Dodd Case Fallout, Conceal Carry, and Listener Questions

This week on the Outlaw Liar, Josh in studio, Joe working remotely. They're in to discuss the law and how it affects everything around us. And as always, Josh and Joe tackle burning legal questions such as, what is textualism? Is abortion illegal? Did the founding fathers want you to carry a concealed weapon?

And what is quitclaim deed? That's all coming up on this week's edition of the Outlaw Liar. And now, Outlaw Liar.

Welcome in to the Outlaw Liars. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina.

Offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We talk legalese each and every week. And you're going to have questions possibly about your situation. We're going to give you an opportunity to get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. You can call 800-659-1186.

That's 800-659-1186. And leave your contact information briefly what your question is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to questions at the outlawlawyer.com. And questions at the outlawlawyer.com.

We'll use them on a future edition of the program. Gentlemen, we got a lot to talk about today. Good to see Josh in studio and apparently Joe on assignment working remotely.

But he is on the show today. Guys, how you doing? Morgan, Morgan, we're doing good. It's nice to sit down with you. I feel like I hadn't sat down with you in a week or two. You grew a full beard, man. So I don't like to shave. I've got the goatee. I keep the goatee. I don't think my kids have ever seen me without a goatee. I will shave every week or two.

But the beard, especially over kind of a holiday weekend, it really comes out fast on me. So, Joseph, how was your holiday weekend? Hey, Josh, it was pretty good. I'm sorry I can't be with you guys right now.

I am in my office alone. And it's very cold in here and dark and lonely. But I also have a large beard today. That's good. It's good. It's a it's a beardy kind of week. This first week of July is typically you get a lot of people who are on vacation this week.

And so everything slows down, I think, just a little bit kind of across the board. And in my life, you know, at work and at home, where'd you do fireworks, Joe? I did fireworks next door at my sister's house. They bought an obnoxious amount of fireworks. And they, they drove down to south of the border for that purchase and picked up some some of the good ones, man.

And enjoy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, define good ones is that that's like a quarter stick of dynamite because you have to go out of the state to get those. Yeah, they're just the good ones, man. The good ones, not the crappy with the good ones. I'm gonna tell you something I don't understand. We were up in New York a week or two ago coming back through Pennsylvania.

So we bought some in Pennsylvania. But why? And I've not I've not I've never researched this.

I've never known the answer. But what is and this goes back to what we were talking about this one time, like when things are illegal, we have to ask questions. Why is this illegal? Why is there a statute against us?

Why are we penalizing people for this? Why can't we have good fireworks in North Carolina? I want to know the history behind how like every other state has good fireworks. But we got the, you know, the shower of sparks type fireworks.

You know what I'm saying? Hey, don't don't heat on the shower of sparks. There's some good ones. We had a shower of sparks type fireworks. We bought our little pack. We set those off the kids. The kids will enjoy those, but they're nothing like the real fireworks.

It's like it's like everybody else has top shelf and we have well drinks. Yeah, we're like we're like everybody else is like, you know, real deal fireworks and we got like snakes and leave the ground. The snakes are pretty sweet. The snakes are a wonder of chemistry. And I think you shouldn't hate on the snakes and the sparklers and some of those spray spray sparks, fireworks. Some of them are really, really, pretty decent, man. Especially if you get like like 13 inches away from them.

It's just like you're watching the big ones. We're going to do some research on that. We're going to have to research why these things are illegal in North Carolina. Maybe we can start some sort of grassroots, nonpolitical campaign to get those legalized in North Carolina. That's the type of thing that I can get behind. We've all just accepted that we have to go out of state to get them and everybody who who can just does it. And then everybody's just all right with that. It's just part of life now.

But maybe we should ask those questions. Speaking of explosions or implosions, you guys have been following the latest on the ACC and everything around the ACC. This is one of those things that I can't stop following. There's no real news, but any kind of social media is real bad, too, because the algorithms have picked up that I'm interested in conference realignment. So it keeps floating me all these stories about how me being an NC State fan, I'm worried about where NC State will end up. I don't know. Joe, have you been following any of that?

A little bit, you know, a little bit, not a ton. This is a this is kind of a dead period in sports for me personally. It is because a lot of a lot of the sports that I follow are not active right now. So I kind of this is when I kind of shut down the sports part of my life and build up that hunger for when it comes back.

So I haven't I haven't been keeping close track of it. But I but I did see some you know, I have seen a lot of speculation as far as that ACC implosion goes and some speculation about what's going to happen. And I think state will be fine, man. I think state will stay to land on their feet. They've got the football thing going for them. And for whatever reason, that football and that football revenue seems to be king and really the driving force behind a lot of collegiate athletics, just because it's it's big money. Well, you know, all these conferences are based on contracts, right?

That's all they are. You know, you know, they keep talking about the ACC grant of rights. And I've never read that. I want to get my hands on it and and read these grant of rights, these TV right contracts. That's supposedly the only thing propping the ACC together and read them because I keep reading these different articles where, oh, there's just a 50 million buyout. No, you don't get, you know, your TV rights till 2036.

But I'd like to actually read this thing and see what the penalty for for breaches. But I guess we might find out before too long because if you believe all the stories, any day now, there'll be no ACC that's that's that's the way all the rumors are flowing. But we'll I guess we'll see that the ACC basketball tournaments been dead for a long time. So I don't have all the feelings I used to have.

But it's still be sad. You've explained that you've explained your apathy for the ACC basketball tournament. But I'm gonna I'm gonna make a bold prediction. I'm gonna say that if if state starts winning, like, say, 70% to 80% of their their games, I think you're gonna have a renewed interest in that ACC basketball tournament, my brother.

Maybe. So I'll remind you, I'll remind you, like two or three years ago, Raycon was still doing ACC football. And so I was excited football season was starting. And the first ACC game of the week on TV for the season came on. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna watch it.

I don't care who it is. I'm just ready to see some ACC football. You know, you're, you know, at the very beginning of the season, how you anyway, the ACC game of the week was Pitt versus Utah. You know, because it was like an away game for Pitt.

I guess that was all they had the rights to. I was like an ACC Pitt versus Utah. I like blew my mind. Utah's a powerhouse program. I may be better than Pitt. I don't I don't know. But I was very disappointed.

I did not watch that game, but it disgusted me. And I just made a mental note of that. But a lot of legal stuff to talk about Joseph today. So we're gonna we've talked about it a couple of times, but we haven't talked about in a couple of weeks. The Dodd case. Uh, the ruling that came down on abortion from the Supreme Court's been talked about a lot. I want to actually look at the opinion a little bit and kind of look down the road, which I've seen some news outlets do. But just talk about what happened. Sometimes when these things get reported on, they don't always do a good job.

Sometimes they do. But outlets don't always do a good job reporting on what actually is in the opinion and what the court was trying to do. You just look at what what happened, right? And what happened is a big deal.

Very newsworthy. But sometimes we sometimes the actual ruling gets lost. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the Dodd case, a case that we spent some time on the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association versus Braun decision.

That was the concealed carry case at a New York. And that decision came down. I wanted to follow up on that soundly. We've talked about that since oral argument. So we'll talk about that a little in the Second Amendment. I know we got a couple of listener questions, so we'll talk about some real life situations that we we get at the law firm and kind of give you a little bit of an overview of that. A little bit of information on on those. Give you some knowledge that that hopefully will be beneficial to you. But that's what I got lined up for us today, Morgan.

All right. The outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners there and practicing attorneys here in the state of North Carolina. Again, Whitaker and Hamer in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia.

So conveniently located offices. If you have a legal situation that you are facing and you just have questions, I've got a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact information briefly what your call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be on the phone with you shortly. And you can always email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please go check out the website. The outlaw lawyer dot com. A lot on the program today coming up next. Dot abortion law fallout.

We'll talk about that next on the outlaw. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyer, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Offices conveniently located.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And folks, I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We get into legalese each and every week, and we have a little fun.

Along the way, but it's very serious discussion. And this next one, guys, it's all over the news. Yeah, Morgan, the Dodd case. And this is one we we spend the whole show talking about the opinion when it leaked and what it and what it would mean. And obviously, the final opinion came out. It was it was very similar to the elite opinion. They added a concurring opinion from Justice Thomas. And then there were the dissenters.

And then there were the justices. There were the dissenting opinion, which I think I think Breyer wrote that that opinion. So we got the full opinion.

We had a chance to read it. It's been, of course, widely reported on. It's a it's a big case is a case we'll be talking about for years and years and years.

And the fallout from it is is is not over. Joe, you might remember facts on the Dodd case. This is one where we had a an abortion clinic suing a state.

Was it? I can't remember. I think it was Mississippi. I don't have the facts in front of me, but they had a law. They passed a state law saying, you know, you couldn't couldn't get abortion after 15 weeks.

That is in violation of Roe v. Wade and direct violation. And so this case went to the Supreme Court. And so that's what was presented by the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court.

I don't know that we would have predicted this one. I thought that the court was going to limit abortion, but here 54 decision they they reversed Roe v. Wade. And Joe, we've talked about how how the Roe v. Wade and and and the cases after it used this substantive due process in the Constitution and kind of created this right or read into the Constitution, this right of privacy. And this logic has been used in a lot of cases.

Roe v. Wade until recently was the biggest example. But, you know, just got me thinking and I read I read some opinion pieces in different newspapers, but we started talking about textualism text text. Say that for me. Textualism. Yeah. So reading substantive reading the Constitution verbatim. Right.

Just looking at the words, not reading anything into it, just looking at the Constitution and taking it at at at face level and not, you know, not try to read anything else into it. But, you know, this right of privacy that that got created and was used in Roe v. Wade, the court doesn't like it. Right.

It's not a good way. The court has shown that it's not going to use that same rationale, at least this court. That's right, Josh. And, you know, you go back and you reference the fact that we we talked about this. I think we talked about this a few times before before the actual decision came down. We talked about it pre leak. We talked about it post leak. And you referenced the fact that you don't think we really predicted it would go this way.

I'm going to just conveniently ignore that and pretend like it never happened. Right. I can't recall our exact prediction, but I don't think we hit it on the nose, if anything. I'm going to be very vague and say we got close. Say we got close.

I don't think we I don't think we made an official prediction. That's right. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. We generally will avoid official prediction when we when when we just don't know. And I don't think we knew here. I think we knew something was going to occur. But I think it's safe to say we we probably didn't anticipate it rising to the level that it that it rose to and such a drastic change and and and harsh critique and just complete slapping down of that Roe v. Wade ruling. And, you know, you mentioned the substantive due process and and how that's been used and in several cases, you know, it's been it's been a principle that's been applied numerous times. And the court here is is almost forcing you to to to look back at every case that's that's used at the way that they're analyzing that concept.

Yeah. You know, I you know, again, we don't we we go out of our way to be nonpolitical. That's not that's not the point of our time here. But I do feel like at times I have to just be be honest. And so I'm not I'm not here to say abortion's right or wrong.

That's not up for me to decide. But I do agree a lot with the court, you know, on, you know, the Constitution is the Constitution. It's not a very long document. You know, it's not certainly there's some things that are up for debate in it, how to interpret certain clauses and, you know, where a certain comma comes in and what that means.

So you can do that kind of stuff all day. But in the end, we're left with the writing. And I've always been one where, you know, something says what it says and we can interpret it a little. But I'm not I've never been a big fan of reading rights, you know, into the Constitution or saying, well, the founders would have done this or I think we can take this clause and and it means this. And so what I think what the court did here or the way I read the opinion is the court said this reasoning is flawed. You know, when you read the Constitution, there's no constitutional enumerated constitutional right to abortion. And I think what the court did here is that reasoning is, you know, not good.

We're not we're not going to continue with it. We think it was erroneous at the time. We think it's still erroneous. It's still wrong. We're going to correct it now.

Better, better late than never. And so that's where we got into the conversation about stare decisis and precedent. And what does that do to the court when they ignore settled law? And here they didn't care like here. They they were like, well, we don't like it.

We never liked it. And here it is. But I think this is important. And I've seen this reported like abortion is not illegal on a federal level. That's not what the Supreme Court did. They said, you know, there's no constitutional right to abortion. We're not legislators.

You're duly elected legislators. They need they're the ones who need to take this up and decide. And, of course, they haven't.

Right. There's been no there's been no action legislatively to ease. The Congress could easily just say, hey, abortion is legal.

Here's the statute. Doesn't matter what the states do. But that hasn't happened. So now we're left, you know, every state's left up to itself. And you've seen how that goes. You know, you've got states all across the board.

Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned that, Josh, the fact that this is you know, it's not an outright prohibition of abortion. And I think I think, again, you get into the the kind of the echo chamber of social media and you get into a lot of a lot of the the real partisan way that news is presented. And I'd be willing to bet that there's a lot of folks really fired up that that just aren't adequately informed about the issue and probably do assume that, you know, this ruling outlaws abortion completely. I would not be surprised if there's a decent chunk of the population that thinks that when, again, that's not the case. Like you said, it's not it's not federally illegal. And and it could easily be legislated and and there could be a law that's passed that says, you know, this is something that can be done across the board. And and that's not something that's being prevented in any manner. But that's not the that's I haven't seen any any real movement on that front as far as on a federal level. But like you said, we've seen widely varying approaches to this state by state, which is to be understood because, you know, states, different state states have different demographics and different ideals and different ideologies.

And so you're going to see a kind of a widely varying approach to this. Yeah. So you've seen some states New York is undertaking amending their constitution out of the process. And I haven't read the story, but there looks like maybe they've got the votes necessary to amend the constitution of their state to include abortion as a constitutional right. You've seen states like Texas and and some other southern states kind of already had laws on the books.

Right. You know, if Roe v. Wade has ever overturned, you know, abortion is illegal. You've seen some states, you know, there's a big story about a girl in Ohio who sounds like maybe had been raped. Very young girl trying to get an abortion missed a six week deadline, I guess, is on the books.

I think it was Ohio. I didn't read I didn't read a lot of it, but had to go to a different state. And you see a lot of states who are trying to find ways to penalize people who go out of state to get abortion. So it's just it's like the Wild West and abortion law right now.

There's no there's not even anything close to uniformity. And that, you know, honestly, from an attorney perspective, that's that's the biggest problem is, you know, how how is it going to be treated in different states? And it really is just going to be wide open, you know, until something's done on the federal level. And I think that's what everybody you know, everybody is, you know, either super happy with the Supreme Court decision or they're really angry about it. There's not a lot of people who are middle of the road on this issue. But those, you know, your elected representatives can make, you know, depending on what side you fall in, they can make this right. Or, you know, I just don't see where we I don't see where we it's not a it's not a very smooth path forward, I think is the best way to say it right now.

It's a very rocky path for Josh, I think is is is the best way to describe it. And, you know, very, very interesting this the way that this this critique of that substantive due process. You know, you could you could really read that into some other precedents like you like you mentioned in your notes here. And the fact that, you know, that was basically called demonstrably erroneous. And that there's a duty to correct the error established in those precedents.

That's that's that's strong wording being used there. Yeah, that was from the Thomas dissent. So, Justice Alito wrote the main opinion and is the one, you know, you might remember went through all the history of how abortion has been treated in the United States. And, and, and went on to say that, you know, this, this doesn't necessarily affect other rights that we've read in because you can, you know, same sex marriage, other reproductive rights that have used the same logic to say we have a constitutional right that this is protected. You know, Alito says the court's not coming after these other things, but this is before them and they want to correct it. But in Thomas's dissent, he specifically says, you know, we should look at all this other stuff now.

And this is our this is our chance to fix all this stuff based on flawed constitutional logic. But I don't know, Joe, I don't want you know, people are gonna be talking about this for a long time. And we're years and years and years, we're gonna see the way this decision affects everything around us.

That's right. And it'll be interesting to see how it develops. I have, I'm going to go ahead and refrain from making any further bold predictions. And, but it'll be very, very interesting to see how this progresses, how this plays out and what kind of the ripple effects of it are.

There you have it, folks. The Outlaw Lawyer, again, a very delicate subject to talk about. It is top of the headlines in the news. Again, the Dodd Abortion Law Fallout.

It will be back on the show from time to time, I know, as it continues to be a hot button issue. You are listening to the Outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. So and we want to thank you for listening.

I tell you, we've kind of got our niche on the weekends and talking about the legalese. And if you've got a situation that you are facing and you just have questions that you need answers to, jot this number down and call at 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. And just leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And an attorney will return that call shortly.

And also, you can always email your questions to the program. Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We'll use those questions on a future show. We'll change the names around. But you know what?

You'll get an answer to your question that way as well. And check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com. We've got more coming up on the program today. Next up, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association versus the Bruin Decision. That's coming up next on the Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer.

Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm. They're the managing partners. They're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. They have offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay-Varina, and Gastonia. And we understand, look, there are legal situations you may be facing.

And you may have questions. Great resource for you. Call the firm. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch with you. And you can always email your questions to the program.

Questions at theoutlawlawyer.com. We are going to get into our next portion of the program. Gentlemen, New York State Rifle and Pistol Association versus the Bruin Decision. Yeah. Morgan, I've heard people pronounce this two ways. I've heard Bruin and Braun. So I don't know which way is correct.

That was our... Well, I'm from North Carolina. I look at B-R-U-E-N and I say Bruin, but it could be Braun. Well, I always tell people if there's any way I could mispronounce the name, I'm going to do it. I'm the worst person at pronouncing... Dude, I'm Ron Burgundy.

You put it in front of me and I say it. Braun, Bruin, Bruin. This reminds... I don't know why this reminds me of this.

This reminds me of... You heard of the Mandela Effect, Joshua? Yeah. Yeah. The Bernstein and Bernstein Bears.

I don't know why this triggers that in me. Tomato, tomato. Yes. So over the past week or two, the Supreme Court has been dropping just bomb after bomb on everybody, just releasing all these opinions at the end of their session. And so, of course, the Dodd case that we talked about last segment, that's been the one that's garnered the most attention because it was the Supreme Court taking away a previously constitutional right that they had originally read into the Constitution. So they're taking that away.

Of course, that's always going to be big news, no matter what the subject matter. And, of course, abortion, that being the subject matter, makes it even more controversial. But even kind of a bigger decision and kind of the other side of the coin, the constitutional right to abortion as it existed, was kind of read into the Constitution, was not enumerated, as we would say.

This is the other side of the coin. This is the Second Amendment, your right to bear arms, which is... You can argue about exactly what it means, but it's clearly a right that is the Bill of Rights. It's something that the Founding Fathers thought was extremely important, so much so that it was the second right listed there in the Bill of Rights.

So I saw a lot of people trying to draw... I saw a lot of people on social media and in the regular media just saying that, you know, OK, well, we don't have the right to abortion, but we have the right to carry a concealed weapon, you know, and just kind of comparing those two things. But these are two different things from a legal perspective.

It's a right that was kind of read into the Constitution, and then there's a right that's clearly laid out in the Constitution. And so in this case, you may remember New York has a very strict concealed carry. You know, New York, Chicago, California, they have very strict state gun laws, right? So you have your federal gun laws, but then states can obviously be stricter.

And those are the states that kind of have the strictest gun laws in the country. New York's concealed carry, you had to show... you had like an exceptional need, an exceptional cause to... when you applied for your permit, you had to get references. And the argument here in this case was that a lot of those applications just get denied and there's no grievance process.

There's no appeals process. The state just says, no, you didn't demonstrate this need, this factor that we need from you. This factor is not really defined anywhere in the statute, what it is. Again, if this government official says you can't have one, you can't have a concealed carry permit, then you just don't get it.

And that was it. And so that's what this lawsuit came from. They had all kinds of problems with this statute. And Joe, I don't know if you got to read this opinion, but it was kind of short as far as Supreme Court opinions go, but Clarence Thomas wrote this opinion, Justice Thomas, and he kind of threw all the old Second Amendment case law out the books again. You know, it's not really getting rid of precedent necessarily, but he said, we're going to examine these laws in a new way and his exact language on this, I got to find it in my notes. The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. And so he's talking about freedom of religion, you know, freedom of speech. The right to bear arms has kind of been treated differently in case law up to this point.

And they're saying, no, they're saying this is an express right. And, you know, if you're going to states, obviously there's limits that they can put on this right, just like any other right, but it needs to be done in a certain way. And so that was kind of a different line of thinking for the right to bear arms, especially in states that really try to restrict that. Yeah, Josh, you know, we had a we're looking at a 6-3 decision here and where you have the majority rule and that that New York law is unconstitutional. And effectively, what the ruling was, was that the, you know, that possession of pistols in public is a guaranteed constitutional right under the Second Amendment. And, you know, state licensing on firearms is not necessarily an infringement on that right, as long as the states stay within the what we call shall issue systems, which can only condition licenses upon satisfying objective criteria, as opposed to the may issue systems, which seem to contain more arbitrary evaluations, as opposed to more objectively verifiable criteria. So, you know, an example of objective criteria would be like, you know, a standardized background check, as opposed to some of the more arbitrary evaluations that have been proposed that are now being deemed unconstitutional, such as like a, you know, I think social media evaluations were referenced in that.

But it's basically just an attempt to, you know, keep arbitrary infringements of this right from being made into law. So when this decision came down, I was actually in New York. And so I was watching the local news.

I was in upstate New York. I wasn't in New York City, but I was watching the local news up there. And the governor and everybody else in government, it's just this decision. They're very angry about it and very defiant. You know, we talked a little bit ago about what happens when states just don't listen to the federal government. You know, we talked about that on the show. You know, we've got all this disagreement in partisan politics. And at what point do states stop listening to the federal government?

And, you know, anyway, but neither here nor there. Yeah, New York, their governor, she was up there and she was not happy with this. And so she's working with their attorney general and they already had a new law. And, yeah, it had a social media component, you know, that you're that you're going to be evaluated and they put in a grievance process. So if you're denied, they can go to appeals. They're trying to cater to some of the things the Supreme Court said. But, you know, it was it was good here. You know, there was a there was another quote here from the decision. It is undisputed that the petitioner so that the two folks who got denied their concealed carry permit and and filed this action, it's undisputed that the petitioners to ordinary law abiding adult citizens are part of the people whom the Second Amendment protects.

I think that's a good I think that's a good way to think about this. You know, the governor of New York, when she was talking, she mentioned the Buffalo shooting was like six weeks ago. So that was that grocery store shooting, which is horrible. And then you had the school shooting and then and then since then, we've we've had the Fourth of July shooting up there in Chicago area.

So definitely troublesome at at the least. But I always, always worry, you know, when something like this happens, it's terrible. We want to stop it.

We don't want this to happen. But the first thing everybody does is like restrict what how a law abiding citizen can can get a firearm. And and that's a slippery slope. And especially nowadays, you know, people don't have to cool off. Right.

People can just take to social media immediately with their whatever they have on the top of their heads. You know, that was a we had to take negotiations in law school. Jeff, take that just of negotiations. I didn't have to take it. I could have taken it.

I chose not to. I see. All right. Well, we take negotiations and and one of the things that I picked up in class, especially in that you can text and you can email. You know, a good part of negotiation is letting things sit in right when you get an offer.

Right. So you're trying to settle a personal injury case. There's been a car accident. You're going back and forth with the insurance company and there's offers made back and forth, you know, sitting on it, you know, not letting some letting some time pass. And I think our professor at the time back in the day said, you know, maybe just write a letter, right? Maybe don't even email.

Everybody wants to email. Maybe just write a letter and you let that letter get delivered in the mail and you let them sit on the letter and you slow down negotiations to think about it. And your knee jerk reaction isn't always the best idea.

And I think that's I think that's what here, you know, when something like this happens, everybody's real quick. You know, we need age limits, we need, you know, whatever we need or we'll make concealed carry so hard to get that no one can get them. I don't know that that's the answer.

I don't know that that helps. I don't think limiting the rights of law abiding citizens, no matter what the topic is, is ever the answer. And so like like we said earlier, this was an this is an enumerated right.

This was another this was another quote here that I thought was important. It says nothing in the Second Amendment's text draws a home public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms. And the definition of bear naturally encompasses public carry. Moreover, the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. So here they're defending the law, the law abiding citizen who has the right to defend themselves in their home.

They're also saying in public. And so that's kind of a new thought process. So it'll be interesting to see how the states, you know, most states have a concealed carry process.

And most, you know, here in North Carolina, it's it's definitely not difficult. There's a background check. You got to take a class. And I've done all that. You know, I've got I've got the concealed carry. You don't have yours, do you, Joe? No, no, I don't.

I just try to be I try to be around you. You're going to protect me. That's right. So you're right to be attacked at any given moment. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned, you know, knee jerk reactions and, you know, just just, you know, blanket restrictions aren't the play. But but I think it's also important to know, you know, this ruling doesn't state that that state licensing of firearms and restrictions are on their face, unpermitted.

You know, that that it's actually the opposite of that. They just have to be they have to be reasonable. They can't be arbitrary. And, you know, I think it's important that we clarify, you know, I see I think something we and most reasonable folks agree on is the fact that there are definitely a place for restrictions.

And I don't think that we would advocate for there to be just it just be the Wild West and there are no restrictions in place. But but it's very important to to be intelligent about how we go about that. And you don't want to restrict the ability of, you know, good, decent, law abiding citizens to to protect themselves. And because that's specifically what, you know, that that provision of the Constitution is designed to guarantee. And I think it comes back to previous discussions we've had. I mean, clearly, clearly, if you look at, you know, our country and you look at the the things that have occurred recently and just the sheer volume of mass shootings and things of that nature, I think it's you would be hard pressed to argue that there is not an issue with with gun violence and and with with issues, you know, events of that nature occurring. But I think, again, we come back to the fact that that that it has to be a multifaceted, multi angle approach to solving that problem. It can't strictly be we're going to just throw these blanket restrictions on gun owners and we're going to do all these different things to prevent ownership. That could be a piece of it.

It just has to be intelligent. But there's also some other elements that need to be looked in. And and again, it's just going to it's going to it's an issue that needs to be solved. But it has to become that you got to come at it from various angles.

And I do not have the answer to what those angles are. I want to make that clear. But I just think you can't be short sighted in how you approach solving that issue. I know we're coming up against a break, but I have a lot of I have a lot of family in law enforcement. They used to always tell me the bad guys don't care what the laws are.

You know, and so I would I would say, hey, the bad guys don't care what laws New York makes. You know, if a bad guy wants to get a gun, a bad guy is going to get a gun and and and making it harder for the regular guy to to protect themselves is is is a difficult one to swallow sometimes. But lots more to talk about. We'll stop talking about guns for eight minutes and talk about something else.

All right. There you go, folks. Outlaw Lawyer. We will roll on.

Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. I tell you a touchy subject. A lot of people in on this. If you have a question about something that you're going through from a legal standpoint, here's a phone number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And just leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the program. Questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And speaking of questions, we've got listener questions coming up on the other side. You're listening to the Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome back into the outlaw lawyers. Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer are your hosts. They're the managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Conveniently located offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina and Gastonia. And they are practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate, and I kind of steer the ship a little bit. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions. You can always call the firm eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about. An attorney will be in touch with you from Whitaker and Hamer. And you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And speaking of that, now we get into some listener questions.

Always a very popular segment. Well, Morgan, one of the one of the reasons we do this show, one of the good things I like about this show is that we do have folks call in. And we usually we try to talk to everybody that calls in. We don't always get back to everybody right away. But we have gotten back to to everybody who emails us or text us or calls us. And so I talked to I think I talked to five or six listeners last week just about things they had going on. Some the firm could help with some.

They just kind of needed some general general direction. But it's always fun to talk to folks. And so this is a this came from a it wasn't really the question they were asking me, but this is something that we talked about, one of our listeners. And so I kind of rephrased the question to get it into a format that we can talk about here on the show. But basically, I got a special warranty deed at closing. Right. So this this person, this fictional person that we've made up, they went and they bought a house from, let's say, a builder.

It doesn't have to be a builder, but let's make it a builder for our scenario. And they they went to closing and they got their deed recorded. And then when they got the deed, the deed was called a special warranty deed. And it's not something they had maybe talked about a lot before closing.

So they were kind of surprised here in our scenario. And so I thought this was a good idea to talk about your deed, the deed to your home or your investment property or your your beach condo or whatever it may be. In North Carolina, there's there's three types of deed. And so the question came to be, what's the difference between a special warranty deed, a general warranty deed and a quick claim deed? And there's other types. You know, you'll see a trustee's deed or, you know, there's other types of deeds we could talk about.

These are the three you see the most. Joe, what's a special warranty deed? Man, I tell you what, this is the type of conversation that really gets my blood boiling and I get very passionate about my deeds. So I had to get up and turn the fan on because I was getting hot thinking about this this riveting deed discussion. But you set that up beautifully.

Josh causes a lot of confusion with folks. Like you said, three, three, generally three types of deeds. And we start off with the most I'd say the most common that we see from day to day, which is that the general warranty deed. And so basically what a general warranty deed is, is, you know, your seller or you if you are conveying this property to someone, you're stating that you are you're going to warrant just generally against any kind of title issue that there may be out there. You're defending the title that you're conveying and you're representing that that title is good against all comers, whether it be people from before you in the chain of title, obviously nothing after the fact that you convey the property out. But you're just basically saying that not only are you going to warn against the time that you had the property, but you're going to say, you know, anything prior to this, I'm willing to warrant and basically guarantee that there are no kind of outstanding issues. And then I'm conveying good title to you.

Yeah. So someone comes to comes to me or Joe and say, you know what, guys, I've got this piece of real property under contract. I got to close in 30 days. I need a title search.

So we get busy in North Carolina. There's a statute in play, but basically most searches you're going to go 30 years or more to establish ownership, to establish what we call marketable title. And so we're going to we're going to go back to that that first deed 30 years or so back and then and then come forward. And so your seller, you know, if everything looks good, your seller would give you a general warranty and you're closed. It's your house.

You're all done. But let's say you come to find out like 180 years ago, some guy granted a utility easement that's never been used. But now let's say the gas company, you know, wants to use it.

So they send you a letter saying, hey, we got an easement. Your closing attorney might not have seen it because it was 180 years ago or 115 or 80. You know, whatever, whatever the time period is, your general warranty deed, you go back against your seller on that. That's something you can sue. Even after closing certain things, you can still sue a seller for. So a general warranty deed, a seller would be liable in that situation because they gave you a warranty that, hey, it's as good as it gets. So that's a general warranty deed.

And that's what you get at most close at most standard closings where you're buying a house. You're going to get a general warranty deed. But however, there's many instances where usually like a corporate seller, maybe someone who flips properties and doesn't really hold on to them very long. There's a lot of folks that'll say, hey, I'll sell you this property, but I'll only give you a special warranty deed. So what is that, Joseph, a special warranty deed?

So like you said, we see this a lot with, you know, some of these larger national builders, some corporate sellers. But basically the special warranty deed, you're still going to be getting a warranty. Your seller is still warranting something to you, but it's going to be restricted and limited from what you will get from a general warranty deed. So basically what the seller is going to warrant to you is they're not going to say any, they're not speaking as to prior to their ownership of the property. They're saying from the time that they acquired this property, they themselves have done nothing to impair the title. They have, you know, they've got no liens or judgments or other kind of issues that would affect title to the property. And they're going to warrant against anything from the date they acquired forward.

But anything prior to that, anything that predated their ownership, you know, that's something that they're not going to defend against. So the practical effect of that is if you were conveyed by special warranty deed to property and you discover a title defect, say you go to sell that property and there's a title defect that pops up from prior to that seller's ownership, you know, they're going to have no liability to you for any of those issues as far as the warranty that's provided by that deed. And with that, I would also say that you're still, even if you agree to that, and that's something you contract for, right? That's something that when you say, hey, I'll pay 250 for this property and I'll agree that I'll take a special warranty deed.

So that's something you negotiate. And so you've agreed to take a special warranty deed, but you're still going to take that to a closing attorney, hopefully Whitaker and Hamer, but you're going to take that to a closing attorney. That closing attorney is still going to do the same search, the same title search they would for any other closing. So you're still going to have an attorney here in North Carolina. It's an attorney examine title, but a special warranty deed is different.

It's less of a little bit less of a commitment from your seller. And then if we keep on going down the line, you know, we got a quick claim deed next. And so I think some people get special warranty deeds and quick claims confused. But Joe, what's a quick claim? I'll tell you what people get confused as they get confused over the fact that it's actually called a quit as in Q U I T claim deed as opposed to a quick Q U I C K claim deed. That's one of the, it's one of the big issues we see brother.

That's a pet peeve of mine. I know I saw, I saw an attorney and out of state attorney drafted a North Carolina deed. I don't think maybe they were licensed in North Carolina. It's a whole different discussion, but it came through as a quick with a C K D. Now that bothered me too. I'm sure we can't speak. We can't speak to what the quick claim deed does. But, uh, the quick claim deed, basically what you have when you have a quick claim deed, it's, you know, we talked about the general warranty, which is extremely broad, defends against all comers, the special warranty, which is more limited and just defends against the time that that seller owned the property. Then you've got the quick claim deed, which is basically I'm giving you what I got.

I don't know what it is. I'm making no warranty as to my title in this property. I may not even have title in this property.

I can have no interest in it whatsoever. I'm giving you what I have, uh, whether that be a fractional interest, whether it be encumbered by 16,000 liens, there's, there's no representation being made. And I'm not warranting against literally anything. I am just giving you what I've got. So that could be good. It could be perfectly fine. There could be no issue or it could be horrible and you could be, you know, taking on a terrible, terrible problem. Um, but the quick claim deed is just, you're getting what I've got.

Deal with it. Yeah. So a quick claim deed, you see that pop up a lot between spouses who are maybe getting divorced or separated. So you'll see one spouse quick claim their interest, uh, you know, to the, to the other spouse, or you'll see that if like eight people inherit a piece of property, somebody, you know, the heirs will start, you know, if somebody's agreeing to buy, buy a mouth, they'll start quick claiming their interest to, uh, uh, but, but that's where you usually see those. You usually don't see those in like what I would call it normal closing, where you've gone, you've gone under contract to buy a house from a builder. You're, you're not going to see a quick claim.

That's not what really, when they're used, that's kind of the step ladder, you know, general warranty deed, then underneath that, the special warranty deed. And then way, way, way down low, uh, is the quick claim deed, but that is a quick, I say quick, I felt like it was a quick, that's a quick primer on the different deeds in North Carolina. And an answer to our first listener question today, we have a second one coming up next. Quick claim, not quick claim.

There you go. Don't upset Josh Whitaker, the outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, where you can find a managing partners there. And again, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. If you've got your own legal question, you can always contact the firm by calling 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186. Leave your contact information and briefly what that call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be calling you back.

You can always email your questions to the program. That's questions at the outlawlawyer.com. Another listener question coming up on the other side. Again, you're listening to the outlaw liars. Welcome back to the outlaw liars, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm.

Offices conveniently located for you, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina and Gastonia. And a reminder, managing partners and practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. We've got a short segment, but we have another listener question.

So this has come up a time or two. A lot of people, you know, when I grew up, my family, we didn't need a lawyer very often. So I think my whole, you know, childhood to early adulthood, you know, my family probably had a closing or two, a ticket or two, did some wills, you know, just kind of normal lawyer needs. And so I think growing up, I didn't really understand this until I was a lawyer. But I wanted to, one of our listener questions is basically how does a lawyer get paid? And the way I phrased it was I went to see a lawyer and had to pay a consultation fee to meet with that lawyer. I thought the lawyer would only get paid if they recovered money for me. And so the question basically is how do lawyers get paid?

And the answer is it's different, right? It's different depending on the circumstances. So you see, I think most people just in their daily routine, you know, you'll, if you watch TV, you see the personal injury attorneys who run ads. And Joe, what kind of fee would an attorney charge usually for personal injury? So what a shame that lawyers are getting paid for the work that they're doing.

It's just a tragedy, man. But yeah, you know, there's different types of fees and there's really two primary ways that fees are assessed. And one of those methods is the contingent fee. Like you said, Josh, you're going to see those contingent fees primarily with personal injury cases. And what you see there is a situation where the attorney is not going to be getting paid unless there is a recovery for the client. And then the attorney is generally going to be getting a percentage of that recovery as their fee.

That does happen. And again, like we said, that is the that's the standard for personal injury cases as opposed to the the other method of billing, which is the hourly rate. And again, that can be a flat fee, but we'll just call it our hourly because it's it's the opposite of contingent where recovery is is of no consequence. You know, there's not always going to be your case may not always be the type where there is going to be a recovery that that's going to be generated from from your representation or a monetary recovery. And there's still going to be a substantial amount of time, energy, effort, work expended by your attorney in that process. So some things are going to be built in that contingent manner. Again, that's going to generally be the P.I.

that we see the personal injury. And then I'd say the majority of things are actually going to be the more traditional hourly or flat fee billing, where your attorney is going to be collecting either a fee up front or they're going to be billing you hourly based on the amount of time they put into your case. Because one thing one thing about litigation and one thing about litigating is it's you know, you can have an informed idea of what that's going to cost, the time it's going to going to take and what's going to go into it. But but it's unpredictable and it can it can widely vary. So a lot of times the only way to to accurately, you know, as an attorney, account for the amount of work that's going to go in, the time it's going to go in is to handle it on the hourly basis where you can you know, you're just going to have to collect as you go because you never know what is going to be required.

And just to give you some examples, just just from when I was growing up. Right. So if we needed if my family needed a ticket, an attorney to handle a speeding ticket or or something like that, that's usually a flat fee. So the attorneys can be like, all right, you got a speeding ticket, you're going 20 over in whatever county I charge blank to do that.

And if you pay me blank, I will do that. So that's kind of a flat fee situation. It was in a car accident right where there were the other driver had insurance that turned into a personal injury matter. So when we say personal injury, we're we're talking about car accidents, slip and falls, you know, things like that. So where someone was negligent and you were hurt as a result. And then, like you said, Joe, a lot of times attorneys will be like, all right, you don't have to pay anything out of pocket.

We're going to recover. I think your case is worth this. And I'll take a third of it when it settles or whatever that attorney takes for contingency. And in the hourly fee, a lot of times comes up in kind of the business law world. You know, if you're suing someone for breach of contract or we're trying to work out an easement issue with your with your neighbor. Most attorneys, some might, but most attorneys won't do a flat fee, won't do a contingency fee.

That wouldn't make sense there. They'll do an hourly and say, I charge blank an hour. I think this will take about five hours. This is what I think it'll cost you. And this is this is our fee agreement, you know, so really just depending on what you need from the attorney. And then again, every attorney is a little bit different.

You know, there's none of this is set in stone. So depending on the attorney you're talking to and the matter and the time and their experience, all these things kind of go into fees and how they're charged. But anybody you talk to should be up front with you about what they you know, what the attorney expects you to pay and why and things like that.

But I always get a lot of questions about fees. And so I thought that would be a good question to get answered today. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, another one in the books. You can find Josh and Joe at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners there. And they're the practicing attorneys here in North Carolina offices, conveniently located.

Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Marina and Gastonia. If you're facing a legal situation, you've got a question. Here's a number for you. Eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six.

That's eight hundred six five nine one one eight six. And leave your contact information briefly what that call is about. An attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email your questions to the program. The outlaw lawyer questions at the outlaw lawyer dot com. And please check out that Web site. It's a good one. The outlaw lawyer dot com.

Another great show in the books. We'll talk to you next week right here on the radio. 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.