UNC Affirmative Action

This week on The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh, Joe, Taylor and Cassandra discuss the law and how it affects everything around us. And as always here at The Outlaw Lawyer, our attorneys tackle all the day's most urgent burning legal questions such as why is UNC being sued for its interpretation of affirmative action? Can a machine commit manslaughter?

And when is it legal to criminally charge a juvenile as an adult? That's all coming up next on The Outlaw Lawyer. And now, Outlaw Lawyer. Welcome in to The Outlaw Lawyer, Josh, Joe, Cassandra and Taylor.

We have the whole crew here today. I want to remind you that Josh and Joe are managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer. They have offices in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. They are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. And we also have Cassandra Nicholas and Taylor Scrugg-Smith. Cassandra now in the Moorhead City office, Taylor Scrugg-Smith in studio with us.

So excited about that. If you've got a legal situation that you're facing, you can always get in touch with Whitaker and Hamer. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Just leave your contact information, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always email the show questions at TheOutlawLawyer.com. We'll answer those questions on a future program.

Josh, take it away. We've got a lot of stuff to talk about today, Morgan. A lot of legal issues to work through, but as you are well aware, I can't jump right into legal topics right away.

We got to ease ourself into legal discussions. So I figured a good way to get into that frame of mind was to talk about the holiday that just passed, right? So we all just got through Halloween, right? We're getting into that end-of-the-year holiday rotation. We just got done with Halloween, looking down towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. But guys, how was Halloween, Joe? Did you get the kids out there?

You trick-or-treat? No. No, you didn't. No.

No, I didn't. I think we did one house. We did a thing prior to Halloween. My sister does a thing, like a trunk-or-treat thing at our house, and she lives next door.

So we do that. We've been letting that take the place of a true go-out, trick-or-treat thing. Did the kids dress up? Oh, yeah, they dressed up. They got to dress up then, and then we ended up going to eat, and we stopped by a family member's house, like one house.

I was like, we want to trick-or-treat. And it was raining. That was a blessing, a real blessing to the parents that it was raining. I was like, it's raining, guys.

And we come out of the restaurant. It's clearly not raining. And I was like, the forecast looks bleak for the immediate future. Black cloud and Joe. Pretty sure it was a tornado, and we needed to get home immediately.

The kids need to go to sleep. And I was good, man. We stretched out Halloween over the whole month, man. So we did a little bit of celebrating every day. So by the end of it, I went a whole lot left to celebrate. Taylor, do you have big Halloween plans? No. So the weekend before, one of my friends had a housewarming party that we dressed up for since Halloween was around the corner, and that was my Halloween celebration. I like that. Celebrating early, man.

No way, no. Dressed up meaning formal, or did you actually go costume? We did costume. And what did you go as?

The theme was older people. So I had old school rollers in my hair and this old nightgown dress I found in my closet. Pretty cold. Pretty cold.

Sorry, you asked. And then I had my own Maleficent horns in the office that a coworker got me from Disney. So that was my dress up in the office with my very dark orange shirt. Cassandra, this is your first Halloween in your new neighborhood. Do you guys have a lot of trick-or-treaters? What did you guys do? We had a ton of trick-or-treaters.

I was really impressed with our new neighborhood. A bunch of the houses were done up really well for Halloween. All the adults were sitting outside on their porches or in their driveways handing out candy in costume. I didn't put a costume on. We didn't have time to decorate this year. So we were the lame house, but they still showed up and got all the candy. It was really good. The kids in your neighborhood, we're talking about how lame your house was.

I know what you did. Right? Yeah, we don't really live in a neighborhood. We just kind of live on the highway. We live on a road, right? So we always have to take the kids. We have to pick a neighborhood and take the kids. You separated yourselves from the neighborhood. Yeah. My kids are still in that age bracket where they're all going to want to do it no matter what.

We don't have an alternative like Joseph did there. We made our trip into a bigger neighborhood in the Raleigh area that was slammed. It was like being at the fair. Sounds terrible.

We didn't get rained on, but we were able to rush the kids like, oh, we can only do so many because it's about to rain. Joseph, what did your kids dress up as? Oh, man. You put them on the spot too early.

No, this is the thing, man. My kids picked a costume out super early in the month, and then they changed the wind, man. So they ended up wanting to do something else by the time it came and home making a costume. I think the actual day of, we went as a clown, like a scary clown, and then we had some witches, and then we had a Minecraft character. A lot of, yeah, we liked a lot of different things. We had, we ended up with a zombie hippie.

I think I told you last week. You told me the kids were really the zombie. They like to make the zombies, everything in the zombie. So we had a zombie hippie, zombie Michelangelo, the Ninja Turtle.

Not the paint, okay. Makes sense. And then my middle son, his name is Jake, and he dresses up as Jake from State Farm. He talks to people about it. Every year?

This is the second year he's known. Nice. I like that. He likes to do it.

Did not do a zombie, Jake, from State Farm, which would probably have been interesting. That's the next evolution. But- Mariah Carey has already put up a video of her saying it's time, and she's already singing the Christmas song again. It's Christmas time, Josh. She makes so much money off that song.

Every year for the last, like, 20 years. That's what- He never has to do anything else. It's what's on, man. It's already back in the top 100s on iTunes. Well, that's what Paul McCartney always used to do.

He wanted a happy birthday song, and he wanted a Christmas song. He's like, if you could do that, you'll be set, man. It's genius. We should learn from that.

How do we monetize that, man? You guys are gonna start singing for us? Is that what's happening? Yeah.

I think that's the- How do we take that information and make it work? We put you singing Mariah Carey music on Spotify for Christmas. That low voice wouldn't work with that Mariah Carey note. Oh, man. That'd be rough.

That'd be rough. All right. This is the outlaw lawyer. We talk about legal topics, except for Morgan. We are all attorneys. As always. No offense, Morgan.

None taken. Well, we are all attorneys. We're all practicing attorneys.

We all practice with the law firm of Whitaker and Hamer, who has several offices throughout the state. And when we all get together on the show, that is our goal, to talk about legal news topics we think we can talk about with a little more knowledge than maybe the average broadcaster or newspaper writer, if that's still a thing. And so we got three topics here today. So the first thing I want us to talk about, we're going to go into right now out in California, there is a manslaughter case, a criminal state action against a gentleman who was in his Tesla driving, operating his Tesla on autopilot, ran a stoplight, sped through a stoplight, T-boneed a couple, killed them. So he is on charge. He is on trial for manslaughter. So that's in, that's introducing a lot of new issues into what would be a typical trial since he was on autopilot whose fault was the accident, the man or the machine.

So we're going to spend some time talking about that. And then I don't want to give any coverage, so I'm not going to use the guy's name. I don't want to give him any notoriety, but the Raleigh Headingham shooter, of course, a tragic event that happened a couple of weeks ago here in Raleigh. I kind of wanted to look at the legal questions, the legal ramifications that are coming out of that. There's been a couple of articles recently questioning if the city of Raleigh gave everybody enough notice once they figured out what was going on. Could they have given quicker notice?

Could they have saved more lives? I want to talk about the guns that were in this, the shooter's possession and gun laws in general and how they're changing. And then I think it's interesting too, to talk about how this young man is going to be charged as a juvenile or an adult and how that works.

That's in the news a lot, and we don't ever really talk about it. And then a big news story over the past couple of days, there was oral arguments on a case involving the University of North Carolina in front of the U.S. Supreme Court discussing affirmative action as it's used at the University of North Carolina and Harvard. And so that was a huge day-long oral argument parade at the Supreme Court. And I think that was covered pretty intensely, but I thought we'd put an attorney's spin on that. So we've got a lot of beefy, I think that's the word I'm looking for, beefy legal issues to kind of go over here.

It's a meaty show, and we'll get right to it. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners at Whittaker and Hamer law firm, also on our program, Cassandra Nicholas is remote in from Moorhead City office, and we have Taylor Scruggs-Smith here with us in studio. If you've got a legal situation that you are facing, you can always contact Whittaker and Hamer and get some answers to your questions.

Call 800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186, and leave your contact information, briefly what that call is about, and an attorney with Whittaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can always email your questions to the show, questionsattheoutlawlawyer.com, and we'll answer those questions on a future program. And check out the website, theoutlawlawyer.com, and as always, convenient offices for you located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and the aforementioned Moorhead City.

We'll be right back with more Outlaw Lawyer. The Outlaw Lawyer's Josh Whittaker and Joe Hamer back on the air. Whittaker and Hamer law firm, the power behind the program, Josh and Joe are managing partners at the firm, practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina.

Offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Verena, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. Joining us remotely for Moorhead City, we have Cassandra Nicholas, and in studio with us today, Taylor Scrugg-Smith. They are regulars on the program, and we have to give them proper billing. I'm Morgan Patrick, Consumer Advocate.

If you've got a legal situation that you're facing and you've got some questions, we've got a phone number for you, 800-659-1186, that's 800-659-1186, leave your contact info, briefly what the call is about, and an attorney with Whittaker and Hamer will be in touch with you to talk about those questions. Also, you can email your questions to the show, questions at the outlawlawyer.com. We'll answer them on a future program. Josh, take it away. All right, Joseph. So, we're going to talk about... This is our segment where we're going to talk about this Tesla, this Tesla manslaughter matter, and I've entitled this in our notes here. I've entitled this manslaughter versus machine, which I thought was pretty witty. That's pretty good, man. I know. That was just on the cuff, too, man. I didn't put a lot of thought into that. So, here, just to recap, back in 2019, Kevin Riad was in his mid-20s and he was driving in Gardena, California in a Tesla Model S. He had engaged autopilot and while in autopilot mode, he ran a red light and he crashed into a Honda Civic.

The driver and the passenger in the Civic died at the scene. It also notes here they were on their first date, which is sad, but that was Orange County, California. That is a thing that happened and this sounds like maybe the DA's office, the prosecutor down there kind of struggled with what to charge, right? You don't have intent.

We've talked about that before on the show. For a first degree murder, you need some intent or you need something else. If it's an accidental, negligent killing, usually you're going more towards manslaughter, so it sounds like he's been charged with manslaughter. The issue here is, hey, he didn't, his argument, I guess, is going to be, I don't buy this argument very much, but his argument is going to be, he wasn't driving. He didn't do this. It's an accident and he shouldn't be tried for manslaughter.

He shouldn't be found guilty of manslaughter, maybe something a little less severe. Joseph, you're the only person here I'm aware of that owns a Tesla. Yeah, man, I care about the environment and it has nothing to do with wanting to drive really fast or anything like that. Tell me about this autopilot mode. Tell me what this looks like in an actual Tesla. Yeah, man, so this is the thing. My Tesla robot car is a very kind and gentle robot and would never hurt anybody.

I want to start off by saying that. I'm not an expert, I'm not a Tesla expert. Maybe I am. Maybe they could call me at trial, but there's a distinction. There is a true autopilot program that you can, it's an add-on that you can get when you have a Tesla and it's an additional thing. You pay an additional cost for it. When you're an idiot like me and you hear about that, you think, well, I can just press this button. It's going to drive me around.

I can just live my life. That's not how it works in practice. You don't autopilot on city streets really, meaning that it's not going to take hard turns for you. Basically, in my experience, the benefit of that, what it does for you is if you get on the highway or a freeway, when you're just going straight or taking exits, it's going to notify you when an exit's coming up, it'll touch a turn signal on it and auto change lanes for you. In my experience of driving a Tesla, the robot does a much better job of driving than me myself.

It's a robot. It's very precise. If anything, again, in my experience, it's overly cautious. One of the complaints I have about it is it's going to slam on brakes if it even senses a red light or a flashing light or a stop sign.

It's going to air on the side of caution. You're going to start slowing down immediately. The exception to that is you do have the ability to override the autopilot by putting your foot on the accelerator. If you're coming up on a yellow light and you're like, I can make this, it's going to stop unless you put your foot down on the gas and again, you can override it at any point. Again, in my experience, the only way that I could see this taking place is if the individual in question pressed the gas, went through on their own because my car would have literally thrown me through the windshield slamming on brakes. Am I correct that you have to be touching the steering wheel at all times?

That's the other thing. You don't have to touch the steering wheel at all times, but it tells you that. You engage autopilot. It tells you, keep your hands on the wheel at all times. So there you go.

There's a little bit of legal wrangling out of the gate. They're making the disclaimer that you need to be attentive. I know that the argument here is that it encourages you to be less attentive.

You can see why they make that argument. It's a logical argument, but they do warn against that immediately, telling you to keep your hands on the wheel. What happens is if you take your hands off the wheel, it seemed like it was a longer period of time, but that's the thing with the Teslas is you get these periodic software updates.

The most recent update, it's like two seconds. Your hands aren't on the wheel. Even if your hands are on the wheel, you have to apply pressure. I can have my hands on the wheel and still get a notification that it's about to disengage autopilot and you have to tug on it a little bit to keep it going. It'll beep like crazy. If you do that long enough, it'll just start beeping like mad and it'll tell you, you got to take control and then we'll disable autopilot for the rest of that drive so you will not be able to do it.

That's happened to me. Very upsetting. All right, Taylor, with that expert Tesla testimony, your injury, you're the DA, you're going with a higher murder charge, a manslaughter or something less like a vehicular manslaughter or maybe even something less than that, what are you doing here if you're the DA? I think if I'm the DA, it's I'm shocked they are going against Tesla in a certain sense because at the same time, it's like how are you going to prove Mens Rea, which is a fancy legal term in criminal law, talking about the intent of the party, which Josh was referring to earlier. So it's like you can't really prove Mens Rea or who committed what actions with a Tesla. The person that drove the car is the one that's bound by driver's license, had to take a test to get on.

He's the one that has to be following the law, whether he knows it or not, because ignorance is not a defense. So I feel like it would be a higher murder charge because you even if any does the argument is it encourages you to be inattentive. You're still the one that's in control of that vehicle, even if you engaged autopilot, you're still the one that had to set your autopilot up, still manage the car with autopilot.

You can't just say, you know, this is a transformer. So I was driving the car and the machine was actually driving. Based off Joe's testimony, it clearly is showing that you still have to have some control of the car and it will disengage on its own. So I feel like that's a higher murder charge. Can't really hold the robot accountable for not doing something.

Cassandra, what do you think you've heard that you've heard you've heard Joseph's expert testimony. You know, you know very little about the facts, but the facts that you know, you're the you're the you're the prosecutor. You're the ADA. You've got to charge this.

What are you doing? I don't necessarily think it would be a higher murder charge. I think manslaughter is the correct charge for this just because there's too much at play.

There is something that the DA can much more reasonably get that we don't need to really get into all the nitty-gritty of the Tesla stuff. If it's a manslaughter charge, that's a lot more achievable. I think it's the same. I think you look at it just like you look at any other vehicular accident, you know, incident like this.

I think it's the exact same. I think we treated the same, you know, it's the operator of the machine, right? So like Josh, let's just in theory, let's just theoretical say, say, I, you know, I run you over with a lawnmower, right? And yeah, say I do that and you die and it's an accident.

Clearly. It's right across from you, man. But I run you over with a lawnmower just for it's not backwards. So it's an accident. You're laying in the grass.

You're playing a prank on me and it's right out from the grass while I'm cutting it. Anyways, it's the same. It's the same concept. You know, I can't even if it's an autonomous lawnmower, like you have an operator that's in control of this thing. The technology is not to the point, you know, maybe this raises a more interesting question in the future when potentially the technology could be to the point where you have full autonomous truck. Because I could see this being a more relevant question in a situation where you don't have these disclaimers, where it's widely accepted in the industry that someone can get behind the wheel of a Tesla, press a button, fall asleep. And they have, you know, that's a different scenario than what we're dealing with here. It's clearly disclaimed, like you're in control. You need to be attentive.

You need to pay attention. And I don't necessarily think the criminal aspect of this is what's the most interesting piece. I think the civil suit that they're bringing against Tesla, that's the more interesting question. And I think it's the same. It's the same discussion, right? And I still think there's not really liability there.

We'll get to the civil stuff because I was going to bring it up in a minute. Before I bring it up, though, my thought was engaging autopilot is kind of like the same decision I think as if like I took my eight year old and put him in my lap and said, hey, you drive. Yeah. So you're like, well, that almost sounds like that's more than.

That's reckless negligence. No, man. I press that button every day and I feel great about it. I feel really good. I feel, I'm be honest, man, I feel safe.

I feel too safe almost, but I'm attentive and I'm paying attention. Right. Right.

And yeah, you're still, you're still. Sorry. Elon's response to this is interesting because he specifically says that this is evidence they need to move towards fully autonomous software sooner rather than later to save more lives. I disagree with that. If the software is up to snuff and you know, I think it's not there yet, but I one million percent think that if you develop really good robot software, it's going to drive way better than like 45 percent of the morons that are driving out there today. We've all seen those people. There's some bad drivers out there. There are two. And as the millennial, I automatically hear hacker, hacker, hacker.

Yeah, it's fine. The hackers will drive better than a lot of these morons, honestly, but that that is, you know, there's and again, I haven't I didn't read all. I didn't read this part of it, but you know, there definitely is.

Is there an active? I know there's a Department of Justice probe into Tesla, but I don't know if there's any active I'm assuming there is somewhere and I just haven't read about it. But is Tesla getting sued for this?

Is there? It says in this article that you found I can't I can't say how how accurate it is, but it says that this the the deceased, the family of the deceased is suing Tesla in this case. I think that's totally. And I mean, maybe maybe they settle something like that just to make it go away. But I mean, if if Tesla has to field every every time, you know, autopilots and you know, involved with some kind of accident, if they've got to field a civil case every time, it seems like it's going to be burdensome.

Yeah, I don't disagree, man. Sounds like car insurance has got to go up. Yeah, just don't don't raise the price on that autopilot subscription.

What does that run you? It's not it's not the cheapest thing in the world, man. But it's worth it.

I'll tell you that it's worth it. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. But if you don't pay, they just cut it off, right? Yeah, they just cut it off. And you still get like you still get like the the the maintain lane, like there's still features that she got that everybody, not everybody, but Josh, yeah, I turned it off. Yeah.

Do you drive a giant old Ford Transit van to transport and 50 children places? Because I tell you, I don't have it, you know, and I turned that turned that off in my car because I get that makes me mad because I don't always I'm not going to signal if there's no one around me. Yeah, I'm not going to turn on my turn signal. And it hates that. Yeah, it beeps at you. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I mean, I've gotten pretty mad at my that'd be a case.

Man murders robot because that's what's going to happen if my car just beeping at me. The outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm managing partners at the firm or practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. Our guests on the program and they're basically co-hosts Cassandra Nicholas is at the Moorhead City office and we have Taylor Scruggs Smith here in studio with us offices conveniently located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and Moorhead City. If you are facing a legal situation, you've got some questions. We've got a phone number for you 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186. You can also just leave your contact information briefly what that calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. You can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future program, questionsattheoutlawlawyer.com.

We'll have more for you coming up next. Coming back into the outlaw lawyers, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They host this show and we get into legal topics each and every week. Also attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer, we have Cassandra Nicholas remotely broadcasting in from Moorhead City and we also have Taylor Scruggs Smith in studio with us today.

Offices for Whitaker and Hamer are conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Farina, Gastonia and as we said Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you've got a legal situation, you've got questions and you need some answers, I have a phone number for you. It's 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the calls about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to this program and we'll answer them on a future show, questionsattheoutlawlawyer.com. Josh. All right. So next up, a more serious issue, not that manslaughter is not serious, but I think we were a little tongue in cheek there with that discussion, but here much more serious topic. I never want to, I'm going to call this guy the Raleigh shooter, I never want to use the names of the folks who do this kind of thing, but obviously over in Headingham we had an incident a couple of weeks ago where we had an active shooter situation, several people lost their lives and it was national news and since then we don't know a whole lot more than we knew to begin with.

We don't know the motives of this young man who I believe was 15 years old who went and murdered several people in his neighborhood. It's a story that again got national coverage and it brings up a lot of questions. The reason I thought about it for today's show is because recently there's been a couple of items in the local news where the first 911 call was at a certain time and then 10 to 15 minutes later you had people still being shot and killed and there was some discussion there about whether the city of Raleigh should have given some quick notice like we do for Amber alerts and things like that so there had been some notice given and if notice had been given people could have sheltered, taken some shelter and maybe some lives would have been saved.

Did you guys see that? Yeah, I saw that and I think it's an interesting point because I have an iPhone and obviously anytime there's an Amber alert or there's what is it, a silver alert when it's an older alert person, we always get those alerts that interrupt anything you're doing on your phone. Completely anything you're doing and it goes off like old TVs used to go off with emergency alert systems so we have that type of capability and I find it interesting that I started getting I was out when this was happening. I was not at my home I was out doing some errands and I started getting multiple text messages saying are you home are you safe and I'm like what are you guys talking about what's going on and people were sharing with me social media posts about what was going on so I didn't even see official posting until later in the day now obviously I don't know how police were operating they might have just you know gone straight there to try to contain the situation as best they could but the notifications that went out I find were interesting because most of them were on some type of social media page versus some announcement on TV or anything like that. Yeah I think that the night that it happened I was at a charitable event down in Garner and did not figure out what had happened until I got home it was after dark you know so it was already well underway when I got home but I tell you what I mean I don't want this to sound bad but just honestly like I don't pay attention to any alert right I mean the only thing I pay attention I look at it I look at it you know I'm gonna that's the thing I'll look at it. I'll at least look at it. Yeah because I got kids man I'm not they're not with me like you pimp but usually I'm at my house yeah right there's that I can't remember the stand-up comedian well I go places sometimes yeah yeah well remember too when this happened that was the opening day of the state fair yeah that was a Thursday afternoon and I was on my way to have dinner with my son in North Raleigh and literally every police car lit up at the same time and they started heading in that direction so I I thought it was an accident somewhere on 440 and then we started getting alerts of an active shooter so and then they were they were very concerned about the state fair that many people in one place sure but they were very I won't say proud not the right word they were they they felt good about how their police presence in their security presence at the fair reacted and the fair kind of carried on but yeah that's the thing I think the reaction of the you know the police reaction the timing of that I you know kudos there I think it's just a matter of like how do we I see what you're saying like there's right I think there is the capacity to issue like official alerts like this and it doesn't make sense because I didn't know I didn't know about it until it was done like and I'm not someone that is like just oblivious to anything that's going on but like I don't spend a lot of time just checking social media randomly and we're not in the area so we didn't get texts from folks so that I'm gonna be aware of and that was the freaky part for me I was getting so many messages like even from co-workers saying like are you okay and I know one of our co-workers messaged you Josh to say she didn't know if she would be in work because she couldn't even get back to her home that night because they had been at the fair and the fairs had record numbers because I even went and it was so many people but it's like this is the first real fear that I've seen so many people that since COVID so like with the numbers so high that's definitely a concern and Cassandra I heard you but then the question is how do you verify how do you how do you like what response is quick enough because you get a call about something like this happening you know obviously you want to take that at face value it's a very serious issue but but when do you send the alert because you know you run the risk of just mass hysteria if you don't properly vet something like this and there are idiots out there that would take advantage of it oh yeah Cassandra you about to say something you're very easy to talk ever cuz you're not in I'm still here I still have things to say I was scrolling on Facebook when it started and in several of my like Raleigh Facebook groups people from that neighborhood were posting like hey I hear gunshots I'm sheltering do you know what's going on and it was just tons of those posts so I started googling and couldn't find anything official for a while after that so I think something even social media wise definitely could have come out sooner but that being said I definitely have those emergency alerts turned off on my phone completely wow can you do that yeah yeah you can turn them off oh where's your heart Josh is like how do I do that Taylor show me the like we got that we got an amber alert the other day it was like something in Ashboro and I like you know my phone's going nuts I looked at it and I was like well you know what I can't do it come on man you look you look at it and you look at the make and model of the car and then you go on you go you become Batman that's what I go out there you look so I can't remember his name I was about to say there's a stamp comedian has a whole bit about this I can't remember his name to save my life but he basically was like what are we supposed to do round up a posse yeah I'm at home with my you know watching TV and you know what he's supposed to do anyway so there's some argument there and then you know I think the Raleigh Police Department we still don't have a whole lot of details and so that that's been a big complaint and there's people they haven't really talked about this I'm you know but I was trying to look at you know we always want to know especially if someone's under 18 you know under 18 you're not you're not going to be able to legally own possessed by a gun and so this is this kid's under 18 looks like he had a shotgun and a handgun so legal guns I haven't seen a lot of discussion of how they got him you know sometimes they're charging parents right if right if the parents legally owned it and your kid got to your your guns and used them for something like this are you responsible gun owners I've seen some parents charged I haven't heard any talk about that yet which I found surprising and it heard any talk about where his parents were at all yet because the first person he killed I believe was his brother was his brother oh we haven't seen any communication about his parents yet and I think that's partially because they're both you know involved because their son was the shooter but also they had another son who was a victim so I I don't know but usually we would have seen something by now about where the guns were even stored in the home or who they were registered under and I guess that's why that information has been released because they're both evict they're like twofold in this situation I am we talked about on the show I can't remember I think it was in Michigan though there it's a they had a kid who took a gun to school they helped the kid get the gun I can't remember all the facts but the parents were getting charged the kid was I think the kid was deceased I think the kid was an active shooter and had been neutralized as part of the response but I think they were gonna charge the parents with with manslaughter and I think we talked about it but I can't remember I need to look and see how that's going because that was one of the first in the nation but you know a lot of times these these events are used as a way to to talk about gun laws maybe what's wrong with gun laws or what could be done better or maybe that nothing could have you know nothing could have prevented this and I haven't heard that discussion on this one I just that's not really anything to to discuss I guess but I just I thought it was odd that we haven't heard that conversation the other thing that I think from a legal perspective is interesting about this is that you know we've got someone here who is a juvenile he is under 18 and he's gonna be charged as an adult and you know you hear that in the news a lot you don't always know what it what it what it means but here I don't know if you guys have any experience with that so typically I mean we've heard it a lot I don't have personal experience with it but typically that means like they're not going to go to any type of juvenile detention center and then be out and when they turn 18 or anything like that they're going to a regular state penitentiary system which whatever that may be whether it's a psychiatric ward or an actual prison they're going to an adult facility the juvenile go ahead Cassandra I talked over you there are limitations relatively recently that even if minors are charged as adults some things are off the table like the death penalty life sentences those still aren't available for juveniles yeah the juvenile system the juvenile criminal system is not really set up to deal with super serious felonies you know things like this it's not it's not well equipped to punish so if you're if you're over 13 and you you commit a very very serious felony that's always going to be an option the DA's office the prosecuting attorney has to to kind of prosecute you as an adult where punishment will be more severe and so that's that's what the DA here has has said in Wake County is that she intends to pursue charges against this 15 year old who he's not out of the hospital I don't think no he just started rehab as well is what it says so okay but anyway obviously a terrible terrible situation that gripped Raleigh and got us in the national news for all the wrong reasons which is not typical for for the Raleigh area but those are all kind of legal issues that kind of stem out from it and and we're gonna see the fallout for for a while and when something like this happens but definitely fodder to to be discussed the outlaw law is Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer you can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm when they're not playing radio show host here managing partners at the firm practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and of course on the program today we have Cassandra Nicholas remoting in from Moorhead City office and we have Taylor Scruggs Smith in studio offices located for Whitaker and Hamer conveniently for you in Raleigh Garner Clayton Golsboro Fuquay Varina Gastonia and Moorhead City if you've got a legal situation you've got questions you need answers I've got a phone number for you 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186 you can also email your questions to the show questions at the outlawlawyer.com and we will answer them on a future program and if you do call in leave your contact info and briefly what the calls about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch check out the website the outlawlawyer.com we're back with more right after this the outlaw lawyers Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices conveniently located Raleigh Garner Clayton Golsboro Fuquay Varina Gastonia and now in Moorhead City they are practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and as for mentioned managing partners at the firm and on the program today Cassandra Nicholas remoting in from Moorhead City's office and we have Taylor Scruggs Smith also an attorney at Whitaker and Hamer joining us in studio I'm Morgan Patrick consumer advocate and away we go I think this is a good time to remind everybody that the attorneys on the show here are licensed to practice in North Carolina we know North Carolina law as well as as as as we can but we comment on a lot of things that maybe don't have to do with North Carolina law have to do with federal law we talked about a California criminal case earlier and of course we're not licensed to practice in California but we do inject our opinions to some of these topics and as we've discussed the Supreme Court the US Supreme Court is back in session they have a slate of cases that they're going to be hearing or oral arguments on for the next couple of months and a lot of them are going to be very fascinating because for the first time in a long time we don't like I don't like to talk about the Supreme Court as you know Republican versus Democrat I don't like to make it politically charged that's not the way we're trained to to look at the Supreme Court as attorneys they're justices and and some of them have a liberal slant some of them have a conservative slant just like in the in the general public but they are professionals they're justices they're trained to look at the facts and the issues and and kind of reconcile that with their own the law with their own personal beliefs but as as is well reported we have a I guess a conservative slant on the Supreme Court for you know last year was the first year this is the second year we've got a new justice so you know watching the Supreme Court action is very fascinating if you ever have time to do it the oral arguments they're easy to find they're not televised it's not you know cameras don't really go in federal courts but you can listen to the oral arguments and they're always very fascinating and and kind of a local connection here so this week oral arguments were heard on a case brought against the University of North Carolina there's also a similar case brought against Harvard so University of North Carolina and Harvard about the use of affirmative action in their admissions process and so this has been before the Supreme Court several times when the Supreme Court had a more liberal slant and so this is getting a lot of attention because this I think this has been common practice at most universities pursuant to the prior cases and for the oral arguments where did they go Cassandra did you do you follow those so not very closely I was very busy working our new justice Katonji Brown Jackson was sitting out from the Harvard oral arguments because she was on their board up until really recently but she was on the UNC case oral arguments and got in some good arguments about what she believes is the need to continue using affirmative action as one tool to create a diverse student body the conservative justices argued that this is really still following precedent to discontinue using affirmative action because the previous case being 19 years ago it's specifically laid out that using affirmative action and using race as a criteria for admission to college was necessary at that time but needed to be time-limited so I just will see if we are at that time now I would I find it interesting because uh the affirmative action was of course brought up to help get African Americans and other minorities into colleges that usually would have not allowed them because they weren't legacy students or they didn't have the big money that other people had so it was a way to force a diverse student body in upper education like universities and those factors are still at play that the legacies still get extra points towards admission money donation still those are still considered and make a difference so I don't know how that plays into this argument I wonder how it plays into the argument in terms of standardized testing because you still have to put your race on standardized testing even in schools so how it even especially in lower schools and high schools even for the LSAT which we all bravely sat through in that horrible exam that it is but even that still considers your race you have to always market so I think I see some of the justices argument of like this is just another factor that we always account for why like this should obviously continue because all these other factors continue it's not the sole reason I think was the arguments being presented by people for a University of North Carolina and Harvard that it wasn't the sole consideration wasn't race right because the prior case law is well you know the there was no quota system right you can't say I'm gonna admit this many of this race this many of this race of quotas of the court have already thrown out quotas but right it can be used as a tool just like legacies the questions on the legacies those are very interesting because a lot of the justices jumped on that while you're you're giving this preferential treatment to legacies from a time when some races wouldn't have gotten into Harvard let's say right and so if you're 40% of your class or whatever it was is a legacy then that's not going to be a very racially diverse diverse class that was interesting I want to note here when we were growing up we took the cat test you remember that is that what y'all had to do did y'all take the cat test when you're in elementary school did that ever happen like you me out at people I understand it was like a standardized test you took it at the end of the year they called it the cat test it's California achievement test no I don't think so I don't think man well maybe in the 40s we are at elementary school is this a cat is this a dog yeah yeah so anyway you took that test of standardized test that you had to take back in the 80s and and earlier I guess but it always asks for your race back then and we were just kids we know well we always there was like a Alaskan something option and so we all we all went in for that these Alaskan kids are moving down to Raleigh in Maryland which is where I grew up we still had standardized testing I think ours was generally in April but you know still always asked for your race and I think nowadays they have the option of if you're more than one fill in two bubbles more often now you see that so a lot of people will if they know their mix they will fill in the bubbles they have just other I mean yeah they just have other cuz when I remember and when I was in elementary it was you couldn't pick two you had to pick one and I always put other so they still ask that like you have to put your race on everything so I think it's I ain't taking the standardized tests in a while no you there's nothing you could do to make me tell you the fate of the world that's it you still have to do it for the SAT the ACC and LSAT the you know one of the you know we talk about this the Supreme Court case this Supreme Court case was brought by a nonprofit organization that is against the use of affirmative action so you know we talk about this a lot a lot of these Supreme Court cases are either made by a nonprofit organization that's motivated to change the law and they make it on their own if they have standing or they go find defendants who have been affected and kind of sponsor the legal representation that defendants I think it's always very fascinating to figure out how this got before the Supreme Court to begin with these were filed back in 2014 there were some there's a lot of we talked about amicus briefs friends of the court filing there's a lot of people who are interested in this so there was like a hundred or some crazy number of amicus briefs where other institutions who would be affected kind of chimed in with their opinion and again tons of our arguments every justice was was asking questions every justice was engaged but I think part of this too was a I saw part of this argument was that Asian Americans in this system sound like Harvard maybe was penalizing Asian Americans in the process a little bit so it was weird you know there was a lot of talk about okay you know you can use race you know as part of affirmative action you can use race as a factor just like you could use a legacy as a factor just like you could use these other things as a factor but but I also saw UNC had like 46 I can't remember what the numbers were it was like 46,000 applicants last year and they accepted like 4200 yeah which is just crazy to me colleges is not it's easy to get into back in my day just looked at your cat test score I just applied to a company back in my day you took your you took your SAT you hoped you did well and you you know you paid the whatever it was the fee I think I had to write an essay I don't know man so also a lot of okay I mean not law but college application fees are high too so there's a lot of programs in high schools that try to help because it's hard enough to pay the fees to apply and then pay because schools charge you now to send your official transcripts and things like that so one application I think I can't remember what school it was but I know one of my college applications was just the application was like $85 and then it's like another 20 or 30 for the school to send official records I don't care how smart you are with your 18 if you're 17 18 you're dumb right nothing from this your world dumb you don't know anything you might ace AP chemistry and AP biology you might have a four-point a five-point whatever it is now right you might be a but but yeah you I'm just amazed I figured out how to get in a college yeah that's no bearing on my legal acumen now what is great point up to now is it like eight point something depends on what program you're in so if you're a regular school it's typically still 4.0 but for instance I did international baccalaureate program which is a 5.0 scale starts in like ninth grade so we're talking like five point something I saw some country runner I was 5.2 or something I was like I got no shot they gave him extra points for being able to run like once I'm a worker cross-country they mentioned his GPA and I was like well if that's what it takes man did you start running right away I rarely run I want to do a show with you just running the whole time that'd be fantastic I thought it was interesting though how they tried to talk about race neutral options like not bring it up at all and I think there's been arguments for that for even job applications to like just take race off and just look at who the person is applying really when you hear really I'll go a Cassandra sorry I'm talking about Clarence Thomas had an interesting line of questioning he was on the court already for the original decisions 19 years ago and was not yet speaking out loud in oral arguments but he is now but he was asking each attorney what is the educational benefit of even having diversity in schools and hearing that question from a Supreme Court justice was jarring I'm telling you know we're coming up against a break but it was these are arguments I like to hear these justices because what they do is they have these attorneys up here arguing for either side and they give them all these hypotheticals and these attorneys are trying to really attorney it up like avoid answering anything they don't want to have to answer even you're in front of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court just hits you with these questions these hypotheticals it's just interesting to hear their thought process but we won't get a decision on this for a while hopefully this one won't get leaked yeah hopefully this one won't get leaked but anyway it was very fascinating the all-law liars Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer Whitaker and Hamer law firm again the power behind the program and we do believe at least a 4.0 for the show offices located Raleigh Garner Clayton Goldsboro Fuquay Farina Gastonia and Moorhead City they are managing partners here we're talking about Josh and Joe and they're practicing attorneys here in the state of North Carolina as are Cassandra Nicholas who's joining us remotely from Moorhead City Taylor Scruggs Smith in studio with us today if you've got a legal situation you're facing and you've got questions got a phone number for you 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186 leave your contact info briefly what the call is about an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlawlawyer.com we're back to wrap it up right after this welcome back into the outlaw lawyers Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm the power behind the program they're practicing attorneys here in North Carolina joining us on the program in studio Taylor Scruggs Smith also attorney Whitaker and Hamer and Cassandra Nicholas remoting in from Whitaker and Hamer office in Moorhead City Josh so we talked about Tesla today and we talked about Tesla and so I feel like we should bring up that Elon went ahead and we had talked about the lawsuit between Elon Musk and Twitter over there deal to buy Twitter and it ended up getting continued and he was able to complete the purchase at the original purchase price is what it sounded like but have you been following how Twitter is changing anybody been following that so he's already fired I think three top officials and now there's going to be a debate about how he fired them and whether or not they still get their full severance package or not they a lot of Twitter people are coming out on Twitter saying like I'll talk to any journalist about what's going on right now so it's interesting to see I know there was one number that came out saying like the use of one racial slur went up 500% since he took over because they're relaxing a lot of community standards so I see you can get the change in the blue check system did you know he's floating it he actually formally has I think he floated it then Stephen King came out and was basically like bleep that it's funny to hear all these people get so angry over you know over that kind of stuff yeah like there's some stuff I guess to be angry about I I use Twitter to see what old professional wrestlers were doing and get my sports news quick it's the only use for it that's all I use it for other things but but yeah it's nice to think for eight dollars a month we could all get our blue checks I guess they won't mean anything at that point yeah well because blue checks were originally started to authenticate the main page because it would be so many fake pages so if everybody's buying it now Jesus I was on there when when Elon floated that out there like I was reading all the replies to his original tweet about that and he was the old tennis player Martina was there was an Arab all over so she has a blue check she tweeted oh you can take mine then I don't need it and then the next reply was like who are you I thought that was funny I like to see I like to see people get what do you call it burned burn yeah millennial lingo yeah we've been watching that 70s show and that's a you know burn is all the kids stay with us but uh all right guys well I think we got an episode in the books enjoyed it I was gonna say the show smoldering the outlaw lawyers Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners at Whitaker and Hamer law firm or your host and again Cassandra Nicholas joining us remoting in for Moorhead City Taylor's Craig Smith here in studio with us also attorneys at Whitaker and Hamer if you need a legal question answered call the firm 800-659-1186 that's 800-659-1186 leave your contact info briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can always email your questions to the show questions at the outlawlawyer.com we're done for this week we'll see you on the radio next week. Thank you.