Legal AF by MeidasTouch - GA Judge Makes BOMBSHELL RULING on KEY Election Issue

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

A Georgia state court judge presiding over the Trump special purpose grand jury in his criminal case just struck down Georgia’s 6-week abortion ban as violative of a woman’s fundamental liberty right enshrined in the Georgia constitution. Michael Popok explains on what grounds the Judge, against the wishes of his own Georgia Supreme Court, reinstated Georgia’s original 22-week ban. Sundays: Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to https://sundaysfordogs.com/LEGALAF or use code LEGALAF at checkout. Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Michael Popak, Legal AF, with some breaking jaw-dropping news coming out of Georgia. We have a Georgia Superior Court judge in a total rebuke to his own Georgia Supreme Court who just found that the Georgia Constitution and its protection of liberty and privacy rights for women in Georgia means that they have the right to reproductive choices of their own. They have the right to choose about whether they're going to carry a baby or not, at least through 22 weeks, and has struck down the six week ban

that the Georgia legislature had passed back in 2019, which all of the MAGA in Georgia had celebrated, but has led to the deaths of Georgia women. Judge McBurney has said, that's enough. That there is a recognized privacy and liberty right that is broader even than what was in the United States Constitution. Under Georgia law, you look no further,

it's right there in plain sight in Georgia constitutional law and he took on and poked a finger in the eyes of his Georgia Supreme Court in doing so. Because just a year ago, they found that McBurney had made an error, a reversible error in the same case because he had ruled without getting into the merits of a constitutional analysis that the 2019 law, what they referred to, I hate these acronyms,

what they referred to as the life act, because it has to do with, of course, they're trying to sell this to the public. The LIFE Act in Georgia, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, newsflash to the people that aren't scientists or doctors in the Georgia legislature. What we're talking about are not infants. I have an infant. She's four months old. We're talking about embryos, but leave that for another moment.

He ruled that in 2019 originally, and the Supreme Court reversed him, that it was dead on arrival, that that statute as passed by the Georgia legislature was void ab initio, a fancy legal way of saying it had no legal consequence, had no legal merit, because at the time in 2019, Roe versus Wade and a federal constitutional right

for a woman to choose was already enshrined in the constitution, hadn't yet been ripped away by the MAGA on the Supreme Court. And therefore, this law being inconsistent with the federal constitutional rights of Roe versus Wade was void. Then, of course, we had the Dobbs decision written by Sam Alito, joined by five others of the right-wing MAGA on the Supreme Court. So the Georgia Supreme Court said, oh no, McBurdy, you did it wrong. It's not void, Abab Nishio. The Supreme Court didn't the Georgia Supreme Court said, Oh, no, McBurney, you did it wrong. It's not void ab initio. The Supreme Court didn't rip away a woman's right to choose the

first time we all saw it. The first time a constitutional right given to a group of people in America was ever ripped away by the United States Supreme Court in its entire constitutional history first time ever. And that happened to be women and their right to choose. The Georgia Supreme Court said to McBurney last year In a six to one decision against him. You got it wrong. You got it wrong They didn't change the Constitution They just said that the Constitution never provided that right and that the prior Supreme Court had made a mistake

In declaring that there was a constitutional right when there isn't so the 2019 act is not inconsistent in declaring that there was a Constitutional right when there isn't. So the 2019 act is not inconsistent with the law at the time and the Constitution because the Constitution never provided it. Oh, I guess for 50 years or 55 years we'd gotten it wrong. We wrote versus Wade back in 1973. And so, McBurney got it back. Now, you might be thinking at this point, Pope Buck, don't I know McBurney in that name? Yes, you do. Because McBurney, Robert McBurney, Don't I know McBurney in that name? Yes, you do. Because McBurney, Robert McBurney, before he got into this case, was also presiding over the special purpose grand jury work that Fonny Willis started that led to the indictment

of Donald Trump in Georgia. That's why you know McBurney. He used to be the chief judge in Superior Court. It rotates that position. And now he's just a trial judge who just issued a 40 page decision. I'm going to read to you now. This is earth shattering, just to set the context here. This is Georgia, where women literally are dying because they can't get reproductive

health. There's at least two major examples in the last two weeks that ProPublica disclosed to the American people and voter about it. They couldn't get basic reproductive procedures done and they died leaving motherless their children. And that's what's happening in Georgia as the backdrop. And so McBurney, in rendering his opinion, I'm going to read to you from the earth shattering constitutional analysis under Georgia constitutional law. Because as I've said before on Legal AF

and in my own hot takes in my analysis, the way around this brick wall that MAGA has put up by ripping away a woman's right to choose and shrine to the constitution is to go state by state. There are at least 10 states that have on their ballot this coming November, down ballot from Harris versus Trump, is whether a state will add into their state constitution expressly a woman's right to make reproductive choices and have bodily autonomy and be restored to first class

citizenship in this country. In 22 states, a woman is not a first class citizen because she can't make basic decisions about whether she wants to carry another being or not to term. And so she's a second-class citizen. That's on the ballot in November. Battleground state of Georgia. Think about this. It's not the October surprise, but it may be the October surprise for Georgia and Georgia voters. If this doesn't motivate people to go to the polls in Georgia and vote for the only party

that will protect a woman and a woman's right to choose, I don't know what would. And so first thing that McBurney does is he sticks a finger in the eye literally almost. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. Aggressively to his bosses. Talk about speaking truth to power. He's taken on the entire Georgia Supreme Court. Listen to this footnote, and it's in a footnote. See it?

Here it goes. The fundamental basis upon which the majority rested its opinion, the majority, it was six to one against him. But I digress. The false, the falsely modest precept that quote, the court is not the source of the Constitution's meaning guaranteed the outcome of the state's judicial and political reality. Of course, the Constitution means what it means,

the US Constitution. Such circularity tells us nothing. Ultimately the Constitution means only what the courts tell us and the Supreme Court's of the states and the nation have the controlling voices in that discussion. That's his way of saying F you or legal AF you to his bosses at the Supreme Court. And what they said was, you got it wrong, McBurney. You got to redo it. You can't do it based on your analysis

that the law was dead on arrival because it was inconsistent with the Roe versus Wade decision because that decision has been overturned by Dobbs and the US Supreme Court, do it again. And he said, okay, I'm gonna do it again. Now I'm gonna do it under an analysis of the Georgia Supreme Constitution. And that's the other way around the brick wall.

You have to argue state by state that the state's own right to privacy and liberty rights enshrined in its own state constitution, even if it doesn't say abortion or reproductive rights, gives a woman a right to choose. And that's what advocates of the right to choose are doing state by state to continue to expand beyond the 22, to get those 22 states where there's a ban

somehow to get women so they don't have to go on the road under threat of criminal prosecution to get abortions and reproductive health treatments somewhere else. If they can even afford it, if they even have time to do it all under the six-week abortion bans. Let me read to you from some of the most powerful passages in Judge McBurney's decisions. He reminds us the plaintiffs in this case are OBGYNs, Reproductive Health Centers, and groups about reproductive freedom and justice.

That's who they are. He talks about the LIFE Act. And he says, here's the issue that's at stake. This is on page six of the 26 page decision. Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy or even equal protection, this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body. The baseline rule is clear. A legally competent person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does and does not do in terms of health, hygiene, and the like.

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which makes it super convenient. As we head into the holiday season, you don't have to wait to make a New Year's resolution to start giving your dog a healthy diet and one that won't break your back or your wallet. Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to SundaysForDogs.com slash Legal AF or use code LegalAF at checkout. He then goes on to talk about the liberty and privacy rights which he finds enshrined as a judge interpreting the Constitution of Georgia in the Georgia Constitution. On page nine, plaintiffs, in stating their claim, properly invoke the very first provision

of our state's constitution. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except by due process of law. It is a fundamental right, Judge McBurney continues on page nine, recognized as having a value so essential to individual liberty in our society that its infringement merits careful scrutiny by the courts. It is also much broader than its federal counterpart. In other words, he's saying the Georgia right to privacy and liberty is even greater than what's afforded by the United States Constitution and its right to privacy.

See, there isn't really a right to privacy. We use that as a shorthand within the United States Constitution. It's really a penumbra or an umbrella of other rights that have been found that embody a right to privacy. But did our framers of the Constitution put in there a right to privacy? They did not.

But there's a liberty and equal protection, other rights that the framers did put in the US Constitution that over time, these penumbra of rights is what we call it, they have found the right to privacy. But in certain states like Georgia, there is a right to privacy expressly and a right to liberty. On page 12, Judge McBurney says, because that life act, the infant, the wrongly named Infant Protection Act, infringes upon a woman's fundamental rights to make her own health care choices and decide what happens to her body and with her body, in her body. The act must serve a compelling state interest, which it does not.

He also invokes Handmaid's Tale, which we have done frequently in Legal AF and on the podcast on page 14. He says on 14 over to 15, "'For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as a human incubator for the five months leading up to viability.

It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a commander from the Handmaid's Tale whether they serve as a human incubator for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a commander from the handmaid's tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, any more so than society would or should force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another. Powerful, powerful. And so what the judge did, and it's going to stand until it's appealed back to the Georgia Supreme Court that he's already insulted and told them they don't understand constitutional

interpretation or the role of judges in that process. Here we go. His conclusion, which restores the right to choose up to 22 weeks, which is what it was before this life act was passed in 2019. This is how Judge McBurney ends it. Listen to the eloquence of this. The authors of our constitutions, state and federal, entrusted, quote, entrusted to future generations, a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its

meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution's central protections and received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed." Citing the Oberfeldt versus Hodges case. Plaintiffs have made such a claim and the court has addressed it. A review of our higher courts, this is back, he's poking the bear again at his own Supreme Court, a review of our higher courts interpretation of liberty demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meeting, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights, the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it and to reject states interference with her healthcare choices. That power is not unlimited. So he goes off, he's made the balancing test. And he sets out what the balancing test should be. When a fetus grows inside a woman,

reaches viability. When society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then and only then may society intervene. As an arbitrary six-week ban is inconsistent with these rights and the proper balance that a viability rule establishes between a woman's rights of liberty and privacy on one hand and a society's rights in protecting and caring for unborn infants. Accordingly, the LIFE Act is declared unconstitutional. The state and all of its agents are once again enjoined, prevented from seeking to enforce the termination ban at Six Weeks in Georgia. Because it is stricken, they don't have to go into the exceptions to it. But they find that as a woman does not require a bestowed upon exception to pursue pre-viability termination.

Therefore, he's finding that to be unconstitutional. Well, again, the state making decisions for a woman regarding her pregnancy. So ordered the 30th day of September, 2024, Judge Robert C.I. McBurney. What's going to happen next? The losing group here, state of Georgia, its governor, Governor Kemp, who was all excited two years ago when the six-week ban was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court a year ago, is going to appeal again. But in the interim, unless and until that injunction is overturned by the higher court, could happen in the next week or two, by the way, with an emergency application, women in Georgia

up to 22 weeks now, now can have and seek out reproductive health and make their own decisions. Doesn't help all the women that already had their babies forced to have children in the last year and a half. There's thousands not in a, you know, there's thousands of those, at least going forward now, there is a group that can take advantage of this until it's taken away from them by the Georgia Supreme Court, which is likely to happen.

Especially since they think they've got the numbers at the US Supreme Court to back them and support them. And they got a governor who's gonna be arguing for this. What does it all mean for the election at the intersection of law and politics? Georgia is the battleground state once again. You've got women dying in Georgia, leaving motherless children because they couldn't get reproductive health. Two examples brought up by ProPublica. You've got McBurney running into the burning building to protect women in this

new decision. You've got the Georgia Supreme Court who's going to smack him back down again, and people go into the polls in about 38 days. Now I have something I'm going to posit here in this hot take for people to leave a comment on. Do people think McBurney, who presided over the special purpose grand jury that Fonny Willis brought that ultimately led to the indictment of Donald Trump, is doing a little payback on Donald Trump. He watched as McAfee, his fellow colleague, got mired in potentially dismissing aspects of the indictment against Donald Trump and others and attacking and almost disqualifying

Fonny Willis. Is this his way? A little bit of a make-up from the Georgia court system, sort of like in sport where an umpire or referee makes a mistake, and then later on tries to fix it by making another makeup calls. Is that what we have here? I don't think so in reading the 26 pages.

The depth of his constitutional analysis and his intellectual powers and gifts on display is quite awe-inspiring. If anybody should be on the either, either the Georgia Supreme Court, or more likely and more possibly a Kamala Harris United States Supreme Court, take him out of Georgia, Kamala, take McBurney and put him on the United States Supreme Court when you have one or two opportunities in the future, which you will likely through historical precedent have. We'll continue to follow it all right here on the Midas Touch Network. In great news,

we've got a new channel. If you like this law and politics commentary and analysis that I've been doing for four and a half years, including on the Legal AF podcast, you're going to love our new channel on YouTube, Legal AF MTN. That's Midas Touch Network. Legal AF MTN. Go there now right here. free subscribe. Help us build our pro-democracy network in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network. I'll be curating the channel and bringing it to you just the way I know how to do, without blow and smoke

or sunshine, kind of like this hot take. So until my next Legal AF, until my next Legal AF MTN exclusive content, this is Michael Popak and I'm reporting. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. content. This is Michael Popak and I'm reporting.