(11/4) HOTL Hour 3

Handel on the Law, Marginal Legal Advice.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is handle on the law.Marginal legal advice. All Right, the
death penalty. I've always liked talkingabout the death penalty because we are I
think one of two or three industrializednations on the planet that still have the
death penalty. It just doesn't existin most of the world, and so
people get executed in this country.California has been thirteen or fourteen years,

(00:23):
even though we do have the deathpenalty here. Then you have states like
Texas where people are executed about asoften as I change by underwear every week.
You have someone going down. Youhave Florida. The two big ones
are Florida in Texas where people areexecuted. Man, you have states where
it's a state issue. By theway, it's also a federal issue.
It's both state and federal. Youcan be executed for a federal crime and

(00:48):
you can be executed for a statecrime. So in the states, there
are several states. Minnesota, forexample, does not have the death penalty.
That save Jeffrey Dahmer, by theway, from being eaten by the
state because he was in a statedidn't have the death penalty. And so
there has been a fight going onregarding the death penalty for I don't know,

(01:11):
decades and decades, because there isan entire movement out there, a
whole large group of people that justdon't understand the entertainment value of the death
penalty. They just don't get it, and so they fight the death penalty
and they've been very successful. Andthe argument originally it was cruel and unusual

(01:36):
punishment on its face, the eighthAmendment, you cannot kill somebody because that
is inherently cruel and unusual just becauseof the death penalty. Well, the
course threw that one out, sonow it is attacking the methods of execution.
And it used to be you know, we used to have some fun
stuff. You have the electric chairwhere people fried and were fizzled and flame

(01:57):
shot off the top of your head. Had great stuff, and they used
to have hanging In some states,you used to have firing squads. I
think South Dakota brought back the firingsquad. Hangings were a big one.
Some great stories about hangings. Andthen it started with lethal execution because that

(02:22):
was deemed the least cruel and unusualmethod because the attacks were made over and
over again, and all you needis one judge along the line on all
these appeals to stop the stop thepenalty, and then that can be overturned.
But still it's really hard to executesomeone. So you have all of
these lawsuits that have been filed arguingthat all of these messads were cruel and

(02:46):
unusual, and some judge bought it, and so lethal injection became the method
by which is now accepted. Exceptthe lawsuits are going against lethal injection.
And why is that because veins explode, Because you have prisoners, you have
the the person's going to be executedwhen the lethal drugs go in, start

(03:13):
bouncing up and down and like doingthe funky chicken right there on the chair
or on the gurney, and socourt said, okay, that is cruel
and unusual. So it's up inthe air right now. Well, let
me tell you what is happening.And then they try to experiment. Some
states, the companies that made thedrugs, the cocktail, if you will,

(03:34):
of the execute of the drugs thatare used in execution wouldn't sell to
the state anymore. They just saidno, therefore stopping the executions. So
it's really complicated stuff. So letme tell you what happened in Alabama.
Alabama of course lawsuits were filed.And what the state did, and this
is a case that's going to beused in the execution of Kenneth Ugh Jane

(03:58):
Smith, who I don't know whenthis was thirty years ago. He murdered
someone. That's the other thing.Takes thirty thirty five years to get executed.
People die of old age on deathrow. So they're going to execute
him. And of course lawsuits werefiled, and it went all the way
up to the Supreme Court that broughtback the death penalty, and it didn't

(04:18):
order the execution method. It justsaid we're going back, let's do it.
Death penalty is good, not crueland unusual. And what even though
the court did not specify the exactmethod, what Alabama court is going to
do is use nitrogen gas. Neverbeen used before. Nitrogen gas now here

(04:42):
in California. We used to havethe gas chamber. Matter of fact,
you go to San Quentin and Ihave been there because I was and I'm
going to use the word lucky enoughto actually witness an execution one of the
best days of my life. Bythe way, everybody told me. Were
people that were against the death penalty, said, oh, Bill once you
see the death penalty be against it. Let me tell you I was more
in favor of the death penalty.It just wasn't as entertaining as it should

(05:04):
have been. I mean, thesebastards who you know what it takes,
the kind of crime it takes todayto get the death penalty. I mean,
you literally have to almost take outan entire Cardig kindergarten class with an
axe before you're given the death penalty. And so I saw the first lethal
injection execution here in the state ofCalifornia. And so they're going to use

(05:30):
nitrogen in an Alabama and we'll seeif that's going to work. And though
the inmate is only only breathed nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them
to die theoretically without any pain.They were originally going to use helium,
but that meant they had to strapdown the inmate with seat belts, and

(05:54):
the courts were a little leary ofthat. Bottom line, is nitrogen going
to be used, Yeah? Isit going to do the job that it
should yeah? And will there belawsuits saying that it was cruel and unusual?
Yeah? And the reality is Ihave to tell you why I have,

(06:15):
even though I'm in favor of thedeath penalty in a big, big
way, not only in terms ofI believe in justice. I believe in
retribution. I believe in pay foryour crime. And by the way,
being executed is far far well,it's the word I'm looking for. Is

(06:39):
far easier to deal with than whatthat inmate has done. It's not even
close. And of course the entertainmentvalue having been to one was the last
meal you go in the room,I have to at some point I tell
you just that day and what Isaw. That's for a different topic.
And so is the nightrich you're goingto work. I think so, and

(07:00):
we'll see what happens. Even withthe lawsuits, and the problem is the
pain that it causes. Very fewinmates are able to come back and testify
as to how much it hurt.See, there are some practical problems here
with the death penalty and these lawsuits, and so back we go. I'm
in favor of it, but inreality is practically speaking, I'm against it.

(07:25):
And you know why, because youknow what it costs to actually execute
someone in the state. Tens ofmillions of dollars, if not hundreds for
the people that are actually executed.We've got seven hundred and something, seven
hundred and ninety people on death roat. None of them are going to be
executed. California has a moratorium andthe automatic appeals that go up when you

(07:46):
get life in prison without parole.I mean, that's let me tell you,
that's a tough one. And there'sno appeals. There are no automatic
appeals. You're on your own.If you get the death penalty. The
automatic appeals start happening instantly. Andso for that reason, I took a
long time, by the way,I took a whole segment for that.
But as you can tell, Iam truly truly in favor in many many

(08:11):
ways of the death penalty and thereason I'm practically against it because it's practically
impractical. Sophia, Hello, Sophia, welcome. Oh yes, My question
to you is, my friend isa grandma for that fourth time, and

(08:31):
she her that it was to putthe baby for abdoption. She had a
baby October twenty nine. Okay,she's a grands she's a grandmother for the
fourth time, and she had ababy. Do I have that right?
No? No, no, no, no no. The Mather Oh Okay,
the mother has Okay, mother hashad a baby for the fourth time,

(08:52):
and she wants to put it upfor adoption. Correct, yes,
okay, we don't know any steps. He got it, all right,
that's a good question. All right. You can do one of two things.
You can put it up with thestate literally just call or the county.
Just call the county and go,I've got a baby that I want
to adopt out. And then theytake it over and they handle it.

(09:16):
Uh. The other one, whichgives them a lot more control, gives
uh the mother a lot more control. And you can write this down because
this is complicated. Okay, youhire you hire an adoption attorney to help
you with adoptions. Very easy,it's under a by the way, okay,

(09:37):
let me let me little. Itsounds it's stupid, but it's very
important. We already have the coupleit wants to adopt this money. Okay,
well that's the money part, doesn'treally matter. Then you then then
you go to the adoption attorney,uh, and you say, this is
the couple that wants to adopt thechild. The mother has the absolute right

(09:58):
to chew the couple to choose thepeople that want to adopt that child.
That with a county, you justgive it up, okay with an adoption
attorney. That's a okay with whenyou look it up with an adoption attorney.
Usually the adoption journey provides couples andsay choose one. In this case,

(10:18):
she's already chosen. Very easy todo, very very easy to just
go to. Just go to anadoption attorney. And that doesn't you No,
I used to know when I usedto practice surrogacy, you know,
and I used to work very closelywith adoption attorneys, even though it's not
the same field. I never didadoptions, but you will, just especially

(10:41):
in this case. This is basicallyjust doing the paperwork. So just look
for an adoption attorney. That's it. Oh, Tim, Hi, Tim,
welcome. Hello. Yes, Ilive on a boat in a marina
that I've lived on for fifteen yearsnow, and it's it's supposed to be

(11:05):
a separate entity, but it's controlledby the city. Well, yeah,
why would it be hold on Whywould it be a separate entity if it's
a city marina. We pay,we pay the leases, and the leases
are supposed to go to the administrationand the maintenance of the marina. Okay,

(11:28):
I understand you pay Okay, youpaid the administration, so you pay
the city administration fee. You Imean you pay rent to the city,
to the harbor district. Okay.But that's a that's an entity that is
an administrative legal entity and very wellmaybe part of the city, you know,

(11:50):
or it's independent, but the cityover oversees it. I have no
idea, but okay. So italso makes all the decisions. Okay.
So it's a say so it's controlby the city, okay, correct,
And the city council has no problemmaking decisions in their favor because most of
the people that own the slips don'tlive in the city, so they don't

(12:15):
vote. There's no recourse. They'rewanting to raise the slip rents forty in
the next two months, and I'mjust calling is that legal? Is there
any recourse? No? Nope,nope. The only recourse would be if
if you're living on a house voatand you're somehow arguing that that is a

(12:37):
residence and you're renting the residence andyou can't go up beyond what the rent
control is no control here, Tim. They what they're doing is they're renting
you a slip and there is noprotection. They can do whatever the hell
they want. And yeah, it'sand a lot of people give up their

(13:00):
boats because the slip rental is soenormous they're just not willing to pay it.
I have friends that I have friendsthat have a boat. I think
they're paying fifteen or eighteen hundred dollarsa month for slip rental. Like what,
you know, you have to havelots of money, so you're you're
pretty well screwed. So congratulations,yep, oh here is a good one.

(13:28):
John, Hello, John, welcome. Yes, I had a wedding
photographer that we hired come out doour wedding. Everything went as planned,
and in our contract we paid afront like stated the entire fee. And
then now we're sitting almost at sixmonths and the photos have not been overturned

(13:50):
to us, and her contract datedeight weeks. And you know, you
know, I gave a little bitof time and then reached out, reach
out again, no response, noresponse. Yeah that is yeah, I
mean that is a real problem.And this is you've heard me before talk
about how the law can be verysloppy in the sense that the law really

(14:11):
doesn't connect with injuries and I saidbefore I loan you one thousand dollars,
you don't pay me one thousand dollars. I sue you for one thousand dollars.
That's easy, okay, not aproblem with that. You know,
the law is real clean on thatone. Now I want to talk sloppy,
and that is you pay someone sixthousand bucks for pictures whatever it is

(14:33):
for let's say five thousand dollars forwedding photos. That's just a figure I
just threw out there, and youpay for it, and they're supposed to
give you the pictures and they don't. Well, clearly, you get your
five thousand dollars. I mean,you go to small claims court and of
course you're get to you get yourfive thousand dollars. But how about the
real damage here is uh yeah,how about the real damage here? And

(14:56):
that is that your daughters or yourwedding is not on film or video.
And how much money is that worth? And for a lot of people that
is priceless, I mean priceless.So in regards to you know, reaching

(15:18):
out to her again, I mean, can we show up to the house
and demand just the photo? Doyou know? Here's what I Here's what
I would do, because the picturesare so priceless. I would invest a
couple of hundred dollars if you canget it with a lawyer, to write
a letter and basically scare her.Say, you know, not only are

(15:39):
we going to get our money back, but we are also going to sue
for the sentimental value because these photosare priceless, and the court we're going
to take everything. And then basicallyjust say and and the court we're going
to ask for the We're going toask for the non monetary damage and that
is effectively the pain and suffering thesentimental value, and we're going to be

(16:03):
asking for one hundred thousand dollars orsomething something along those lines. Can't threaten
her, but you can say thisis what we're going to ask for,
and maybe that'll bring her role nowwould be a yep, demand for the
pictures to be returned. The otherthing you can do is actually go into
court and get a court order,especially if you've already paid all of the

(16:23):
money, A judge will order herto to give you the pictures. I
think one I try the letter,because that could be very easy to do.
You can even write her tell herthat doing an email or whatever.
Say I've contacted a lawyer. Youhave me. Don't mention my name because
she'll start laughing hysterically. So justsay I've contacted a lawyer and this is

(16:47):
what I'm told. I can sueyou for this. I can sue you
for emotional damage. I can sueyou for sentimental value. You are basically
destroyed our memory of the wedding givingus the pictures, and you've been paid
in full. That's what I wouldsays, matter of fact, that's how
I will That's what I would do. I would sue, you know.
For example, I pictures that wetook my daughter's bought Mitzvah's when they were

(17:12):
thirteen years old. I always suggesthaving twins because it's two for the price
of one. It's a much betterdeal. Birthdays, et cetera are a
lot cheaper. And I look atthe pictures, you know, and I
relive it and remind myself that itwas the most expensive day of my entire
life, and what the hell didI do spending that much money. But

(17:33):
the point is they're there, andthat's what I would do, And it
really is a tough one. Ican understand that I mean not having photos
of your wedding or your kinson eraof your kids or bought mitzvah, I
mean all of that. I meanthat's stuff. It really is priceless.
Robert, Hello, Robert, welcome. Hi Bill. Yeah, how are

(17:53):
you horrible? But that's a differentshow. Yes, my home's in a
living trust and I have a friendshe wants to cohabitate, and I'm not
as I think that the living trustwill cover the issue of protecting my home.

(18:14):
But she also has medical problems,and I'm wondering, could I be
forced to use the equity or haveto use the equity in my No,
Okay, absolutely, you have.The fact that you're living together really doesn't
matter. Under these circumstances. Youhave absolutely no responsibility to pay her medical
bill. As a matter of fact, she could literally die right there on

(18:37):
your couch and bleed out, andthe only case that would exist is you
could sue her estate for destroying hercouch or your couch. So I would
I'm in on the go ahead.No, in on that. On your
previous the death penalty issue, Yes, what I've always wondered, disc why

(19:02):
don't they everybody's gone under surgery andyou know, you get your ante and
you go to sleep. Yeah,why don't Why don't they do that?
They do basically that's what the cocktailis. Uh. You've got they put
you under, then they paralyze you, and then they stop your heart.
Uh. And that's a good malpracticecase if it was surgery, but it's

(19:23):
not so anyway, that's a goodquestion. I did a whole I did
an entire uh segment on the deathpenalty, which if you've heard it,
you know how much in favor Iam of it only because the entertainment value
of it. Uh, that's it. Uh. Come oya, hello,
come oya, welcome, Hi Bill. Yes, I have we have solar

(19:44):
panels on our house. The solarcompany went out of business and we are
in a three year contract with thefinance company and they haven't been paid in
two months because the solar company doesn'tsend them a check anymore. Right,
So what do we do? Youpay that, you pay the company,
you pay the finance company. Iswhat you do. There's no one go
after. You've got people that areresponsible effectively as bankruptcy. I'm assuming they

(20:07):
went bankrupt, but if they're outof business, I don't know if they
filed or not, but that doesn'treally matter because there's no money there,
and it's just one of the thingsthat happened. You know, the law
allows companies to go under and youget stuck. You're basically you're a creditor
actually, and you're not going todo Yeah, you're just not going to

(20:29):
see any money. And you haveand you're responsible. It's like I co
sign a loan for you and youdon't pay. CO sign a lease and
you don't pay, I get stuckwith it, right, yeah, so
you're kind of out of luck.How much How much do they want per
month? It's like, I wantto say, about three hundred dollars a
month, right, Yeah, that'smoney, and and for how and for

(20:52):
how long? For how long?Come on? Yeah? We were in
a three year contract. We barelyjust made a year, so all right,
so yeah, two years to go. I mean, thank god,
you don't have a twenty five yearcontract. Okay, yeah, but you're
gonna be stuck with it unfortunately.Karen, Hello, Karen, welcome.
I do. Yeah. My questionis my company is closing down one of

(21:15):
our location and that's where I workat and I've been here for over thirty
years and I asked them about Severn'spay, and they said that they may
not be Severn's pay, but theyhad paid people before severance pay when they
had laid them off. So whatare the rights. Yeah, let's start

(21:36):
with the fact that there are norights to severance pay. It doesn't exist.
There's no mandatory severance pay in anystate that I know of, So
that is number one. Number twothere is if there is a procedure a

(21:56):
policy within the company to pay severancepay, then they have to do it
equally. In other words, theycan say I don't like you, Karen,
but I like Josephine. I'm gonnapay Josephine severance pay and I'm not
going to pay you for the sametime you're here. That they can't do.
They have to follow their own proceduresthat are laid out. However,

(22:19):
they could easily say we've stopped severancepay because we don't have the money anymore.
That's like bonuses. We've had bonusesfor thirty years and effective immediately,
there are no bonuses that are goingout. That just happened to one of
the big car companies where the striketook place, and they said we're done

(22:41):
with bonuses. This year, nobodygets a bonus, and so yeah,
you're kind of out of luck.Unfortunately, believe in somebody that recently got
laid off like last year and theygot yuah last year. Well, let
me ask you, well, howmuch money do you think you can lose?
A business can change overnight? Whathappens if a business pays severance et

(23:02):
cetera and then loses its biggest contractnext week and all of a sudden,
revenues dropped thirty or forty percent,they still have to give you severance pay
even though there's no money. They'renot gonna they're gonna have a hard time
keeping the lights on. Yeah,so yeah, yeah, I know that's
tough, but that is you haveno case. Bob, Hello, Bob

(23:26):
Hey there, Bill Hey. Ireceived a prepaid gift card MasterCard from my
students in a sealed package, andI registered it using the pin and followed
the instructions and found out it wasworth two hundred and eighteen dollars and every
time I tried to use it itwas declined. So I called the eight
hundred number on the card and theywanted me to verify who I am,

(23:49):
and they said it wasn't that I'mnot the owner of the card, that
it was registered to someone else,and that there's a zero balance. I
don't want to know if I haveany kind of legal recourse what I Yeah,
if you can find the person thatscammed that card, yeah you can't.
Exactly. No one has any ideabecause this is a scam, and

(24:14):
that's a big problem. By theway, in retail stores where you buy
gift cards there at the counter,and supermarkets you buy two hundred and three
hundred dollars cards, those become areal problem, and those have been scammed
because people what they do is they'llgo in and somehow get the number of
the card, and then they willsubmit and they will get the amount of

(24:37):
money that goes into their account.Yeah, Scott, there's nothing you can
do about it. You you havebeen scammed, or more importantly, your
students have been scammed. Yeah.They all pitched in, and yeah I
know it, and I know that. You know, they're all destitute and
they put in a dime apiece andthey don't have enough money to eat,
but they gave up their breakfast todo it, which is inevitably the case.

(25:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's the wayit goes you. Okay, Uh,
no one wants to hear that.But you know, scammers, Uh,
that is the problem. As technologyadvances, the scammers advance, he's
usually faster and uh. Then security, cybersecurity and uh dealing with uh,

(25:29):
dealing just dealing with just dealing withit usually is behind behind the eight ball,
behind the curve. Hello, Michael, yo, Michael, Hey,
Bill, Yeah, Bill, youhear me. Yeah. We have a
dog we've had for ten years.And my wife was in Resident Hilaria walking
across on the middle of the crosswalkthe four stop intersection Residents Hilario one one

(25:56):
lane on each side of time andalmost starting at one corner, halfway through,
almost to the other corner. Ladyrams through, stops Ye runs over
my dog, kills my dog.This is my wife by about eight inches
ten inches, and you know we'reheartbroken, obviously, Yeah, of course

(26:21):
you are. And the police.The police recalled in our where we live
in Beverly Hills. They don't comeunless a human is injured, right,
So that was no good. Andthere are lots of witnesses there. I
spoke to them and then I gotone of those ring people who have the
ring in their house where you cansee everything, and I have evidence she

(26:41):
was going about fifteen Okay, Idon't. Okay, there's so there's no
issue as to liability. Was ita hit and run or did she stop?
She did stop? Okay, andyou got her name, you got
her number, you have everything correct, but heartbroken my wife's run to a
Yeah. No, I understand that. It's no. I understand, uh

(27:02):
and clearly. I mean, youknow, to be perfectly honest, you'd
rather have had your wife run overthan the dog. I understand that.
By the way, does a womando You haven't to know if the woman
has any kids? Yes, yeah, you can run. You can run
over one of them and go.I'll show you how'd that work out for
you? Uh? Doing that?I know, of course, I know.

(27:27):
Believe me, I have dogs,and uh it is to lose a
dog, even putting one down whenthey've lasted forty six years is a killer.
Uh. So now I'm going togive you. Uh, they had
actually had a I actually had aforensics guy go over the tape and he

(27:47):
shows how fast she was going.You know. No, No, there's
liability there, no, no,no, there's no issue. She's completely
at fault. We're not going totalk about liability. We're going to talk
about damages. That's what we're goingto talk about. And so let's talk
about damages. And uh, thereare some issues when you have a dog.
A dog is property, that's it. The law does not recognize how

(28:12):
badly you're hurt emotionally, I meantheoretically because of going to a therapist emotion
Yeah, if they're if your wifeis screwed up enough, and I'm not
saying that pejoratively either, if yourwife is screwed up, if if she
screwed up enough that she needs therapyover this, Uh, there probably is

(28:32):
a case for emotional damage for uh, negligent infliction of emotional distress in running
over a dog. But when youtalk about losing a dog generally, and
even then if your wife is intherapy, it's sort of an issue.
Is it was it a mutt?Okay, it was a boxer, purebred

(28:52):
boxer. How much did you payfor it? And then we got it
from a shelter? Oh okay,so it's a shelter dog. So the
dog really isn't worth anything monetarily.We're talking about just how much is dog
worth money. So you buy purebread for twenty five hundred dollars and someone

(29:14):
kills it and they're at fault.The damage is twenty five hundred dollars.
Or I don't know how much aused boxer goes for these days, but
a brand new one is twenty fivehundred dollars. Now, if it's a
show dog, it could be worthtens of thousands of dollars. We're talking
about just the value of the dogin terms of money. MutS that you
get from shelters zero and that isYeah, that's the unfortunate part. And

(29:41):
the law doesn't recognize how devastated youare, which of course you are.
You know, there's no question aboutit. If she has the neck problems
or whatever, oh your wife,yeah yeah, no, if she had
to twist her head and jump outof the way, now eight in the

(30:02):
fact that she wasn't hit, Uhit was eight inches difference. The only
listen close only really works on horseshoesand atomic weapons. The rest of the
time, it really doesn't work.Uh. But no, there's no,
there's nothing, there's nothing criminal there. Uh no, it's it could be,

(30:22):
but the cops weren't there. Noone saw it. And it's just
it. But it doesn't even matterif it's reckless driving. It doesn't matter
if she's liable anyway. That doesn'thelp you driving on her record. Uh
you know what, no one's gonnado it now now you can't. I
know how devastated you are, butI know you want to lash out,
which is why we go back todoes she have kids? Run over the

(30:45):
kids? That'll show you. Uh, it's you know, yeah, it's
tough. Yeah. What do youdo with that? I mean literally,
what do you do with that?Uh? Now, there have been some
cases where I think judges have recognizedemotional damage, but I think they've been
overturned. I wish the law wouldrecognize emotional damage, but it doesn't.

(31:08):
It doesn't. And here she waswalking her dog across the sidewalk, across
the crosswalk. Go figure, allright, real quickly, I'm going to
continue to take phone calls right now. If you're on the phone, if
you're on hold, just say exactlywhere you are. Because right after the
show, as I walk out,I just keep on going and you could
call in in ten or fifteen minutesor five minutes afterwards. Because there are

(31:32):
no commercials. I just sip rightthrough these things very quickly. The phone
number eight hundred five two zero onefive three four eight hundred five two zero
one five three four. As Icontinue handle on the Law off the air.
This is handle on the Law