UNBIASED - SCOTUS Upholds Voting Rights Act, NYC Sues its Neighbors, CNN Ousts Licht, District Seeks Dismissal in Teacher Shooting Suit

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

1. SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Minority Voters in Allen v. Milligan Upholding Section 2 of Voting Rights Act (3:12)2. School District Seeks to Dismiss Lawsuit Filed by Teacher Shot by 6-Year-Old Student; Student's Mother Facing Additional Charges (18:01)3. New York City Sues Thirty Neighboring NY Counties for Taking Action to Prohibit the Transfer of Migrants (24:22)4. Chris Licht Out at CNN (28:41)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more. Follow Jordan on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You are listening to the Jordan Is My Lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Friday. I have four stories for you today. So the first story is going to be that Supreme Court case, Allen versus Milligan, controversial case surrounding the Voting Rights Act. So I'm going to cover that in pretty good detail. That's going to cover the first half of the episode. And then the last three stories will be the second half of the episode. So the second story is going to be an update on that case that I had spoken about prior,

the Virginia teacher who was shot by her six-year-old student, and some updates in that case, including a motion to dismiss filed by the school district, as well as some new charges against the student's mother. The third story is going to be a lawsuit that New York City brought against 30 counties in the state of New York for prohibiting the transfer of migrants. And then the fourth and final story is going to be about Chris Licht leaving CNN. And just as a note, I will not be covering Donald Trump's most recent indictment, which happened Thursday night around 8 p.m. There's just not much information about it as of now. What we do know is it surrounds the mishandling of classified

documents, but perhaps that's something I may cover next week once we have a little bit more information on it. So before we get into the stories, let me just remind you to please leave me a review on whatever platform you listen and to please share my show with any of your family or friends that you feel would appreciate unbiased fact-based news. I actually heard someone who's in the industry talking about this recently, and she put it in a way that I hadn't heard before. And she said, you know, reviews to us podcasters are like tips. So if you go out to a restaurant and your server is serving you, you'll leave a tip on your bill. Well, for us, it's like, you know, we're providing you all this content and doing all this work and research and editing for free. It's a free service and we love to do it,

but the review and the sharing of the show and the word of mouth is almost like our version of a tip. So I thought that that was really well put. I also wanted to announce that I have a new newsletter. So my newsletter goes out on Saturday. It covers trending topics in the news, trending lawsuits. It recaps my podcast episodes. It provides you guys with links and sources and all of the things you like, and even a cartoon just because I feel like both sides of the aisle can stand to laugh, you know, at least once a week these days.

So if you want access to that free newsletter, like you know, at least once a week these days. So if you want access to that free newsletter, like I said, it's once a week, you can go to jordanismylawyer.com slash subscribe, enter your email address, you can adjust your content preferences, and that's it. And it'll be in your inbox on Saturday. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. On Thursday, the Supreme Court released its decision in the controversial case of Allen v. Milligan, upholding a portion of the Voting Rights Act. So let's get into what this case is about. Let's talk about a little bit of procedural history so you know what happened in this case before it made its way to

the Supreme Court and what the actual issue is. This lawsuit was brought following the 2020 census when Alabama redrew its congressional districting maps. And the reason that the lawsuit was brought was because once the maps were redrawn following the census, there again were six majority white districts and one majority black district. And this had been the case since 1992. So for the last 30-ish years, this map had stayed the same and hadn't necessarily changed with the population growth. And what the black voters are saying is, look, we make up 27% of the voting population. There's no reason that we should only have one black majority district in the state. And this new map is enacted as HB1.

So the plaintiffs file suit against the state, alleging that this map violates both section two of the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. And the district court ultimately held in a 227-page opinion that Alabama could not use HB1 in future elections because it unquestionably violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Well, four days later, Alabama asks the Supreme Court to stay the district court's injunction of HB1. And the Supreme Court grants the stay, and they say, we're going to grant this stay until we make a decision on this.

Now, what this did is this allowed HB1 to be used in the 2022 elections. So the congressional map that was used in 2022 was the map where they only had one majority black district. So the Supreme Court hears this case, and they just released their decision yesterday. It was a five to four decision, and they affirmed the district court's ruling in favor of the voters. Not many people saw this coming because obviously you have a, you know, the majority of the court is conservative. And I've had people tell me before, you know, you're not supposed to put one justice on one

side of the political aisle or the other. But the reality is, is these justices are aligned with a political party. Yes, justices are supposed to be unbiased and nonpartisan in making their decisions, but they are affiliated with a political party. So as we know, the Supreme Court is majority conservative. And Chief Justice Roberts, who is a conservative justice, he has ruled in the past many times against the Voting Rights Act. So a lot of people assumed he would do something similar in this case. But ruling in the majority was Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Kagan, Justice Jackson, and Justice Sotomayor. The dissenting justices were Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, and

Justice Barrett. So now that you know a little bit about the procedural history, The dissenting justices were Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Barrett. So now that you know a little bit about the procedural history, let's discuss the court's rationale. But we also need to talk about how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act came to be what it is today. So originally, we had the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited the government from denying or abridging one's right to vote based on race, color, or a previous condition of servitude. After that, states started

enacting Jim Crow laws, things like literacy tests, poll taxes, these requirements that they called good morals requirements, and these were kind of a way for the states to skirt around the 15th Amendment, if you will. Well, then in 1965, the Voting Rights Act is enacted, and this is in response to those Jim Crow laws. And Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was very similar to the text of the 15th Amendment in that it provided that the right of U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. But it also created these new remedies for voting discrimination. And by 1981, many people actually considered it to be the most successful civil rights statute in the history of the nation. However, because it largely followed the 15th Amendment, it didn't have much

force in effect. So you start seeing these lawsuits. And one of them happens in 1980, so about 15 years after the Voting Rights Act is enacted. And it makes its way up to the Supreme Court. It's called the City of Mobile v. Bolden. And it involved a way up to the Supreme Court. It's called the city of Mobile versus Bolden. And it involved a claim by black voters that the city's election system effectively excluded them from participating in the election of city commissioners. And how that worked was the commission had three seats. Black voters made up one third of the city's population. So naturally you would think, okay, the, you know, city, the commission has three seats, black voters make up one third, therefore they had, they would have one of the seats,

but no black preferred candidate ever won this election. So this lawsuit follows and the Supreme Court sides with the city. So they rule against the voters. And what the court said was that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits states from acting with a racially discriminatory motivation or an invidious purpose to discriminate. But it does not prohibit laws that are discriminatory only in effect. So they said in this case, the voters can register to vote just fine. Their freedom to vote isn't being denied or abridged in any way. The fact though that they happen to lose the elections is beside the point entirely. The city hasn't done anything to purposely exclude black voters from participating in the election. It just so happens that by effect, no black preferred candidate has ever won the election.

Now, this ruling caused a lot of problems. The New York Times called it the biggest step backwards in civil rights to come from the Nixon court. A lot of people thought this was a step backwards in time. But of course, you had some people defending the decision, as we do see a lot nowadays as well. And the defenders thought that abandoning the intent test in favor of an effects test would require a focus on proportionality, which they thought was wrong. In other words, whenever a minority group won fewer seats in the legislature than its percentage of the population, they thought that claims were going to be made that

the law had a discriminatory effect. So any time that a minority group didn't win as many seats as they could have proportionally, these defenders of the Supreme Court decision said, this is going to make it so any law can be challenged, really. So then in 1981, shortly after the Supreme Court issues this decision, the issue makes its way to Congress. So now Congress has to decide whether to broaden Section 2. And the arguments in Congress mirrored the public's arguments over this Supreme Court case. And so it wasn't until a year later that a compromise was found, and it was proposed by Senator Bob Dole, and it became known as the Dole Amendment. So remember that the Supreme Court in Bolden said that Section 2 prohibited only purposeful discrimination. Well, this amendment

expanded Section 2 to ban any voting practice that had a discriminatory effect, and it didn't matter whether the practice was enacted or operated for a discriminatory purpose. And interestingly enough, the creation of this quote-unquote results test or effects test shifted the majority of litigation brought under the Voting Rights Act from claims of section five violations to claims of section two violations. So the court started getting a lot of section two claims, including this one case called Thornburg versus Gingles, which basically set forth this foundation or this framework that's been used for the last 40 years. And that Gingles framework is exactly what was used in the Allen versus Milligan

case, which this will all come full circle in a minute. But what the Gingles framework said is that in order for a plaintiff to prove a violation under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, they had to show three preconditions. One, that the minority group must be sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a reasonably configured district. Two, the minority group must show that it is politically cohesive. And three, the minority group must be able to demonstrate that the white majority votes sufficiently as a block to enable it to defeat the minority's preferred candidate. Now, the Supreme Court explained that each of these three preconditions serves its own purpose. So the first precondition, focused on geographical compactness and numerosity,

is needed to establish that the minority has the potential to elect a representative of its own choice in a single-member district. The second precondition, which focuses on political cohesiveness, shows that a representative of its choice would in fact be elected. And the third precondition, which is focused on racially polarized voting, establishes that the challenged districting frustrates a distinctive minority vote at least plausibly on account of race. So to bring this full circle, the Supreme Court used those three preconditions set forth in Gingles to the case at hand, Allen versus Milligan. So let's look at each of those three preconditions and how the Supreme Court ruled on them.

And just keep in mind that the Supreme Court's job in looking at this case is to determine if the lower court's analysis was correct. If there was anything erroneous about the lower court's findings, then the Supreme Court would overturn it. But if the Supreme Court finds that everything that the lower court did was fine and their analysis was correct and factual, then they merely just affirm the decision. So the first one, is the minority group sufficiently large and compact? Yes, the court said black voters could constitute a majority in a second district that was reasonably configured. Because remember, this whole suit is about the fact that they only have

one majority black district when they make up 27% of the population. So what the black voters are saying is we need a second district. And in presenting their case, the plaintiffs actually produced 11 different maps that Alabama could enact. And each of these maps contained two majority black districts. And what the court found is that none of these maps were made up of any weird shapes or irregularities, and they were all reasonably configured. So they said, yes, the black voters could constitute a majority in a second district that was reasonably configured. Moving on to the second precondition was the question of, are the plaintiffs able to show that their group is politically cohesive?

The court said yes. And the third precondition, can the plaintiffs show that their votes are being blocked by the white voters? Again, the court said yes. The district court found that on average, black voters supported their candidates of choice with 92.3% of the vote, while white voters supported black preferred candidates with 15.4% of the vote. Yet, even Alabama's experts conceded that the candidates preferred by white voters in

the areas that he looked at regularly defeated the candidates preferred by black voters. So again, the court said, yes, they can prove that their votes are being blocked by the white voters. Now, once these three preconditions are proven, which they were, there's still one more step. The plaintiff has to show that under the totality of the circumstances, the challenge political process is not equally open to minority voters. And the district court said, yes, the plaintiffs carried their burden under the totality of the circumstances, given the racial polarizations of elections in Alabama. And what the majority in the Supreme Court said is, look, there's no reason to disturb the district

court's findings here, because they found that the district court's findings here because they found that the district court's findings were careful and factual, and there was no reason to doubt those findings. So all in all, the Supreme Court looked at these factors established in Gingles, and they said, yeah, the district court was right. They answered all of these questions in the affirmative, and there's no reason for us to think otherwise. We agree with the district court. Now, in the affirmative, and there's no reason for us to think otherwise. We agree with the district court. Now, in the dissent, which was written by Justice Thomas and joined by Justice Gorsuch and joined in part by Justice Barrett and Justice Alito, Justice Thomas wrote that the majority opinion had, quote, fossilized all of the worst aspects of our long deplorable vote dilution

jurisprudence. He also said, quote, these cases are yet another installment in the disastrous misadventure of this court's voting rights jurisprudence, end quote. So it's safe to say he's not too happy with the decision. What happens from here? So there will be a new congressional map in effect for the 2024 elections, in which case there will be two black majority districts instead of one. And that could increase Democratic efforts to regain majority in the House because currently the Alabama House is controlled by Republicans, but it's only narrowly controlled. So it's 222 to 212. So it could be enough to to allow them to regain the majority. But all of this to say and what all of this means is that there will now be two majority black districts in Alabama proportionate to the population. I think it's on page 100, maybe page 90, something like that. And in the appendix,

there's actually a picture of the maps that the plaintiffs produced for the court, those 11 possible options. You probably remember me talking about the case where the Virginia teacher was shot by her six-year-old student. And when I originally reported on this case, I talked a lot about how the school had handled the incident on the day that it happened, meaning there were a lot of people who were put on notice that this little boy not only had behavioral issues, but also there was possibility that he had brought a gun to school that day and the administration wasn't really doing anything about it, specifically the assistant principal. So the teacher sued the school after she was shot for gross negligence for not doing anything about it. And the most recent update in that suit,

there's actually two updates. So it's kind of two-part story. But the first is that the school board has sought to dismiss this case. And their argument is based on the fact that the teacher's injuries are covered under Virginia's Workers' Compensation Act, and therefore she can't sue the school district or individuals working at the school. And the second part of this story is that the student's mom has had new charges brought against her. So she had state charges brought against her, and now she has two federal charges. So we'll talk about those as well. But let's first talk about the school's motion to dismiss. It's actually called a plea and bar, but it's similar to a motion to dismiss. So what they're saying is that Virginia's Workers' Compensation Act covers injuries by

accident arising out of and in the course of employment. Now, this question is likely going to come down to whether the gunshot arose out of the course of employment. So in the past, the Virginia Supreme Court has held that an isolated incident that can be placed at an identifiable point in time constitutes an injury by accident. So this does look like it would fall under injuries by accident, but was the gunshot a consequence of being a teacher? That's an entirely different question. So again, when you look at the language of the act, you kind of have to break it down into two parts. One, was this an injury by accident, as defined in the law? And two, did this arise out of and in the course of employment? Let's look at some cases that the Virginia Supreme Court has said, yes, this does arise

out of employment and see if we think this is similar or not similar. So in one case, the Virginia Supreme Court held that a man who collapsed while working at a Coke oven, which is this really hot oven where a coal-based fuel is made, this man was in otherwise great health, and he just collapsed while working at the oven one day. And the court found that his death was a consequence of his employment due to the extreme heat that he was exposed to, because he had no other problems. He was fine health-wise. And if it weren't for this extreme heat and him being exposed to that, he wouldn't have died. So they found that to be a consequence of employment. In another case, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who

died during a training program after he suffered multiple blows to the head during this training program also died in the course of employment because they said if it you know this training program is a part of his employment and that's why he suffered these blows to the head and therefore his death was a consequence of employment. So now let's bring this back. When and if a teacher is shot by a student, is this an injury that would be considered a consequence of employment? If so, the teacher's injuries would be covered under Virginia's Workers' Compensation Act, and then she'd be barred from filing this $40 million lawsuit. Keep in mind, she was offered workers' comp back when this happened,

and she denied it. So she thereafter filed the lawsuit. And now the school district is saying, no, no, no, this should be covered under workers comp because obviously they don't want to pay $40 million. So because of all the reasons I just mentioned, the school district is arguing that one, the teacher was injured at her place of employment. She was shot by a student in the classroom where she was a teacher. Teaching was a core function of her employment, and therefore her injuries did arise out of and in the course of her employment and do fall under Virginia's workers compact. The school district also argues, and this is quite an interesting argument to make just because I think it can be controversial, but I mean, in the court of law, you kind of just got to throw everything out there to defend your case.

But they're also arguing that because school violence and gun violence in schools is on the rise, that at this point, it's kind of a reality that teachers have to face and they know signing up for this job that that is one of the consequences. So that is the school district's plea and bar, and we will see how the judge rules on that. As for the student's mom, she had previously had state charges brought against her for child neglect as well as endangering a child by reckless storage of a firearm. She pled not guilty to both of those, and her trial is scheduled for August. Now, though, she has federal charges against her. And the charges may not be what you would think, but this is what they are. So she has a charge for unlawful use of marijuana in possession of a handgun, and a charge for making a false statement about drug use during the purchase

of a firearm. And what these documents are alleging, what her charging documents are alleging is that she lied about being a marijuana user when she signed a mandatory federal document that, you know, asks you, do you use illegal drugs when she was purchasing the gun? So she said no. Meanwhile, the federal prosecutors are arguing, you know full well that, you know, you smoked weed when you bought this gun and therefore you lied on a federal document. So that's where her charges stem from. According to her attorney, she is going to plead guilty and kind of hope for a favorable outcome at the sentence after they present mitigating evidence. Mitigating evidence is just essentially for a favorable outcome at the sentence after they present mitigating evidence.

Mitigating evidence is just essentially for a court to go a little bit easier on you than they otherwise would have given some sort of special circumstances. So more information is expected to be disclosed about these charges once she enters that plea, and that'll likely happen in the next week or so. That takes us into our third story, which is that New York City has filed a lawsuit against 30 counties in New York and one town in New York over their attempts to keep out international migrants. New York City has called these counties xenophobic. So the lawsuit accuses the defendants of seeking to wall off their borders to asylum seekers through xenophobic executive orders that violate state and federal law.

Essentially, what's happening is that migrants are flooding New York City. New York City is running out of room. The governor issued a state disaster emergency in May, and New York City started busing these migrants to hotels north of the city. In response to that, these counties and towns where the hotels are located have issued orders and declarations that basically threaten penalties against New York City and any hotel or business that aids in the relocation of migrants. So now migrants have nowhere to go, the city keeps getting more crowded by the day.

And now New York City is suing these counties for not allowing these migrants to come into their county or into their town. Specifically, what the lawsuit says is, quote, the city and the state of New York are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. Large numbers of individuals and families seeking asylum in the United States have arrived

and are continuing to arrive in the city in need of temporary housing assistance. The large number of arrivals has strained the city's capacity to provide a temporary place to stay for those who need it. As part of its massive response, the city has sought to utilize hotel rooms outside the city, with the city covering the cost of those hotels and providing services to the individuals. Notwithstanding this, defendants have sought to wall off their borders. Defendants have declared states of emergency premised on false claims that the prospect of a few hundred asylum seekers sheltered at the city's expense would somehow constitute an emergency imperiling public safety, end quote. This lawsuit goes on to say that several counties

and the one town have obtained restraining orders against New York City and any hotel willing to do business with the city. And as far as legality goes, what New York City's argument is, is that these counties have acted beyond the scope of their jurisdiction and in violation of lawful procedure. The city also says that these counties are acting in conflict with the requirements of certain state laws like New York State Social Services Law, New York State Human Rights Law, and they're also acting in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act. As for the counties, the basis for their orders rests on fears of crime, overcrowding, and lack of funds to care for migrants if the city

were to stop paying for the hotel rooms. So Rockland County's executive, which was one of the first cities to receive migrants from New York City, and also the first city to declare a state of emergency, explained that he doesn't think his county is equipped to humanely assist the migrants in the event that the city stops paying. Rockland County's order specifically prohibited foreign municipalities and local hotels from contracting to provide housing or accommodation for migrants without obtaining a special license from the county. If any entity violates this order, the order does provide for criminal and civil liability as well as a civil penalty that is not to exceed $2,000 per migrant housed. Given the fact that this lawsuit was just filed on

Friday, the defendants have not yet filed their response. So we don't know for certain what that's going to look like. But as for remedies, New York City is asking for three things. Basically, one, they want the court to declare that these executive orders are null and void and cannot be, you know, enforced. Number two, they want the court to prevent the counties from enforcing their orders until this case is resolved. And three, they're asking for a permanent injunction, which kind of contradicts the previous request, which would be a temporary injunction. But typically, plaintiffs, you know, will just ask the court for everything, hope for the best and hope the court gives them everything they're asking for. So that is New York City's case against these counties. Obviously, we will know more once the defendants file their answer, but I thought that was an interesting one to talk

about nonetheless. That takes us into our fourth and final story, and a rather short one, which is that, as I'm sure you may have heard, CNN CEO Chris Licht was fired this week. Why? Seems to be a few reasons. So Licht was with CNN for a little over a year, 13 months. He came in at a time where CNN was trying out this transition. So they were trying to go a little bit more center, not so anti-Trump. And at the same time, he kind of came in and took over for Jeff Zucker, who was popular at the network despite being forced out over a relationship with another employee. So he was kind of taking that place as like, we don't really want, like we liked Zucker. We don't really want you taking his

place. But also he came in and of course this transition was in effect too so safe to say his job wasn't going to be easy he knew it the parent company knew it but anyway over his tenure ratings dropped and it turns out people were not as into the less polarizing nature of you know what what CNN was trying to do, as CNN maybe thought they would be. So during the first quarter of 2023, CNN averaged 478,000 total viewers daily, which was down 27% from what the network was averaging in the first quarter of 2022. And that number has only continued to drop. Recently, he had faced criticism following the Trump town hall, and then most recently came this profile of Licht in The Atlantic, which is behind a paywall,

but it's titled Inside the Meltdown at CNN, and that seems to have been his nail in the coffin, so to speak. In CNN's own article about Licht's departure, they wrote, quote, Licht's departure capped a tumultuous year for CNN, marked by layoffs, shrinking profits, historically low ratings, the firing of two anchors, and rock bottom employee morale. The chaos that defined the last year also followed several other gut punches to the organization, end quote. And then in a memo to CNN staff, David Zaslav, who is the CEO of CNN's parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery, wrote in part, this morning we are announcing that Chris Licht will be leaving CNN and we will

be conducting a wide search internally and externally for a new leader. I have known Chris for many years and have enormous respect for him personally and professionally. This job was never going to be easy, especially at a time of great disruption and transformation, and Chris poured his heart and soul into it. Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we had hoped, and ultimately that's on me. I take responsibility. You've heard me say it many times, CNN has the greatest journalists in the world. We are deeply committed to supporting them and the critical work that CNN does every day. We must get this right and we will, end quote. And as far as Chris Licht himself,

he said in a statement, this was an exciting but incredibly challenging assignment and I learned a lot over the past 13 months. I've been lucky enough to have had a successful, fulfilling career and I look forward to my next chapter. I wish the team at CNN the very best always. That concludes this episode. As always, you can find all sources

linked in the podcast description and on my website. Don't forget to leave me a review. Please share this episode with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe to my new newsletter that goes out on Saturdays. Again, it's free. And you can do that at jordanismylawyer.com slash subscribe.

I will talk to you next week.