for another trial. These charges are done. They cannot be there's no there's not going to be a retrial. It's it for this.

It's over. Yeah, well, I think it's also important to know, too. I saw some commentary on this a while back that said, you know, that is it for these charges. If there are other charges or another individual that is out there, the state technically, I believe, could bring those charges. But with each day that passes, you know, you're you're running afoul of that statute of limitations, depending on when it happens. So just kind of depends on what's what. But you're right.

For these particular sets of charges, that's it. What what do you think? You think you think we see a civil lawsuit from Cosby now that he's been exonerated and the prosecutors acted? I have no earthly idea because he's got he's got the money. He's angry enough to do it. I think we see a civil lawsuit where he seeks some damages. I think he may win.

How about this? Do we see Bill Cosby do any form of entertainment again before he dies? I don't think so, man.

But that that first comedy special, that was that was good stuff. And that's what I don't like, man. I do not like, you know, Bill Cosby was accused of some horrific things and that has to be dealt with. And the court system has been dealing with it. And his public image will certainly take a hit.

It has taken a huge hit, huge hit. But funny is funny, man. When something was funny, it's still it's still funny. It's a difficult concept of the people that make art that you cherish and value separating that from their personal demons and the things they do. It's a difficult thing. I think that's what a lot of people have had to to deal with is looking at or determining who is Bill Cosby versus who is Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable. Well, it's art. You know, the Cosby Show is art.

And, you know, you can't you can't take that away from little Josh Whitaker, no matter how hard you try. But I don't know what I don't know. A lot of artists is means, you know, I'll look at a painting and I'm like, oh, that's a I guess that's a great painting or what have you.

And and I don't know anything about the person that got that, you know, that had that painting. I just I'm just looking at the paintings. I'm just going to look at the Cosby Show.

That's what I'm taking from all this. I'm going to watch the Cosby Show and it's going to be funny and I'm going to like it. Fair enough. All right. Well, I think we've talked just about enough about Mr. Bill Cosby.

He is a he is a free man for now. It'll be interesting to see what happens. It'll be interesting to see how the story is followed. But those are the facts as unbiasedly as we can present them to you, except for my love of the Cosby Show.

That was biased. The North Raleigh Spitting Cobras will be the name of every rec basketball team in North Raleigh for the next several years. Next, we discuss the venomous Reptile Act. It's Joe and Josh back here with you on the Outlaw Lawyer. We certainly had a lot of fun last segment. We appreciate Mr. Damian McCullers for joining us.

He had to get back to work though. So now you're just stuck with me and Joe. But I think we've got something very exciting to talk about. It kind of gripped the entire area for a couple of days. But we had a I can't remember the name of the animal.

I think it was a zebra zebra zebra spitting, spitting cobra, zebra spitting cobra. Well, it was loose and it was it was a big time story here in Raleigh and the surrounding areas. I know a lot of I lived down in the South Raleigh Garner area and we were afraid that guy was going to make it down our way. And we didn't know what to do when we when we saw it. But I know a lot of the local media outlets covered that thing 24 seven, 24 seven.

That that is that is correct. Like you said, it gripped the town. It gripped the people.

Terrifying period of time for everyone. I think once I'm on WRAL, I hopped into a lot of video. So they got this Cobra cornered. It was loose for like, I guess, maybe a day, a day and a night or whatever. And they got it cornered on the guy's porch. And everything I read, it came out of it was in his vinyl sighting and it came out and he saw it and they got it cornered on his porch. And there was like a like a live stream and like 3000 people are on that live stream trying to watch these folks bring down the spitting cobra of all the things that that are going to creep out from your vinyl sighting.

I think the zebra spitting cobra is the last one you expect and is, uh, that's the last thing you want to see, man. The, uh, so from what I can gather on media, I don't know any of the parties to this, but it looks like this, maybe this family, uh, has a, as a, maybe in a, I don't know if he was over 18 or under 18, but it looked like there was a guy, he kept a lot of different venomous stakes at his house. Looked like he had a lot of Tik TOK followers. And I think, I think I saw one of the videos is where he kind of let one of these snakes go and was like watching it move around in the grass.

And I guess it's like a half a million people will watch this guy do his do his stuff. And, and so they were the owner of, of the snake, which we know as attorneys because there's a statute, um, it's legal to own a venomous state. Yeah. So legal to own a venomous snake, but, uh, as with all law statutes, regulations, things of this nature, any kind of danger, any kind of activity that statute allows that is any kind of dangerous in nature, there's going to be restrictions. There's going to be safeguards.

There's going to be things put in place to govern the ownership and use. And that's the exact, that's the case here as well. I don't know who came up with it, but I saw, uh, somebody was selling shirts that said that they were like the North Raleigh, uh, spinning cobras, um, which I found hysterical, but do you know why that's funny? Joe, do you know where that spinning cobras as a team name comes from? That's uh, that is actually, I do Josh.

And it actually comes from the Academy award winning, uh, criteria on collection, classic Dodge ball, one of the great movies of our time. So that was the globo Jim purple, purple cobras. I think they weren't the spinning cobras.

I think they were the purple cobras. But, uh, anyway, that made me, I almost bought that shirt. Uh, Facebook has really figured me out. And so I don't know what their algorithms are.

I don't know what I said around it. I don't know what I searched for, but I buy a t-shirt off Facebook like every week because the ads have targeted and like dialed me into like old country and old silly movies. And I think I bought a stepbrother's, uh, shirt last week. That's how they got me.

So every week you're given some of that, that hard earned money to these Facebook advertisers. So, but yeah, the, the, the purple cobras, I actually had a speaking of Dodge ball, I had an average Joe shirt as my name is Joe. It was pertinent. I still got it.

I still have it. It's a classic design of the shirt. The uh, so in case everybody was curious, I didn't, I didn't hear it really get reported. So when I saw this happening, I was like, who's, who's zebra spitting Cobra is this?

And why is it, why is it loose? Cause I know I hadn't read it in a long time, but I know there's a statute. Um, so I think I heard a lot of people asking, you know, is this even legal? Um, and so the, the statute to summarize it's North Carolina general statute 14 dash four 17 regulation of ownership or use of a venomous reptile. Um, and so the statute says it's, it is unlawful unless you do certain things. And so some of the things that the statute requires you to do, if you have a venomous reptile is you have to keep it in a, a lockable cage and the cage must have certain information on there. The breed of the snake, what kind of anti-venom who to call if it gets out, if you see the cage is opened and then there's a liability imposed on the owner that if it does escape, they have to immediately notify the local officials. Um, so that's, that's, it's, it's unlawful to keep these animals unless you do this. And if you do this and in theory you haven't, you're lawfully owning a venomous reptile. Some people, man, some people love their animals and they love their venom. I've never personally understood the appeal of keeping a deadly venomous creature. Um, but we live in America, man. We live in the land of the free where people are free to pursue their passions.

And some people have that passion for deadly murderous animals that will kill you. John Greenewald So I was curious, Joe, I kept reading the statutes cause I was curious. I've never seen it in my personal practice. I've never heard what the penalties are. So violations of this statute. So if you keep a venomous reptile and you violate these provisions, it's a class two misdemeanor, which 30 days class two misdemeanor is not a very high level, uh, crime. And then I kept reading and I was, if someone suffers a life threatening injury, that's not a member of the family that's keeping it. So if somebody else, a third party receives a life threatening injury or dies, the way I read the statute says it's like class a one misdemeanor. Um, and that's the highest, that's, uh, you know, that's a high misdemeanor, but yeah, it seems like that would be manslaughter if you intentionally released the snake and it killed somebody. And maybe that's multiple charges. Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Joe Maybe you're looking at it wrong, but if you're not looking at it wrong, we said, we're going to keep our biases out of this, but I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say, if I'm bitten and murdered by a spitting zebra cobra, I want the person who released this spitting zebra cobra to, to face more than a a one misdemeanor.

And I'm probably looking at it wrong. It's probably an a one misdemeanor. It's probably an a one misdemeanor just for the violation of the statute, but then you still going to get your, whatever, whatever charge that you're just come up in for your snake murdering. But here, of course, luckily no one was hurt.

No one died. Um, the intentional, the, the statute further goes on to say the intentional release is a class a one misdemeanors. I don't know what it means by intentional release. Can you, is it this venomous snake have to be kept in its cage all the time, 24 hours a day.

Can you let it out? Also going to go out on a limb here, Josh, and I'm going to say without knowing the exact definition of intentional release, I'm going to say letting it in your backyard for Tik Tok qualifies as intentional release. This also the statute. So punitive damages is an interesting thing in, in, in legal news that you hear from time to time where the judge, you know, you've got compensatory damages where you, you know, if someone's found to be liable, they have to compensate you for your actual damages. There's, there's other different kinds of damages. Punitive damages is where the judge can give you a fine, a judgment against you for any amount that he feels he or she feels is necessary to punish you. Punitive means basically a derivative of punishment, but punitive damages. So the statute allows for, if there's a civil lawsuit, uh, because of the release of this snake and a violation of this statute, there is a punitive damages come into the picture, which could be a big deal.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just trying to put myself in the shoes of the animal control worker, whoever the authorities are that are, that are hunting this creature. And you get the call that you're, you're on the hunt for the venomous zebra spitting Cobra.

That's just not an everyday thing. So I have been waiting to hear in the news and it may happen before we, we get to air, but I have not yet seen any charges, heard anybody calling for any charges or, uh, you know, I, I, I'm always curious to see what happens. So the, the snake's been caught.

And so I got a feeling the media will ignore it for awhile, but, uh, I'm out there trying to figure out if, if there are any charges, uh, pending, uh, I'll be curious to see if the statute comes into play. The real question, Josh, are you getting your kids as a venomous zebra spitting Cobra? I'll tell you what our middle child wants a bearded dragon really, really bad or, or he'll compromise and get a turtle. Um, so we may do that, but venomous venomous reptiles, uh, are not in our future.

That's fantastic plan. If you do, if you, if you change your mind on that, just keep in mind statute 14-417, um, and, and you should be just fine, man. Well, the law affects everything. There's always a statute. There's always a case law. There's always a contract. There's always a clause. The law affects everything that you see in you here.

It just, it just does. If you have a legal issue, if you need legal advice, I encourage you to call our law firm Whitaker and Hamer. Uh, one of our attorneys will, uh, be glad to consult with you. The phone number for us is 1-800-659-1186. That's 1-800-659-1186.

That line is set up to take a message. Uh, we will get that message and, uh, we will have the appropriate folks reach out to you. If it's easier to email, you can email us at the outlaw lawyer at questions. That's plural questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Our website is also the outlaw lawyer.com and we're on Facebook and Twitter now, and it's the outlaw lawyer. So again, any questions for the show, any comments on anything we've talked about, we'd love if there's something that you would like us to talk about and analyze, we'd love to do it.

Um, and if you need any help from Whitaker and Hamer, the law firm, you can get in touch with us that way too. Can a sperm donor owe child support? The question everyone's been asking, you might be surprised by a recent North Carolina court of appeals decision. So Joe, sperm donation is nothing to laugh at. I think that's how we start this sperm donation is a serious matter, deadly serious. Um, we, we've got a case that involves this and you know, when, when this first became a thing, I don't know.

I can't tell you when this first became a thing. I, I tell you, Josh, I ran out of time in preparation for the show. Um, I had at the end of my list was a sperm donor research and I just, I couldn't fit it into my schedule.

So I couldn't tell you either. Well, what I do know is I grew up watching a lot of seventies and eighties sitcoms and sperm donation was always involved in like one episode. Right. So, you know, the Gary Shanley show has an episode. Nightcourt has, I think a couple of episodes that, that have to, that's one of the premises that's they, you know, that seventies show. It's several, several. I mean, it's, it's in a lot of things, man. It's the, it's a go-to for, for comedy, sitcom writers. It's a staple, but that's not what we're here to talk about.

No, no. Uh, that might be more exciting, but no sperm donation that we got a case. So when we have someone, so there was a, there was a case, um, and here are the facts I'm trying not going to use. This is a court of appeals case. It was reported earlier this week, but I don't think the name of the case is important.

And I don't think the names of the parties were important. So basically what we have is we have a North Carolina man who agrees a verbal handshake agreement agrees to donate sperm to his friend and her partner so that they can conceive a child. So they've decided to do this North Carolina man travels to Virginia. And apparently that's where the donation was made. That's where his friend was inseminated. That's where the child was born, uh, on the birth certificate. I believe just the, the, the mother, the mother is listed as a, as a parent, uh, but the child resides in Virginia. That's where the couple lives. So basically everything has happened in Virginia, except that this man just happens to live in North Carolina.

And so what happens time passes? Um, there is a, in Virginia, there is a proceeding that happens, uh, perceivably so that, uh, our sperm donor can give up any parental rights he may have and that the, the couple with a child can adopt, but there's no, there's a record that this happened, but there's no judge's order when the court goes and looks in the file. So basically I think this was Warren County, uh, the department of social services seeks out our sperm donor, uh, to pay back child support. So first off, we don't know this gentleman's name, but my goodness, what a good friend we do know his name. Well, we do, but I'm saying we, if for purposes of this discussion, we're not going to out this, this gentleman's Mr. Mr. Donor.

That's a good, that's a good friend to, to go to those links. Um, so Josh, the donor lived in NC, like you said, the Virginia couple that he was helping out lived in Virginia, the donation, the insemination both happened in Virginia, the child's born and lived in Virginia. That parental rights termination happened in Virginia. So why, why is this suit taking place in North Carolina?

Josh Seefried So that's a good question. The social services, the department of social services for Warren County brought the action. Um, it looks like they didn't really file much after they, they brought it. So I don't know what happened there, but the North Carolina, uh, court of appeals did a really good job. We've got some really good justices, a court of appeals. Is it a justice or a judge? It's a judge. The justice, if you're Supreme court, so judge anything underneath, we're gonna go judge. We've got some very good judges on the North Carolina court of appeals.

They have some very good, it's, it's always interesting to read their cases and where they, where they end up on things. But here they were like, look, um, they talked about, it's a, it's a Latin word, uh, Lex Loki doctrine, Lex Loki sounds like a bad guy. Um, but it's a, it's a Latin doctrine that just means the law of the state where most of the events transpired should be the law that applies. So in, in law you have a, you have conflict of law issues.

So you got, you got a party in North Carolina, you got a party in Virginia, something's happened in North Carolina, something's happened in Virginia. Well, if something goes bad, what law applies, right? So if there had been a written contract, it would have probably have stated if there's a problem with this Virginia law applies, but we don't have that. So the court has to figure out what law applies to this situation. And so I think our court said, Hey, we're going to apply Virginia law. So Virginia, apparently, I guess I didn't know it until I read this case.

I'm not licensed to practice in Virginia. I don't know Virginia law. I don't pretend to know Virginia law, but, um, there's a case, there's a statute there where if you're a sperm donor, then you don't have any parental rights.

So they've taken care of it, you know, through, uh, through some sort of statutory framework. And so applying that law, no, no child support was owed. Our Mr. Donor was, was free to go and he did his good deed and wasn't going to be punished for it. But it's interesting to think about the legal ramifications from doing something as nice as being a sperm donor.

That's one of the friendliest things you can do. And I, and I have to say Virginia, some of the best sperm laws in our country, they are, they are leading the way on the forefront. But it's a, Hey, you know, most, most, I think most of the time this happens, there's some sort of written contract that deals with it here. We just had a handshake handshake means a lot means a lot to me, but if something goes wrong and you're in court that it's, it's your word against their words, you don't have a written contract. So we have, we have some contract issues here. We've got a statute that kind of saves the day and, and we've got some prior case law. So again, all types of law contributing to figure out what the heck was going on here.

Yeah. You know, I think the lesson, if we take anything from, from this, the lesson is if you're going to be a sperm donor, get something in writing, stating the terms of the, of the donation. And, um, you know, there's a lot of cases we joke about it, but there's a lot of cases where a sperm donor has been sought for child support. And I'm, I'm certainly no sperm law expert. Um, but if we said it once, we said it a thousand times the law, it just really intersects with everything in our society, including the donation of sperm. Well, again, it's been a fun episode.

We were very fortunate to have Damian McCullers with us today. Um, again, any questions for the outlaw lawyer? Give us a call 1-800-659-1186.

That's 1-800-659-1186. You can get us by email questions at the outlaw lawyer.com. Our website is also the outlaw lawyer.com.

You can listen to past episodes, current episodes, uh, there at the website. Um, or you can reach out to us on Facebook and Twitter, the outlaw lawyer, Joseph, as always, it's been fun. It's been great. Thank you guys as always for listening. We really appreciate you. Um, we had some other things we wanted to talk about. We'll carry those over to the next episode. All our loyal listeners. Um, we'll, we'll talk about these estate horror stories the next time we catch up with you, but, um, great time with you today, Josh.

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