UNBIASED - April 29, 2024: Louisiana Man Accepts Castration Plea; SCOTUS Won't Hear Elon Musk's Case, Will Hear Marijuana-Related RICO Case; New $105B Aviation Bill, and More.

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

1. SCOTUS Releases Order List; Won't Hear Elon Musk's SEC Challenge, Will Hear Marijuana-Related RICO Case (0:44)2. Louisiana Sentences Man to 50 Years and Physical Castration; Other States With Castration Laws Too (6:23)3. QUICK HITTERS: Columbia University Gives Protesters Deadline, Trump and DeSantis Meet in Miami, Biden Speaks With Mexico's President About Border, House and Senate Negotiators Agree on $105B Aviation Bill (11:17)Get EXCLUSIVE, unbiased content on Patreon.Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Monday, April 29th, and this is your daily news rundown. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whichever platform you listen, share the show with your friends. And if you're watching on YouTube, please just go ahead and hit that thumbs up button, subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. All of those things really help support my show. So thank you very much in advance. Without further ado, let's get into today's top stories. We have sort of a mix.

Wasn't really an eventful day in the news, but we're going to cover the top stories nonetheless. So the Supreme Court released some orders this morning, which means that the justices basically told us what cases they will and won't take up in their upcoming term. So for the record, the justices decline a lot more cases than they actually agree to hear. Just naturally speaking, there's a lot of a lot of people petitioning the Supreme Court, and they can only hear so many cases. So two of the more notable cases today, one deals with Elon Musk, which the court actually declined to get involved in, and then the other case relates to marijuana. So let's start with Elon's case first, and then we'll talk about the marijuana-related case. Back in 2018, Elon Musk made various tweets in which he claimed that he had secured funding to take Tesla private.

These tweets caused the company's share price to jump. It led to a temporary halt in trading. And the SEC comes in and they say, hey, Elon Musk, we think that you violated some anti-fraud provisions of securities laws. So we're going to open up this investigation because allegedly Elon Musk had not secured the funding to take Tesla private despite tweeting that he did. Musk ultimately reached a settlement with the SEC, but that settlement in part required him to get attorney approval before he sends out any tweets that relate to Tesla. So years go by and in 2021, Musk tweets and he's asking his followers to opine on whether they think he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. The SEC comes in, they say, hey, we don't think you asked your attorney before you did this, therefore you violated our agreement and we're

going to open up yet another investigation to see if that's the case. So Elon Musk sues the SEC, and he argues that the agreement he entered into with the SEC restricts his constitutional right to speak freely. So his question for the court was this. If a person accepts a settlement agreement with the government, is that person then barred from asserting that the agreement entered into violates their constitutional rights. So in suing, Elon Musk's goal was to essentially void the portion of the agreement that required attorney approval for Tesla-related tweets. He wasn't trying to void the entire agreement, just that one provision. Needless to say, he lost. So he then appeals the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and that panel of judges rules against him as well. The appellate

panel wrote, in part, quote, had Musk wished to preserve his right to tweet without even limited internal oversight concerning certain Tesla-related topics, he had the right to litigate and defend against the SEC's charges or to negotiate a different agreement, but he chose not to do so. End quote. Once that ruling came down, Musk then takes it to the Supreme Court, which today denied his request to hear the case. So what that means is the appellate court's decision stands and Musk must continue to abide by the terms of that agreement with the SEC. Otherwise, he can face penalties. Now let's talk about the case that the justices will take on in their upcoming term, which is related to marijuana, but is a lot deeper than that. So it's not really a marijuana issue as much as it's a legal, like a law issue,

but it'll all make sense once I explain. So the man at the center of this case, he was fired from his job all the way back in 2012. He had ingested a CBD product that was advertised as having no THC, but he later failed a drug test. So clearly it did have some THC in it. The lawsuit was filed three years later in 2015, and it's just now going to the Supreme Court. But anyway, when he filed the lawsuit, he alleged in part that the companies involved in the making, distributing, and selling of the product violated not only the Controlled Substances Act, but also violated the RICO Act. Now, the RICO Act was enacted in 1970 for the purpose of giving prosecutors more power to go after organized crime. It was very much a law targeting organized crime. However, the RICO Act also permits private

lawsuits by individuals who are, quote, injured in business or property, end quote, by reason of the defendant's racketeering activity. In the past, circuit courts have been split as to whether economic damages which arise from a person's injuries, such as lost wages by losing a job or medical expenses from some other type of injury claim, fall into the scope of that in business or property definition and therefore permit civil RICO liability. So that is the question the court will decide. In other words, does the civil RICO's business or property requirement include economic harms that arise from personal injuries? The man who brought this suit wants the justices to answer this question in the affirmative, of course, because that means that his lawsuit can proceed.

But the companies on the other side of the suit argue that RICO does not apply here because RICO never contemplated this type of products liability and that if the court were to rule in the petitioner's favor here, it would vastly expand the type of lawsuits that are able to be brought under the RICO Act. So that's what that case is about. As I said, although, yes, it centers around a CBD product, it's a much deeper issue. That case will be argued in the court's next term, which starts in October. Now, because today was a bit of a slow day in the news, typical Monday, it's usually how Mondays go, I figured I would cover a story from last week out of Louisiana,

one you may have heard about, maybe you didn't, but a 50-year-old man was sentenced to 50 years in prison for raping a juvenile multiple times, but that's not all. He was also ordered to be physically castrated. So I'll say at the outset that there's a good reason he probably won't be castrated once all is said and done, and I'll get into the little caveat there in a minute, but this is thought to be the first time a Louisiana defendant has opted for physical castration as opposed to chemical castration. And I'm sure you have a lot of questions like, is this even legal, which I'll also get into. But here's the backstory. Glenn Sullivan pled guilty earlier this month on April 17th to four counts of second degree rape. And these rapes happened years ago when a now woman, she was 14 years old at the time, but she just went into the

Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office in July of 2022 to report what had happened to her when she was 14 years old. Now, when she was raped, it ultimately led to her getting pregnant and she gave birth to Sullivan's child. So throughout the course of the investigation, this was confirmed through DNA evidence. It was also confirmed that he, you know, restricted her from telling her parents about what was going on and all of that stuff. So Sullivan ends up pleading guilty. He was charged and, of course, pled guilty. As a part of that guilty plea, he agreed to not only serve 50 years in jail, but also get physically castrated. So under a 2008 Louisiana law, castration is an available form of punishment for convicted sex offenders. Under the law, a court can either impose a punishment of chemical castration, that is up to the judge,

or a defendant can voluntarily agree to opt for physical castration instead. And in this case, that is what Sullivan did. He opted for the physical castration. The law mandates that chemical castration is carried out using medroxyprogesterone acetate, or MPA. This is an artificial female hormone, but when it's used on men, MPA has the effect of reducing their testosterone levels to pre-puberty levels. So while the men treated with MPA still have their reproductive organs attached to their body, they're not nearly as inclined to have sex and therefore commit these sex crimes. Physical castration, though, is a little bit different, and it's a little more drastic, which is why it requires the defendant's consent, but it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a surgical procedure that actually removes a man's testicles, and that is what the defendant in this case

decided to do. But I mentioned in the beginning of this story that there is a man's testicles. And that is what the defendant in this case decided to do. But I mentioned in the beginning of this story that there is a very small likelihood that this man will actually be castrated. And here is why. The fact is the 2008 Louisiana law that has been applied here only allows castration to happen within a week of the defendant's release from prison. It cannot happen before then. So because Sullivan is going to be spending the next 50 years behind bars and he's already 54 years old, that would mean he has to live to be 104 years old before he has any chance of facing the ultimate castration. That's just highly unlikely. The final thing I wanted to touch on is if you're anything like me, you're wondering if Louisiana is the only state with a castration law.

And the answer is no. So California actually started this trend back in 1996. Its governor signed a law that allowed for chemical castration for certain sex offenders. And then following that, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin all followed suit. Following that, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin all followed suit. Some of those states only apply to offenders convicted of offenses against minors, but in all states, it is a condition for release from custody, which means the actual castration

doesn't happen until the defendants are about to be set free back into society. The other thing I did want to mention just quickly, it's just a note about Louisiana specifically. Louisiana's current law, as I've said now a couple of times, the chemical castration can be ordered by the judge, but the physical castration is opted for by the defendant. However, Louisiana Senate just over a week ago passed a bill that would allow judges to order themselves physical castration. So it would no longer require that consent from the defendant. However, it would only apply to offenders who committed sex offenses against victims under the age of 13. So in this particular case, because the victim was 14 years old, it wouldn't have even applied to this defendant. But nonetheless,

Louisiana is making strides to sort of expand the reach of that castration law. I want to end this episode by talking about just a few things I think you should know. Think of these as quick hitters, one-liners. They're not necessarily one-liners, but more of quick hitters where, you know, it's just some things that have happened over the course of yesterday and today that I think you should know about but don't necessarily warrant a full story. So Columbia University announced today that it had ended negotiations with protesters. The parties were unable to come to an agreement, and Columbia University then said that these protesters had until 2 p.m. today to leave their encampment, otherwise they would face suspension. However, at 2 p.m. today,

these protesters met at the lawn on Columbia's campus and voted to stay. They said that they will not move unless Columbia meets their demands or they were removed by force. That core demand being that they want Colombia to stop its funding and investments that are tied to Israel. This is a demand that Colombia as well as other universities have rejected. So we'll see what happens now that obviously that 2 p.m. deadline has passed. But as of now, the protesters are remaining on campus. Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis met in Miami on Sunday morning, and while DeSantis' office declined to comment on the meeting and Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment,

sources say the meeting's purpose was to, quote, bury the hatchet between the two. President Biden spoke with the president of Mexico on Sunday about, quote, their commitment to strengthening bilateral and regional cooperation that will benefit the people of the United States and Mexico, end quote. According to a White House press release, the conversation centered on how to effectively manage hemispheric migration, strengthen operational efficiency on the shared border, and thereby improve the security and prosperity of citizens in both countries. The statement also said that the two leaders ordered national security teams to work together to, quote, immediately implement concrete

measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights, end quote. And finally, House and Senate negotiators said Monday that they agreed on a $105 billion bill that is designed to improve the safety of air travel. Among other provisions, the bill will increase the number of air traffic controllers, require the FAA to use updated technology designed to prevent on-the-ground collisions, and prohibit airlines from charging extra for families to sit together. On that topic of consumer protections, negotiators did decide to drop other consumer protections that were proposed by the Biden administration, and negotiators also kept the retirement age for pilots at 65 rather than 67, which the House had approved in its own version of the

bill last year. So the Senate will vote on this bill sometime this week, and then it will go to the House had approved in its own version of the bill last year. So the Senate will vote on this bill sometime this week, and then it will go to the House. And if it passes, of course, it will go to President Biden, who seemingly will sign it into law. That is what I have for you today. Hopefully tomorrow is a little more action-packed. You know, we have a little bit more going on than we did today,

but I hope you have a great night night and I will talk to you tomorrow.