Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Illegally Squatting at Mar-a-Lago, Hooded Justice & the Velvet Hammer!

Episode Date: May 16, 2021

On this week’s episode of Legal AF (#8), MeidasTouch’s weekly law and politics podcast, hosts MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, examine Tuesday’s ruling by a Texas Federal Bankruptcy Court judge that the NRA made a “bad faith” bankruptcy filing and could not reorganize just to escape the NY Attorney General’s criminal investigation. As an added bonus, Ben and Michael discuss the flaws in the NRA’s trial lawyers’ decision to allow its client to be filleted during a 11-day trial proving just how corrupt the NRA and its leadership is, while strengthening the future criminal case brought by the NY AG. Next up, Ben a/k/a “Hooded Justice” and Michael “Velvet Hammer” Popok, take on the legality (and weirdness) of Trump using Mar-a-Lago as his personal home by arguing that he is an “employee” of the club, like the guy who cuts the shrubs or mows the grass. Speaking of insanity, the “Analysis Friends” examine whether this year’s “twinkie” defense —“Foxmania” — will allow a Capitol insurrectionist to avoid jail time (spoiler alert—the answer is “no”). The podcast then turns serious with an analysis of the wrongful death suit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, the former Air Force veteran turned Q-Anon terrorist who was shot by Capitol Police before she could lead her angry lynch mob into the House Chamber to kill members of Congress. The hosts then have a brief discussion of possible ways for Congress to limit the jurisdiction of SCOTUS to prevent it from overturning pro-democracy voting rights legislation, without upending the 3 co-equal branches of government. Finally, and in a speed round, Ben and Popok give the Legal AF university “students” what they crave—a tutorial on civil procedure, our state and federal court system, the equitable and legal power of the courts, and the differences between torts, breach of contract, and crimes. - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Midas Touch Podcast Legal AF, as you know, the A stands for analysis and the F stands for friends is what it stands for. You all know that by now. It's certainly not what you thought it was. Ben, my cell is here of Gary Ghosts and Gary Ghosts. Michael Popack of Zupano Patrricius and Popacost, the coast, ban on the west, Michael on the east, breaking down all of the legal cases and giving you a free legal education. However, the legal advice and the free legal education is not, I should probably

give a legal disclaimer that we are not actually giving you legal advice. But we hope that we are empowering you to understand certain complicated areas of law in digestible manners. We thank you so much for your feedback. Obviously, we tried to respond to as many comments as we can and integrate your feedback into our new podcasts. Michael Poe-Pocke, how you doing today? I'm doing great. We actually have a new hashtag that some of the minus might have given us. They're calling this podcast hashtag LAS as opposed to legal AF. So I like it.

So let's have a laugh. I like that. Let's get into laugh. When do we drop these podcasts? Laugh Wednesday morning. All right, let's talk about the first topic. We brought this up on the last few podcasts we've talked about and as you're listening, you know the coverage that we've given to this issue. The NRA, the National Rifle Association filed a bullshit bankruptcy petition to try to get away from dissolution proceedings taking place in New York that's brought by the New York

AG, Latissia James. They filed this bankruptcy proceeding in Texas hoping to establish jurisdiction in Texas. Popackin myself explained to you that this should never have been a bankruptcy petition in the first place. Most significantly, the NRA was not a bankrupted organization. There was an 11 day or so trial. What we've learned in that 11 day trial is the NRA chairman, La Pierre, Wayne La Pierre.

He was living the most lavish, grifting lifestyle off the NRA dime with boats in the Bahamas and homes everywhere and lavish spending. But today we have a ruling that we were waiting for as you know, if you were listening to the last podcast about whether or not the NRA could indeed file a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition and proceed under such or whether it was a fraudulent petition after an 11 day

trial after some weeks, a written order came out today. Popo, what is the written order? Judge Harlan Hale, I love that name, that's like right out of Central casting. He ruled today as you and I anticipated that the petition was a bad faith filing by the NRA and the judge boiled it down this way. You are not to use the Bank of C code to avoid a regulatory enforcement scheme. In this case, the New York Attorney General that you don't like, you only come to the bankruptcy court and ask for the strong and robust powers of a bankruptcy judge.

In fact, as you and I have set offline, there is probably no more powerful federal judge than a bankruptcy judge. But with great power comes great responsibility. And the judge said, you're not going to come here just to get out from under your, the criminal investigation that's going under New York, unless you're a bankrupt, wrong use of the bankruptcy code. And he went one step further, bad faith. But the weirdest thing about this strategy,

if you wanna call it that, I really call it walking legal malpractice by the lawyers representing La Pierre, is that if they thought they were just gonna file the petition and get away with a two hour hearing, they were in for a rude awakening. This judge conducted an 11-day evidentiary hearing trial with witness testimony, including Loppy Air for a few days, that laid bare all of the shenanigans and fraudulent activity

of Loppy Air and the organization, which is perfect for Latisha James in New York to use in her ongoing investigation. So they were never going to win this. They had to just sit there for 11 days and provide their adversary, in this case, the New York Attorney General, with all of this amazing stuff that it would have taken them months or years to develop and got called fraudulent bankrupt filers. I don't know who came up with this crack pipe idea, but it is, it was lame brain to begin with and the federal judge, Bank of C. Judge has found it to be so. The U.S. Bankruptcy Judge, Harlan Hal, described the testimony from Wayne LaPierre as, quote, incredibly cringey and described all of the kind of

fraudulent machinations that La Pierre attempted to bring this include bring this bankruptcy petition, including not consulting even his NRA board in filing the petition. I mean, they're a board. The old lawyers for the NRA would not consult it. Yeah, I mean, and that is beyond rare. If that even takes it. Yeah, I mean, and that is beyond rare, if that even takes place at all. I mean, to me that borders on not just bad faith,

but borders on, you know, in essence, kind of criminality in terms of what La Pierre was trying to hide, but in trying to kind of hide from the New York Attorney General, Latissia James, Kason, New York, he ended up just laying out the case for her in Texas by going through all of the fraud that they committed.

You know, when you think about legal cases, there's a lot of things you need to think through as a lawyer giving a client advice. You have to know the law, you have to know the facts, but you also are being consulted as a lawyer, as a chess master, if you will, and a good lawyer doesn't just make one move. A good lawyer thinks three, five, 10, 15 moves ahead to determine, how am I going to get this case ultimately in front of whoever the triary effect is and how am I going to prevail? It is always shocking to me in our

profession, Michael, how many lawyers do not even think two or three steps ahead and they're constantly going from one step to the next step and not thinking through all of these repercussions. There's a saying early on in my career that an opposing counsel said in a cross complaint to another opposing counsel. He said, you better recognize the law of holes than the other lawyers said, what's the law of holes? He goes, stop digging.

And I've always kind of took that as sage advice when I was a young attorney, seeing two older attorneys go after each other like that, but the law of holes, which is stop digging and making the problem worse and worse and worse certainly holds true here. So what happens next? The New York case is going to proceed.

Latissia James has more evidence than ever. And Wayne LaPierre, who was not able to get his bankruptcy petition, Granton, is now going to be faced with a host of existential litigation against him for his bad faith conduct. Look, the NRA, if it were a legitimate organization that cared about the fiduciary duties and responsibilities of the members of the board and its executive director based on the testimony that was given over 11 days, should immediately remove Loppier from his executive position and should all of the board should resign and they should, you know, lay themselves at the mercy of Tis James in New York. That's what a legitimate

organization would do once all of these things were laid bare in a courtroom, in a bankruptcy courtroom. But we know the NRA is not a legitimate organization and they will just say, well, they're just shrugged their shoulders. Well, that's interesting that our executive director did all these bad things without authority, without approval, and they'll just go on, which will only, you know, everything they do that is counter to their responsibilities of fiduciary as fiduciaries, only strengthens the New York Attorney General's hand in her suit. It's like, you know, one of those finger, you know, finger tip handcuffs where they just keep pulling and pulling and pulling and the thing just gets tighter and tighter and tighter around their neck and we're back to your

the law of holes. No doubt about it. Speaking of the law of holes, we have Donald Trump, who is the law of being an asshole and being a law of being just a horrible human being who was a disgraced ex-president, the worst president in the United States. History who now is squatting in a resort tomorrow Mar-a-Lago in Florida. There was many of our listeners, you know, probably heard, wait a minute, I thought that there was some consent decree in 1993 involving Trump. Didn't we hear that Donald Trump is not allowed to be living in Mar-a-Lago?

Our listeners are so sophisticated that they know about 1993 declarations of use in Palm Beach County, Florida. That's what I love about our audience. They are high IQ audience for legal AF, but they follow the facts. And so they may be confused knowing those facts, believing that Donald Trump could have lived there. Why is he still living there? Why is he permitted to be at Mar-a-Lago when we thought that he was not entitled to be a resident based on this 1993 consent degree? And I just want to say this as a practical matter. It's just the weirdest thing ever that he is in this resort that this is just what he does with his time, not like what he does with his time, not like living a home or an apartment, but want to live on a resort with other people who are paying exorbitant rates just for access to him and kind of a crowded

disgusting dilapidated, Mar-a-Lago, of what it's become purely because he just needs adulation of people. And he needs people to validate him by coming, so he has to live in a hotel, basically, and refuses to leave. So, Popo, you have experienced at a municipal level serving as county council for specific cases first. Explain to everybody what that role is, how a private attorney can sometimes be appointed

as a county council representing. Well, town attorney. Town attorneys or municipalities for certain purposes. And what is happening here with the town attorney saying that Trump can still reside at Marlaigo so long as he is a bonafide employee. Here's where I get to crack my knuckles like a concert pianist and I never thought you and I would be talking about municipal government law which in a prior life in Miami at a law

firm I was at my law firm specialized in representing towns and villages and cities just like Palm Beach. And served, I've served as at least the acting for a night or two city or town, a turning in various cities in South Florida, not this one in particular. But I have a pretty good handle on, you know, municipal government law. So most towns like the town of Palm Beach, which is on an island in South Florida, have to have by their charter a chief legal officer. That person is usually called the town attorney, the city attorney, the village attorney, depends on how that particular municipality is organized. If the town is large enough, they have an in-house person do that role,

and they're appointed by charter, and they're paid like an employee. Every two weeks or so, there's a town or village or city meeting. Town attorney sits up on the dais. He prepares the agenda package, make sure that the elected officials follow the charter, which

is the constitution of the particular city in their voting in the resolutions that they pass. And in their land use and zoning decisions, which touches on this moral logo issue. And sometimes the town is small enough that it has an outside private lawyer serving that role. It's a sort of a prestigious position people bid for it. You actually, you know, you actually bid, submit a bid, and the town decides whether they're going to select you for a period of time and sign a contract with you. And then that lawyer sits every week or two weeks with the town or village council, the elected officials advises the staff, advises the city manager, the elected officials, advises the staff, advises the city manager or the city executive, advises the land use and zoning board and the like.

Now let's bring it forward to Mar-a-Lago. In 1993 when Trump purchased, which was then a dilapidated single-family residence now with dilapid Resort, the town was concerned about what the use was going to be. And he had to, with his lawyers, negotiate a deal with the town and enter it into what they referred to as a declaration of use agreement, which is in land use and zoning parlance. It is a covenant between the owner of the property. And in this case, the town that governs and controls the use of the property forever more. It's recorded. It's recorded like a deed with the city clerk and whoever buys the property is subject

to it unless they get relief from it by petitioning that city council. This one said, you have, you can use it as a private club. You can have certain accommodations on it, some of which you can advertise, some of which you can't. But there was no, in the declaration itself, there was no restriction per se, and I've looked at it, at Trump living on the property. He never said he was going to live on the property, but there was no restriction per se. So the now that he's living there as the winter ex-White House, I mean, you know, he was there for hundreds and hundreds of days while he was in office, but but now that he lives there in the winter

Not not in the summer in the summer. He in fact, he just left in the winter, not in the summer. In the summer, in fact, he just left supposedly a day ago. We just flew to his other golf course country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he's now going to live for the summer. As Ben said, he likes to live along with a lot of people that he pays that salute him when he walks through the front door, usually wearing some sort of uniform.

But that begs the question. If he's an employee of the Mar-a-Lago, which is what the town attorney has declared in his reading, well, if he's an employee, he gets paid, he's allowed to live there, like he's the caretaker of the golf course or something, like Caddy Shack, he and Melania, I guess, are now employed by the club. Then the town course or something, like Caddy Shack, he and Melania are now employed by the

club. Then the town attorney has said he doesn't see it as violating that declaration of use because if he violated the declaration of use, the whole Mar-a-Lago country club community comes crashing down and he'd have to leave. So it looks like he's fine with being called an employee. I guess the desk of the former Donald Trump, which is on his new website, I guess that desk sometimes resides in Mar-a-Lago until they ship it to Bedminster. It's sort of silly, but if he screws this up,

he's gonna lose the right to have Mar-a-Lago be a country club. And since Donald Trump doesn't like to live anywhere unless other people pay for it, I think, you know, he's trying hard to find a way for he and, and Melania in the three years preceding 2017 thereafter. It was cited for multiple other health and safety violations, including for mall, improper parasite destruction, cockroaches, and other health and safety violations. And of course, you recall that Mar-a-Lago was shut down not too long ago for various COVID outbreaks that took place on the Mar-a-Lago property.

I think that it was a warning sign when an individual is unable to even keep up with the most basic health and safety requirements of where he lives that he's probably not a suitable person to be running the United States of America. You know what I thought was that's a very good point. You know what I thought was interesting when I read the Declaration of Use, the town required that he agreed and Trump signed this himself and And it's actually a three-way agreement

between the town, Donald Trump, and Mar-a-Lago Inc. But he had to commit to a no discrimination clause where there'd be no racial gender or age discrimination, either in the membership or the way he operated it. And I bet you that's not true. I bet you there has been discrimination in terms of a membership there, who they've allowed in and who they haven't allowed in. operating it. And I bet you that's not true. I bet you there has been discrimination in terms of a membership there, who they've allowed in and who they haven't allowed in. And I'm

sure, you know, if we dig hard enough, we're going to find discrimination and other things that have happened with women, sexual orientation, race, national origin, and other things. Remember while he was in office, he did a little spring cleaning of his own and got rid of a lot of undocumented aliens and illegals, so to speak, undocumented people who were working as landscapers and in the kitchen and all sorts of other things, you know, as only the president of the United States can do, which is to have, you know, undocumented people working in his organization.

And doubly, Trump just sitting and stewing in Bedminster right now, watching Fox and Newsmax and OAN on Loop, which brings us to our next topic. One of the defenses that are being raised by the terrorist insurrectionists who stormed the capital on January 6th is a new and novel defense that I've never heard of before called quote, and this is what the lawyer is calling it, it's bullshit and it's a stupid label, but it does speak to a truth, but it's not a legitimate defense in my opinion, or I think most

legal observers opinions, called, quote, fox mania. And this particular individual, this criminal defendant, his name is Anthony Antonio, after he was laid off for about six months during COVID proceeding the insurrection. He was sitting in his house and according to his attorney, watching nothing but Fox News, spewing these ridiculous conspiracy theories over and over again, before he decided to take action. A number of interesting things at this particular court hearing

regarding Anthony Antonio. First, Antonio's lawyer, one of the things that he's claiming is, Antonio didn't really do anything like that bad, and then he should wait until like some of the real bad actors go first. But one of the things that he's accused of doing is climbing the scaffolding outside of the Capitol, entering the building through a broken window, obtaining a riot shield and a gas mask, threatening police and squirting water,

an officer, Michael Fanon, the police officer who was dragged down a set of stairs by rioters and repeatedly tased the beaten and of course, officer Fanon's been on TV recently, speaking out against Trump and everyone spreading the big lie about the big lie and saying, I was there, stop saying that these people were good Americans or nice people.

These people literally tried to kill me. And in fact here, Anthony Antonio did say that when he looked in the eyes of officer Fanon, he saw death. He saw someone who was scared of his life. Another interesting thing that happened during this hearing is that another capital insurrectionist who was part of this Zoom hearing,

that's how these hearings are taking place all right now, someone named Melandin Copeland. He began just interrupting and basically saying how dare the lawyer, anybody here disparaged Donald J. Trump, how dare you no one can disparage him. And basically, that individual landed Copeland was ordered now to have a mental competency hearing. And it goes to, yeah, goes to this issue. These are mentally unstable, criminals, you know, who suffer significantly from mental illness, but that doesn't prevent them or should shield them in any way from being held accountable for any of this. But this for any of this, but this bizarre echo chamber of Fox and OAN leading to this just fantasy world that doesn't exist is just so dangerous for our country. I think one of the things

that this particular defendant said as he was storming the Capitol was, this is in one video captured on police, body war and camera and Tony O'Shoedel at officers, you want war, we got war, 1776 all over again as he's wearing a 3% drop and then his attorney goes, this guy wasn't really even that bad of an insurrectionist. And so what do you think here, Popok, is Fox Mania a legitimate defense? No, and if it was, or Fox Ida, I think they call it too, then Donald J. Trump should have used it as his defense. Look, let's unpack it a little bit for our listeners.

Why are we talking about defenses and criminal law? Because there is a concept, a fundamental concept in criminal criminal law, which is that the person who acts has to act with criminal intent. We call it mens rea. And if you can, if you have a defense lawyer, if you can successfully defeat mens rea and show that the person did not act with depraved heart or criminal intent black heart black mind whatever you want to call it Then you might be able to get them off from the crime that he's being convicted of or you can convince the jury or the judge that he didn't have the requisite mental state so this judge came this lawyer came up with the Fox Mania defense and shout out to

your brother, Jordy, because he posted this a couple of days ago and said, POPOC, take this down, which is what we're doing now. So some of your listeners may recall about 30 years ago or more the Twinkie defense. In a murder case, the lawyer actually said that his client was so intoxicated by snack food in this case Twinkies that he could not have formed the requisite mental intent to be a criminal. That went down in flames, that person was convicted, but it was interesting, 30 years ago

on early television, early cable and all, to watch the defense being presented in court, this is never gonna work. The Federal Magistrate Judge and District of Columbia, who heard it, was completely non-plussed by this. And this guy is going to be convicted, he unless he cooperates, he's going to go to jail for a long, long time.

And to say the thing that I find so shocking and so repulsive is when we get to the next story that we're going to talk about and analyze Ashley, Ashley Babette and her family, sowing amazingly for wrongful death, for what she did, All of these thousands of people that stormed the Capitol all contributed to this unhinged fomented stampede mindless blood-curdling stampede to try to find elected officials

Hang them draw them quarter them and kill them. If they had found them, I have no doubt, and nobody that was there as any doubt, that if these people had broken terrorists, had broken through the last line of defense, which is what we're going to talk about next with Ashley Babbitt, and gotten their way into the interchamber not after all the elected officials had safely gotten out by way of the capital police. But before we be talking about the murder, the assassination of dozens of elected officials in this country, that would be so shocking and so numbing to this country. So for a lawyer to say that there are degrees of Vanality there are degrees of criminality Far as I'm concerned they all contributed to this giant soup that led to the insurrection on the capital And if this guy was in the vicinity of the officer who was repeatedly beaten,

tased, suffered a heart attack and almost died. And he did have interaction with him. He's just as bad as far as I'm concerned as the person who broke through the window inside the house chamber and almost made it all the way to Speaker Pelosi's podium. Many ways we have two big lies that I think are taking place. The first big lie that the election was stolen and that there was election fraud and that Donald Trump won. That's kind of the big lie number one. But I think we also need to frame the insurrection

as the big lie too, because what Republicans who pride themselves on law and order and they say it and they claim it, but it's all a bunch of bullshit, because they enabled and aided a terrorist attack against the United States. And now they want to claim whether it's by Fox Mania or Donald Trump saying actually the people there were friendly and they were actually, you know, just protesting and exercising their first amendment rights. The danger of undoing what took place on January 6th is equally, if not even more dangerous, then the first big lie that the election was stolen because what the message is being sent, and which is kind of counterintuitive

to our entire law studies. And I could imagine being in law school just looking at this and saying, wait a minute, why am I studying law? At the end of the day, if laws don't matter to one political party, who legitimately does not give a shit about application of the law, about precedent, about standards, about holding all people accountable.

They don't think of anything. They don't, they're nealists who don't believe in anything. They believed in the law when the law upheld white supremacy, when the law upheld their vision and view of what they believe the United States of America is. Now that law is being extended to provide equal rights to all communities, and that people are recognizing the importance of loving their neighbor as America becomes more and more diverse. The Republican position

basically is, you know, damn the law. The law is whatever we say the law is. And at the end of the day, we can have an insurrection and then basically still support the leader of that insurrection. The GQP, the Republican Party, is the party of terrorists. Listen, if thank God and thank the electorate that they have voted in Biden and the New Justice Department, because heaven help us, if Trump had gotten a second term, if this insurrection had happened on his watch for some reason or something like it, and these people were not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and sent away the leavenworth, as I've said before, to make big rocks and the little rocks for the rest of their life or something akin to it, this would just be a license to do this whatever they felt like it. We can never let as a, as our society, as a democracy.

The what happened on January 6th cannot happen again. It's, it's we can never forget. And the only way that will happen is we have to root out these evil doers. We have to root out these terrorists and we have to prosecute them because if we don't, haven't helped us the next time. Those set off all those bombs that were in in Canvas bags around the Capitol that never made their way up the front steps,

will make their way up the front steps. And people will think they're watching, unfortunately, you know, an episode of 24 or something when the whole capital is blown apart with everybody inside of it, at least every Democrat inside of it. And ultimately, that's what leadership is about. And leadership and support of a democracy should be bipartisan. The fact that you have 25 to 30% of Americans who may harbor vile disgusting, racist views, conspiracy theories, you know, support death cults and cult-like behavior, what it takes our leaders in a bipartisan support to say we don't support terrorists in the United States of America. What we support is democracy. We support supporting people's health,

supporting our economy, you know, not this crazy idioticity that is the Trump administration, but I digress. I wanna talk now about the light of day, Ben is wearing an outfit and I'm now gonna give you a new name and then shout out to the watchman, which is a favorite show of mine. You are now hooded justice.

I like being called hooded justice. My actual legal nickname, which I'm not sure if I shared before, was called Young Jedi, when I'm not sure if I shared before was called young Jedi when I first started given to me by a lawyer named Sean Macias in the first trial who was very proud to give me that nickname. One of the funny stories about being called young Jedi is that when I was about five years old, I have and I had then particularly for a five-year-old, very big eyes, and back then my ears

were so gigantic, and my head hadn't grown into my ears. So when I went to Daycamp, they were giving names and Star Wars names, and I was nicknamed Yoda, and I didn't know what that meant. But I was so proud of the name Yoda, they would call me Yoda and then I watched Star Wars And I saw what Yoda looked like and I And I remember the five-year-old version of me started crying hysterically when Yoda was not exactly a Good-looking character in the Star Wars But it is funny that firm being called Yoda at the age of five

two young Jedi and now hood adjust this. I like hood adjust this and lawyers will give each other nicknames the same way athletes do from time to time and other professions from time to time because we deal with a lot of difficult and serious issues. And sometimes you need to just get through the day. So having some fun and having some self-deprecating humor, the velvet hammer. The velvet hammer, I like the velvet hammer. So velvet hammer, break down for me what Ashley Babet is filing.

She's filing a, she claims to be filing for Her family is going to be filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Babet was shot and killed. She was one of the insurrectionists who broke in. She was actually seen like breaking into the lower her chamber, where I think the vice president was located and where the, what's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the lower chamber, where I think the vice president was located and where the House representative, the Hennie-Brenancey Pelosi's office was and where other top congressional leaders, the Speaker of the House's office was, where the Majority Leader, they all have some of their offices. I'm not sure if they're still there, but I used to work on the hill and they have the

caucus rooms and like a lot of them, the higher level Congress members have their offices in this area. She was 30 feet from the House Chamber and the speakers lobby. Yeah, and so she broke through the glass. You see the video of her kind of climbing through. She was the first person in the mob to try to jump through. And there was an agent who was dressed in a suit. And as she was climbing over, shot her in the face. And it was caught on video. She passed shortly thereafter. Obviously, it's never making light of loss of life, no matter what is something that nobody should ever do,

but certainly recognizing that there are repercussions and accountability for actions like this. And again, this is always what the Republicans always want to say if a black or brown or non-white man, woman, gets shot and killed for not stopping immediately in a traffic stop or not turning over the ID right away or not stopping right away and stopping a few feet away so that they can be in the light. You always hear from the Republicans, they should have complied,

they should have complied. And the retort is always back to that. You don't get to kill someone, you don't get to play judge, jury, or an executioner because they didn't show you their license. Or even if they engaged in a petty crime of taking bubble gum from a store or selling a cigarette, you know, one of the interesting stats Michael that I've been looking into and some of the other work and research that I do It says nothing to do with what we're talking about but about 95 to 96% of all police interactions tend to involve either minor offenses like or nothing over or total no offenses at all. And there's only about two percent of all police

interactions that actually involves somebody who's engaged in some violent behavior, yet we have a policing system where we stop minor insignificant in the grand scheme of thing crimes with machine guns and guns and militarized weapons, and which was allowed by which has been allowed by a series of decisions by the Supreme Court of United States leading to an overzealous use of stop techniques by police, leading to death for black and brown people. And fortunately, it all goes back to the Supreme Court. Yeah, and one of the things the courts have used sometimes to justify dismissing cases is that underlying unlawful conduct is sometimes grounds under a, you know, legally as the, I disagree with the law, to shoot to kill or to, or to engage in force in certain situations. And so specifically here, what the family is saying in this Ashley Babet case, and what Babet supporters and what the GQP, they treat an insurrection against the country as such a minor inconvenience to the United States of America.

You have a fender right? Right. Instead of the terrorist attack, that it is. And you go, well, it's so hypocritical that they have one view about the person who doesn't turn over their license in the first 10 seconds of a police encounter that that person can be shot and killed according to Republicans. But here, they have a different view. It is hypocritical because they're hypocrites. They're making it up as they go along. It's total and absolute bullshit. Popok, I believe that this case is going

Absolutely nowhere. There is no basis whatsoever in my view to file a wrongful death lawsuit when the Decident was a terrorist insurrectionists who was joined by other terrorist insurrectionists to kill politicians was joined by other terrorists and correctionists to kill politicians who then got stopped while she was intruding on our sacred constitutional halls. We talked about this, I think, at

episode one or two, actually. I took the same view as you did, which is the Capitol Police Officer. Now, let me let's set the stage. And for our listeners who are interested about two months ago, the New York Times did a, basically a centerfold overlay of the timeline that led to Ashley Babitt being shot by the Capitol Police, stepped by, stepped moment by moment.

Really from the moment she entered illegally the, capital, to the moment where she was shot and beyond. So if you're interested, look at that breakdown. But what became clear to me when I looked at that in the accompanying video that's in the interactive piece online, is that first of all, the mob had overwhelmed and overrun the capital police. We all know that. overrun the Capitol police. We all know that. As we know from other reporting, and even the hearing, the audio, the cops on the ground were telling their supervisors

and calling for the National Guard and saying, we've lost the line. We've lost the line, meaning we can't hold them back any longer because you're talking about thousands, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, almost thousands of terrorists against, you know, basically a handful of capital police. It was even, that was even more acute in this particular location, which we've identified as the House Chamber and the Speaker's lobby, because the only thing that separated a mob of 20 people,

including Ashley Babitt, and elected officials who were still in the chamber, I want to make that clear, they had not yet been able to be cleared out of the chamber. So at the moment when Ashley Babitt was shot by the Capitol Police Officer, in a moment that I believe is a moment of heroism that should be celebrated and not him being sued for the Capitol Police being sued for wrongful death. At that very moment, which is what matters as we learn moments matter as we just saw in the Chauvin trial with George Floyd moments matter and that particular moment in time. Floyd moments matter in that particular moment in time. If they had broken through, if that angry mob

mindless mob of 20 people led by Ashley Babitt and Air former Air Force veteran had had broken through that particular line, they would have made it into the chamber with elected officials present and God help us at that moment. And that's what's going through the mind of the two or three. And that's all there were. Capital police that were in that particular hallway, 30 feet away from the chamber when Ashley Babet made the decision, her own assumption of risk. She made the decision to break the glass of the wooden door and begin to climb through it in order to open the door to let the mob through. And that police officer who has one duty and one duty only, it's not to protect the building, it's not to protect the paintings and the statues and the flag and everything else. The capital police have one duty and obligation, protect the elected officials and staff of the United States government. And he pulled out that weapon and knowing he had no backup, that he had no other police

with him, other than I think he had one or two fellow police officers, also stationed in that 30 foot, that 30 foot location. This was there, Waterloo. This was there. 1776. So whatever this thing is. Now this there. Uh, this 1776. So whatever this thing is. This was this was the cop 1776. They allow Ashley Babitt and her 20 marauding mobsters to break through. And we have assassinations and death of elected officials plain and simple. No other way to put it.

So he pulls out his, his service revolver. He fires one shot, Ashley Babitt falls to the ground dead. And you know what? That mob did not break through. That mob did not get their way. Time was bought to allow the elected officials to safely escape from the chamber. And to now have that, the leader of that mob, in effect, at least that mob, that segment of the mob in that moment, to have a wrongful death suit, I found it shocking that her lawyer is quoted as saying, well, she was a former veteran. I'm sure she would have complied with an order to stand down. Has he seen the video? She was climbing through the window

along with 20 other people with murderous cries and yells to do nothing but to cause grievous bodily injury to whoever she found. And he thinks that the cops said, stand back, stand down, that she would have. He's insane. Not sure if you read this article in Switching Gears for a second

Pope-Pock. I guess Switching Gears fairly abruptly for a second Pope-Pock. About Florida's new restrictive voting bill, and similar to all these restrictive voting bills that are all based on Big Lie number one that there was rampant voter fraud in the election, which wasn't, which is just used as a way to discriminate against non-white voters and limit their ability to have access to the polls. But it was interesting. A Loyola law professor, Jessica Levinson, Loyola is actually where my law partner, Mark Garagos, went to law school. Loyola's not too far away from where our office is downtown,

but Jessica Levinson proposed a novel concept, first identifying the fear that a conservative Supreme Court, which essentially tilts, and I hate the word conservative. So every time I catch myself, say the word conservative, I don't view these people as conservative. So I gotta call myself out, call yourself out when you say conservative against crazy people,

but this radical right court after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is six to three in favor of the radical right whose agenda is to strip away our rights and discriminate against non-white people and hold up a white supremacy kind of hegemonic structure. You do have Chief Justice John Roberts, who sometimes in trying to bring some civility to this court,

times in trying to bring some civility to this court is citing with the left or with, I think, the normal jurisprudence judges, but with the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it's hard to overrule the six three. And so oftentimes it'll either be six three in favor of radical right or five four in favor of radical right. So Jessica Levinson basically talks about in this piece how there's article three of the constitution, article three of the United States Constitution establishes the judicial branch, the judges, the federal judiciary in our system, but she points out that there is in Article 3 ways to exclude or remove certain certain jurisdictional areas that the court can rule on

is basically the premise. I would, and she thinks that Congress can be able to pass legislation signed by the president that can remove or exclude certain areas, certain jurisdictional areas like voting rights, so that the federal judiciary or the Supreme Court would not be permitted to rule on those specific areas. That's basically the premise. I think there's kind of two flaws in it, but I'm open to your view, Popo. When you really delve into the law in this area, there was a case recently, a 2016 case called Bank Marcosi versus Peterson,

which appeared to somewhat minimize the impact of a earlier court decision, which basically said that the separation of powers prevent Congress from doing that. And of course, going back to one of the most famous of all Supreme Court decisions, Marbury versus Madison. Love Marbury versus Madison. It's establishing the separation of powers and the importance of separation of powers. So I do think legally Congress doing that would be in firm, unfortunately. And then I just think as a

practical matter given the layout of Congress right now, given the Joe mansions, the cinemas from Arizona. I just don't think Democrats have the vote to structurally change the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. Yeah, I mean, I liked it as liked it as an esoteric concept. You've pointed out all of the practical flaws in it. The other one is that you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. And if you establish the precedent, and where

this is coming from for those, you know, and one of the things I like about, I love many things about our listening audience. But one of the things I really like about them, and we see it in the tweets that come out the day of the episode, Trops, is that they don't want us to dumb or water this down. They want us to talk about these concepts and have it explained to them so that they understand it. So you went off on appropriately on the article three of the Constitution that establishes the federal judiciary. The language that this law professor is talking about is some language in there about the ability of Congress to effectively regulate jurisdiction.

And she ponders whether that allows them to, let's say they pass a bill, in this case Senate Bill 1, which is the the Voter Rights Act, the new Voter Rights Act, which if passed will completely overturn and veto all of these individual state efforts like Texas, like Georgia and Florida, at voter suppression. She questions whether they can also add language in the bill itself, in the law itself, that not only says, this is the law of the land, but Supreme Court, we are stripping you of your jurisdiction to decide that this law is

or is not constitutional. A, I agree with you. I don't think there's the votes for it. B, I'm worried that if we establish this precedent that in the future, when we don't hold Congress, we're really going to be screwed as Democrats, as real and true liberals in believers in the democratic process because you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and it could be used against us. And Lord knows the Republicans are great at turn about his fair play and using those

very things against us. Wobeos, if McConnell gets a hold of a similar precedent and uses it against us. So while I like it in concept, and I think she's probably right, there may be the ability to thread the needle and allow the Congress in certain limited circumstances to tell the Supreme Court what they can and can't do from a jurisdictional standpoint. I think it establishes, unfortunately, a dangerous, dangerous precedent in the times that we live in. I don't think I'm ready to cross that Rubicon.

I don't disagree with you there. And so we'll put a pin in that. And we'll, of course, continue to follow Supreme Court rulings on future episodes of Midas Touch Legal AF and continue to explain to you the dynamics that are taking place in the court. I think it's helpful to conclude the show, Popok, not by talking about lithium, which was one of the topics, whether the court. I think it's helpful to conclude the show, Popak, not by talking about lithium,

which was one of the topics, whether the idea- We're not going to do lithium strip mining. We're not going to do lithium strip mining, but I think we conclude, this is an audible at the last minute. I think we conclude the shows by giving some practical legal lessons.

And we take a step back and help explain people, see things maybe in a more simplistic way. And so what I think is helpful for our audience to explain is that today we talked about criminal cases like the individual who was using Fox Mania as a criminal defense. We also talked about civil cases where somebody, a family of somebody who died is suing. In civil court, your relief is money at the end of the day. As a plaintiff, yes, there are cases where you can get what's called an injunction, which can be to stop or to compel the other

side to do something. But really, at the end of the day, civil court is money court. And when I do jury selection in civil cases, it's one of the things I want to talk to the jury about candidly. Like, are you okay with the concept that the way you're going to vote is by awarding one side money. And are you okay with that? Yeah. And before we leave civil side, just to round it out, except for places like Delaware, Chance the Record, which we'll talk about on another episode, which governs corporate

talk about on another episode, which governs corporate conduct. Our court system has compared and contrasted to, let's say, overseas in London, other places. Our judges sit as both courts of law and as courts of equity, meaning as Ben just described as a court of law, it can, or the jury can, award money damages. It also sits as a court of equity, meaning it can do those non-monetary things to redress some injury or grievance. You can call it an injunction, a mandatory injunction, to prevent something or to cause somebody to do something. So our courts are sort of unique in the world because you don't have to go knock on the door of a court of equity to get equity or another court down the street to get justice in law in money damages. The same judge, same jury system can do both equity and law in our civil system.

And so when we talk about civil cases, you may know civil cases as personal injury cases. Somebody gets injured and then they sue the party that injured them. Another type of civil case is a breach of contract case. Parties enter into a contract. One party claims the other side didn't hold up their bargain or the other side argues that maybe the contract didn't even exist. So there's a breach of contract. You may have heard of defamation cases

where one side argues that you've disparaged their reputation in a way that meets certain standards that rise to the level of what's called defamation. There are cases for wrongful death, which is kind of like a, not kind of like, it's a personal injury resulting in the death of an individual. I'm not hearing the torts.

Now we're into torts. One of the things when we talk about personal injury is we talk about negligence, and we can talk about professional negligence, medical malpractice, legal malpractice. These are all kind of civil cases, and of course there are also civil rights claims and civil rights actions. For both criminal and civil, we have a federal court system,

and we have a state court system, and there are certain standards and certain types of cases, depending on whether the certain standards are met, and may under state law or may fall under federal law. I'm not going to go deeply into that judge, the federal court of appeals and the Supreme Court, unless they are impeached, have full job security, and the state court judges are either appointed or elected and served terms, but different states have different rules regarding the length of those terms and how long judges can sit for and whether there is life 10 year or not in certain states for higher elevated courts like state Supreme courts. It gets sometimes extra confusing though because sometimes like in New York and not to throw off our listeners, the Supreme Court is the lower court and the Court of Appeals is the higher court

which is a strange thing to think about. The state Supreme Court is the lower court and the Court of Appeals is the higher court, which is a strange thing to think about. The State Supreme Court is the lower court in New York, but these are just names that are given and different states have different rules and different states. Right on that. Most states call their civil state court trial court a superior court, a superior court. That's general. New York is unique because it likes to be really matting and confusing.

And it calls its lowest level trial court, its Supreme Court, and reserves the highest level appellate court where you take the appeal in the state, which most states call their Supreme Court, so California Supreme Court, Nevada Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court, New York calls that the Court of Appeals. In civil courts, the standard generally is if you're the one suing, you have to prove your case by what's called a preponderance of evidence. So basically 51 to 49. If you break the tie, if you view it as this is one of the things we tell juries, when

we're given closing statement, if you think of a scale of justice, and it just tilts slightly more in favor of one party, in this case, the party suing or the other party, then the party where that scale tilts, even if it's just so, so ever slightly. Yeah, the way we did it, who did justice continue with our our our our Nova Clayton today is the way we describe it to juries is you have a scale of literally have a scale of justice picture of scale. You have a brick on one side and equally weighted brick on the other. So a brick on one side of the scale and it tilts ever so slight or bricks, a brick on both sides and one weighs more than the other. If that evidence to slightly favors one side,

that sides the winner. Now on the criminal case, the standard, and these are criminal cases are theft and larceny and murder and assault, and all of the typical things you would associate as crimes. And there it's up for the government to determine, by beyond, a reasonable doubt is the standard. and you have to get a unanimous jury If there's just one juror who finds that there could be doubt or a reasonable doubt Then that would be what's called a hung jury and you don't get a conviction as a prosecutor Popeye you doing okay with those comments. Great. Hooded justice. I almost broke our unbeaten Popeyes, you doing okay with those comments? Absolutely great. Hooded justice.

I almost broke our unbeaten one-take streak for the podcast. I'm glad you pitched in with the whole scale and justice and all of that. Thank you. I'm sure our listeners loved having their ears coughed into by you. I'm sorry. And I like that.

It just makes you and then closer. It makes you closer. For human being, the velvet hammer is a human being. That can sometimes get a coughing attack and all of that. And I thought we're just going to celebrate the fact that Hooded Justice got his second Moderna shot today. I thought that was good. Yeah, you know, that's why I'm dressed as Hooded Justice today because it was a rough, it was a rough sleep last night with Moderna 2 yesterday afternoon. I'm coming on the other side of it now, but last night was a rough sleep last night with Moderna 2 yesterday afternoon.

I'm coming on the other side of it now, but last night was a combination of feeling super hot and super cold and a ton of chills. And today wasn't the easiest day, but I feel good now. Do you were on your way to being vast and relaxed? Might as touch merch, which I will plug might as touch merch to close the show. We have Vax then relaxed t-shirts and masks and a bunch of great might as touch gear. We have club democracy gear, go to mitestouch.com, Google the might as touch store. The might Touch Merch is really flying off the shelves and people

love the Midas Touch Merch. I saw, I got a notice that we were like in the 1% of 1% of the way they are stored is set up of like all of the other stores. I mean, people are really loving this merch and we appreciate your support. I also want to plug myself and Popak during these episodes. I like to always give as much outreach as I can to you. The listener and let you know that we talked about those civil cases and criminal cases. You know, my law partner and partners do criminal law. I don't do criminal law. I do civil law. I don't do criminal law. I do civil law. I do catastrophic

personal injury cases. I represent victims of sexual abuse. I've sued the Catholic church. I've sued schools. I've sued institutions, corporations for individuals who have been discriminating against or sexually harassed or sexually abused as an area. I do large breach of contract clases. I represent founders of companies who have been screwed over and don't get their percentage of equity that they were promised when these deals become very big. You can contact me benatgheragos.com, be-n-at-g-e-r-a-g-o-s.com. If you or a friend have a court case or think you may, have a court case, give me a shout, bend at garragos.com g-e-r-a-g-o-s.com. And I will directly get in touch with you or make sure I have a lawyer reach out to hear about your potential case. Popak.

And you might get a two-focus cases that bet and I do together. And then you get, you get hooded justice in Velvet Hammer for one of your cases. So I have a very similar practice to use some of the teachings that we did today. I've got a business tort litigation trial practice where I represent business people and others who have breached a contract or other types of business torts

against each other and state and federal court and arbitration. I've got a sort of high profile employment practice where I represent individuals and management in employment related matters including discrimination harassment and the like. I represent people in financial services industry, which is one of my past lives. And I represent people like Ben does in complicated, sophisticated cases that raise national importance, including civil liberties. And that's where Zimpano Patrisius and Popoq my firm often join forces with Garugas and Garugas and Ben Mysalis and his partners.

And we do interesting and exciting things, some of which we talk about on hashtag last, which is I guess one of the new names for our podcast. Well, we always appreciate your support. Might as touch. Laugh legal a f is not possible without you. Your comments are incredible. I wasn't feeling great today and I figured I gotta, I gotta go through. I gotta persevere and do the podcast today.

It was very important to me to keep the consistency of the show. Although a lot of people told me I should just get some sleep today, but it was great spending the day with you. It's always great to have these legal conversations. We hope you left more educated on the law than when you came in. And to spend my cellist and Michael Popak from Legal AF, signing off. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks, Pony. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪