UNBIASED - Texas AG Acquitted, US Authorizes $6B Release to Iran and American Prisoners Return Home, Hunter Biden Sues IRS, Illinois Eliminates Cash Bail, Missing F-35 Fighter Jet, and More.

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

1. Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, Acquitted of 16 Impeachment Charges (1:39)2. American Prisoners Detained in Iran Return Home in Part of a $6B Prisoner Swap (10:28)3. Hunter Biden Sues IRS for P...ublicly Disclosing Tax Return Information (18:15)4. New Mexico Governor Narrows Controversial Gun Rule Following Ruling From Judge (25:20)5. What Happened to the F-35 Fighter Jet? (30:16)6. Illinois Becomes First State to Eliminate Cash Bail for Criminal Defendants (32:06)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 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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Starting point is 00:01:03 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. I hope your week is off to a great start. I have four stories for you today, plus a couple of notable mentions. We'll first start with Ken Paxton, Texas's attorney general, being acquitted of all 16 impeachment charges. The second story will be about Iran and the United States and their prisoner swap. The third story will be Hunter Biden suing the IRS in a lawsuit just filed on Monday. The fourth story will be Hunter Biden suing the IRS in a lawsuit just filed on Monday. The fourth story will be New Mexico's governor narrowing the scope of that gun rule that she
Starting point is 00:01:52 had implemented about a week and a half ago. It was challenged, a judge rendered a decision, and she had to narrow the scope. And then, of course, the notable mentions will cover this missing fighter jet, as well as Illinois becoming the first state to eliminate cash bail. Before we get into the stories, let me just give you the reminders I give every episode. If you love what you hear today, please go ahead and leave me a review on whatever platform you listen. If you already have, thank you so much. It's truly so appreciated. And finally, yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Texas's Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted on all 16 impeachment charges by the state
Starting point is 00:02:47 Senate. Ken Paxton, if you had listened to my episode back in May, that was my May 30th episode, I had talked about how he was impeached by Texas's House on charges of corruption, bribery, abuse of public trust, the list goes on. And since then, he had been suspended without pay. But then it had to go to the Senate for the trial. So you may remember recently when I did that episode about impeachment, I don't know if that was last episode or when that was, I lose track. But I talked about Kevin McCarthy bringing this impeachment inquiry, and I talked about the whole process. Well, the House can impeach someone, but it's not until it goes to the Senate that that person is actually removed from office if two-thirds of the Senate actually agrees to convict the official.
Starting point is 00:03:38 So in this case, yes, Ken Paxton was impeached by the Texas House back in May, but the Senate's trial just took place within it spanned the last couple of weeks and he was acquitted. So he was reinstated. He's returned back to work. But I want to talk about kind of how these events unfolded and what took place, what even triggered this impeachment trial and what led to his acquittal. So I'm just going to briefly recap because as I said, I covered this in full on my May 30th episode. But basically, these former staffers of Ken Paxton were fired in 2020 after they had reported him to the FBI. And they reported him to the FBI for taking bribes and corruption and all of these things. So after they were fired, they went ahead and filed this lawsuit for wrongful termination.
Starting point is 00:04:31 Well, that lawsuit was settled for $3.3 million. But rather dishing out that $3.3 million himself, you know, Ken Paxton going ahead and paying it, he wanted it to be paid with taxpayer money because he was sued in his capacity as attorney general. Well, the Texas legislature then goes and launches this investigation into him, and they find out a bunch of things that eventually led to his impeachment. Now, most of the articles of impeachment centered around Ken Paxton's relationship with one specific guy. His name is Nate Paul. He is a local real estate investor in the area. He's donated thousands of dollars to Paxton's campaign. And in exchange, what this investigation led to was that Ken Paxton was helping out Nate Paul in various ways. In one instance, Ken Paxton had some
Starting point is 00:05:27 foreclosure sales of Nate Paul's properties delayed. In another instance, Paxton got involved with a lawsuit that a charitable organization had filed against Nate Paul, and Paxton kind of used his authority as attorney general to benefit Nate Paul in that lawsuit. And, you know, this investigation led to some other revelations. But one other revelation that came about, and this will play into this whole story later, is the investigation found out that Ken Paxton was having an affair with a woman named Laura Olson. And Ken Paxton eventually has Laura Olson work for Nate Paul. One of the articles that was brought against Ken Paxton was that Nate Paul's hiring of Laura Olson amounted
Starting point is 00:06:19 to a bribe. So that's what one of Paxton's bribery charges stemmed from. Now, again, that'll come into play in a little bit, but Ken Paxton was ultimately impeached in the House in a 121 to 23 vote. So nearly 70% of Republican representatives voted to impeach Ken Paxton, you know, despite being part of the same political party. So then it goes to the Senate. The hearing started on September 5th in the Senate. It lasted about two weeks. And during the course of the hearing, the Senate heard testimony from various people. Some of those worked under Ken Paxton, and those people testified that Ken Paxton had repeatedly abused his office and his authority by helping out this Nate Paul guy. But the Senate also heard testimony from four witnesses on
Starting point is 00:07:13 Paxton's side, right? So this included the head of the Texas Attorney General's Office Open Records Division, an Associate Deputy Attorney General for Legal counsel, HR director and chief employment counsel and ethics advisor of the office of the attorney general, and the deputy first assistant at the office of the attorney general. So these four people were the witnesses called by Paxton. Now, I had said that the woman that Paxton had an affair with was going to come into play later. Laura Olson was also expected to testify at the trial so imagine that scenario right because by the way ken paxton's wife is in the texas senate and she was sitting in on the trial she wasn't allowed to vote on his impeachment charges but she was sitting in on the trial so imagine
Starting point is 00:08:00 ken paxton's mistress or former mistress on the stand testifying. Ken Paxton's wife is sitting, you know, listening to it. I just, I can't even imagine that scenario. But that scenario never had to play out because even though Laura Olson was called to take the stand, her testimony ended up getting delayed for hours. And eventually, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who is acting as the trial's judge, tells the Senate at the end of the day that Olson wouldn't testify after all. And all he said was, quote, she is present, but she has been deemed unavailable to testify, end quote. And there wasn't any further explanation given, but he did say that both sides
Starting point is 00:08:46 had agreed to it. So, you know, at the end, at the end of the day, very last minute, Laura Olson doesn't testify. So the Senate didn't get that testimony before both sides rested their case, which means that they're done presenting their evidence. And now it was up to the Senate to cast their votes and determine whether or not he'd be convicted and therefore removed from office. So how this would have worked, there was 30 voting senators, so at least 21 votes were needed on at least one article of impeachment to remove Paxton from office. Because remember, even though there's 16 articles of impeachment, he only needs to be convicted on one to be removed. But not one of the 16 articles saw more than 14 votes. So remember how I said earlier, 70% of House Republicans voted to impeach him, but only two of the 19 Republican senators
Starting point is 00:09:42 voted in favor of convicting him. So there's obviously a huge discrepancy there. I don't think a lot of people expected that outcome given what had happened in the House. Now, Paxton himself was only there for two days of the trial. So he wasn't there for his actual acquittal. He only appeared on the trial's first day to plead not guilty. He returned on Friday, but that was it. And his acquittal came on Saturday. So he wasn't there for that. But following the acquittal, he did issue a statement where he said in part, quote, today the truth prevailed. The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden administration with a liberal house speaker and his kangaroo court has cost taxpayers millions of dollars,
Starting point is 00:10:30 disrupted the work of the Office of the Attorney General, and left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House. The weaponization of the impeachment process to settle political differences is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt. End quote. The House speaker issued a statement of his own saying that there was extensive evidence of Ken Paxson's corruption and deception and self-dealing presented to the Senate, and that it was extremely unfortunate they chose not to remove him from office. As I said, Ken Paxson, he was reinstated to office. He is officially back to work. However, even though he was acquitted, this doesn't wrap up a lot of his other legal troubles he's currently facing. He is still facing a trial on felony securities fraud in Texas. He's also still under a separate FBI investigation into his corruption because of,
Starting point is 00:11:17 you know, the same whistleblower investigation that launched this entire impeachment trial. So he still does have some legal troubles ahead of him, but he was acquitted. Let's move on to the United States-Iran prisoner swap. Five Americans who were previously detained in Iran are scheduled to land back in the United States by the time this episode is live. You may remember last month, on August 11th, I released an episode in part discussing this whole deal, and I talked about how the deal also included a release of $6 billion of Iran's frozen funds. Now, Iran had previously said that the five detained Americans would not be released unless and until those funds were unfrozen. So at the time that I had reported on it, the funds had not yet been unfrozen. The most recent update we had was that these prisoners that were being detained in Iran, they were Americans, they had been transferred from a
Starting point is 00:12:18 prison in Iran to house arrest. Then about a week ago, the United States issued a sanctions waiver, which released the funds to Iran. And then we got an update Monday morning, so just yesterday, that Iran went ahead and released the Americans. They got on a flight to Qatar and then on a flight from Qatar over to the United States. Now, at the time I'm recording this, 5 p.m. on Monday, they are still on their way to the United States. It's about a 14 or 15 hour flight to the East Coast. As far as the Iran prisoners that were being detained in the United States, we heard from the foreign ministry on Monday that two of those detainees would be returned to Iran, while two would stay in the United States per their request, and one would join their family
Starting point is 00:13:05 in another country. Now, I want to talk about how we got here because I think it's important to kind of give context to this whole deal, just so, you know, we're all as informed as possible, because that's the name of the game. We like to be educated. So in 2015, Tehran, which is the capital of Iran, reached this nuclear deal with six different countries, France, China, Russia, the UK, the United States, and Germany. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA for short. Under the plan, Iran would dismantle a big chunk of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more international inspections. In exchange, they would get billions of dollars worth of sanctions relief. So initially,
Starting point is 00:13:52 the deal was going okay. In 2016, it was determined that Iran had met its preliminary pledges, and in turn, the United States, the EU, and the UN either repealed and or suspended their sanctions against Iran, and they also unfroze some of their assets. In fact, the United States and many European nations unfroze about $100 billion worth of Iran's assets at that time. Now, keep in mind, this deal was signed in 2015 when Obama was president. Then Trump gets elected in 2016. And in 2018, the United States withdraws from this deal and the United States reinstates their sanctions. Long story short, following the withdrawal, the deal eventually falls apart. Sanctions were being imposed again. Iran was back to its old nuclear habits. But the United States was also, even though they
Starting point is 00:14:46 had pulled out or we had pulled out, the United States was also giving waivers to certain countries so that they could continue to purchase oil from Iran. So for instance, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was given a waiver by the United States in 2018 and was able to continue purchasing. So Seoul keeps buying. And then a year later in 2019, the United States places a total ban on Iran's oil exports and sanctions on its banking sector. So what happens is all of this money that Seoul slash South Korea owed Iran for the oil it had been purchasing. It was roughly $7
Starting point is 00:15:26 billion in revenue that was supposed to go to Iran gets blocked. So now $7 billion of Iran's money is held up in a bank in Seoul. Iran, of course, wants their money, right? So basically, over the last year and a half, Qatar has been acting as this mediator slash middleman in these secret talks between Iran and the United States. There's been at least eight rounds of meetings that have happened in Doha in the last year and a half. Supposedly, the earlier rounds of meetings were mainly reserved to talking about Iran's nuclear fight with the United States. But as the negotiators realized that these nuclear talks weren't really going anywhere, they were too complex, nothing was really getting achieved, the focus shifted to the prisoners. And the first time that the public really heard anything
Starting point is 00:16:17 about a prisoner swap was August 10th, when we heard that four of the prisoners in Iran were moved to house arrest. And from there, more and more details slowly start coming out. People, you know, that are familiar with the talks kind of start talking, and we find out a little more. Then, as I said, about a week ago, the United States issues this sanctions waiver. And what that waiver does is it allows the money that's currently being held in Seoul to be transferred to Qatar without penalties. So at that point, the money is transferred and Qatar then sends it to Iran. Once Qatar and Iran give confirmation that the money was received, that's when the prisoners were let go. Per usual, some are not happy with the decision to waive the sanctions and get these prisoners home. I don't think anyone's necessarily mad that the
Starting point is 00:17:13 prisoners are home, right? That in and of itself. But what some are mad at is that this is kind of sending a message that if a country holds Americans hostage, we'll pay the ransom. So as an example, Representative Michael McCaul, he said in a statement, quote, The Americans held by Iran are innocent hostages who must be released immediately and unconditionally. However, I remain deeply concerned that the administration's decision to waive sanctions to facilitate the transfer of funds for Iran, the world's top state sponsor of terrorism, creates a direct incentive for America's adversaries to conduct future hostage taking, end quote. So you have people on that side of the debate,
Starting point is 00:17:59 you know, that think this is kind of encouraging Iran and other countries to hold Americans hostage because we'll pay it. And then you have people on the other side that are like, This is kind of encouraging Iran and other countries to hold Americans hostage because we'll pay it. And then you have people on the other side that are like, Americans deserve to be here. You know, we got to do what we got to do. We're just happy they're home. There's also this concern that now that they have all of this money, they're going to put it directly into their nuclear program.
Starting point is 00:18:20 So to combat that thought or that theory, Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, says that they had already talked to Qatar about this. Qatar agreed that they would look after the funds and make sure that Iran only used the funds for humanitarian purposes and in a strictly controlled way. Blinken added that Iran would not have direct access to the funds and there would be significant oversight from the U.S. Treasury Department. So as I said, these Americans should be home by the time this episode goes live, but now you at least have a little bit of a background as to why this swap took place
Starting point is 00:18:58 and how we got ourselves here. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll finish with the stories. Hunter Biden filed a lawsuit on Monday against the IRS for publicly disclosing his tax return information, not only repeatedly, but also intentionally. Let's talk about it. The lawsuit starts by saying this. Mr. Biden is the son of the president of the United States. He has all the same responsibilities as any other American citizen, and the IRS can and should make certain that he abides by those responsibilities. Similarly, Mr. Biden has no fewer or lesser rights than any other American citizen, and no government agency or government agent has free reign to violate his rights simply because of who he is. Yet, the IRS and its agents have conducted themselves under a presumption that the rights that apply to every other American
Starting point is 00:20:05 citizen do not apply to Mr. Biden. This lawsuit is not about the legitimacy of the IRS investigation of Mr. Biden over the last five years or any decision to penalize Mr. Biden for any failure to comply with his obligations under the tax laws. Rather, the lawsuit is about the decision by IRS employees, the representatives, and others to disregard their obligations and repeatedly and intentionally publicly disclose and disseminate Mr. Biden's protected tax return information outside the exceptions for making disclosures in the law. End quote. Before we get into the nitty gritty, my one sentence summation of the lawsuit is this. Tax returns and the information contained in the tax returns are confidential documents. However, according to the lawsuit, the IRS did
Starting point is 00:21:00 not keep Hunter Biden's tax return information confidential and instead discussed them in detail and provided the information to other people. That's my one sentence summation if you just want the big picture of what this lawsuit is about, but let's break this down a little bit further as I like to do. The factual allegations in the complaint are this, and I'm really going to sum it up here just because I don't want this conversation to be too nitty gritty and like all of us to get confused, right? So basically, on April 19th of this year, an attorney sends a letter to Congress saying that there's a whistleblower that would like to testify about the handling of Biden's tax investigation. As we know, those whistleblowers went ahead and testified. It was two IRS employees.
Starting point is 00:21:47 And after this testimony, these two men, plus the attorney that sent the letter to Congress, appeared on various outlets to discuss, you know, the testimony and their views on things. These outlets were CBS, Fox, a podcast called John Solomon Reports, as well as CNN and The Megyn Kelly Show. And what this lawsuit is saying is that by going on those media outlets and talking about tax return information, these individuals violated the law. So it's not about the testimony to Congress, but rather what was said outside of Congress. And there are two laws at play here. You have the Privacy Act, and then you have Chapter 26, Section 6103 of the U.S. Code. That section of the U.S. Code deals with the confidentiality and disclosure of tax returns. So the Privacy Act is this law that governs how the government handles
Starting point is 00:22:48 information about individuals that it collects information on. So any sort of records that are kept by federal agencies about people in the United States, which, yes, would include tax returns, the Privacy Act governs how the government handles that information. Chapter 26, Section 6103, on the other hand, says generally that tax returns and tax return information is to be kept confidential except in certain situations. Now, some of those situations include when a whistleblower believes that there's misconduct, or when someone is under penalty, say, for failing to file a tax return, or when the
Starting point is 00:23:31 returns are being disclosed to a congressional committee. However, even in those instances, there are still rules that have to be followed. So to give an example, personal tax returns are being investigated by a congressional committee, like the House Ways and Means Committee. That tax return can be provided to the committee. However, if the return taxpayer consents otherwise, which I don't know why they would. But as you can see, there's still rules that have to be followed. So it wasn't the providing of the tax return to the congressional committee in the closed door session that violated the law, but rather what happened after that. Another example, if a whistleblower comes forward as what is what happened in Hunter Biden's case, the whistleblowers can disclose a tax return to a congressional committee if they believe that the tax return relates to possible misconduct or taxpayer abuse or something like that. But the whistleblower can't then go on the news and talk about it there.
Starting point is 00:24:41 So as you can see, there are exceptions, but the exceptions have rules. To kind of just wrap this up, what Hunter Biden's lawsuit says is not only did the IRS violate Chapter 26, Section 6103 by its agents going on CNN, Fox, CBS, Megyn Kelly, the podcast, and discussing aspects of Hunter Biden's tax return. But the IRS also violated the Privacy Act by not implementing safeguards or procedures that would have prevented these agents from unlawfully disclosing this information. So those are the two violations alleged in this lawsuit. Now, as for what Hunter Biden wants out of this lawsuit, he's asking, one, that the court go ahead and declare that the IRS did in fact unlawfully disclose his tax
Starting point is 00:25:32 information. We call this declaratory relief in the law. He's also asking for $1,000 per each unauthorized disclosure. He wants the court to order the IRS to hand over to him all documents in its possession regarding the unauthorized disclosures. And he wants the court to order the IRS to implement some sort of data security plan that satisfies the requirements of the Privacy Act in order to prevent this from happening in the future. That's the lawsuit in, you know, a quick less than 10 minutes recap. If you want to read it for yourself, I believe it's less than 30 pages. It's not that long of a read. It is on my website. So as always, you can click the sources link in the podcast description or just go to JordanIsMyLawyer.com. I always have my sources there. That takes us to the
Starting point is 00:26:21 fourth and final story, which is kind of an update from last Tuesday's episode. Last Tuesday, I had reported on the New Mexico governor basically restricting open and concealed carry in Bernalillo County, which includes Albuquerque. But in the most recent update, the New Mexico governor revised the rule and made it so the rule only applies to playgrounds and parks, which is, you know, two places that children are typically present. The rule change, though, didn't come just out of nowhere. It came following a ruling from a judge. So as I had said previously, following the implementation of the rule, like after the governor came out and said, hey, open and concealed carry no longer allowed in
Starting point is 00:27:05 these areas, of course, lawsuits after lawsuits, right? I believe by Monday or Tuesday, there had been at least five lawsuits filed or something like that. One of those lawsuits was filed by the National Association for Gun Rights, and that was filed on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the next day, a federal judge had actually granted the association's request for a temporary restraining order, citing the Second Amendment and prior Supreme Court precedent. The judge specifically relied on three cases, Heller, McDonald, and Bruin. So it's District of Columbia v. Heller, McDonald v. City of Chicago, and New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruin.
Starting point is 00:27:48 The first two cases, Heller and McDonald, established the right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, but most notably for self-defense. The third case is the most recent case of those three. Bruin was just decided last summer. And what that case did, the Supreme Court basically reaffirmed the right to carry a gun for purposes of self-defense, but added that in order to justify a restriction on the right to openly carry, the government has to show that that regulation is, quote, consistent with this nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation, end quote. So in looking at those three holdings by the Supreme Court, the judge's ruling said this. It said, quote, of course the court is cognizant of the fact that the instant case, meaning the New
Starting point is 00:28:40 Mexico case, may present issues not explicitly raised in Bruin, McDonald, or Heller. But given the directives and holdings of this Supreme Court precedent, the court concludes that plaintiffs have shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their Second Amendment claim, end quote. Now, I want to just give a little bit of context to that ruling, like how he phrased it, because if you're not familiar with the law, you may be wondering, what does that mean, likelihood of success on the merits? So whenever you file a lawsuit, you're the plaintiff and you're asking for a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order. So you want the party you're suing to stop doing something. You have to prove four different factors as to why you should be
Starting point is 00:29:33 entitled or why you should get what you're asking for. So for instance, you have to show that the benefits of you getting that temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction outweigh any potential adverse effects to the other party, right? So one of the other factors is likelihood of success on the merits. Now, what does that mean? When you're asking for a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, you're not arguing the merits of the case. You're not arguing the reasons why you should win the case. You're arguing why you should get this injunction or this restraining order. So what that factor says is once this case is, once the merits of the case are argued, eventually there is a substantial likelihood of success of winning
Starting point is 00:30:26 the case. So here, you know, the reason the judge cited to that Supreme Court precedent is to say, given how the Supreme Court has ruled in the past in Heller, McDonald, and Bruin, there's a substantial likelihood of success here for the plaintiffs. And that's, again, just one of the four factors that the court has to consider in determining whether to grant the injunction or the restraining order. In this case, obviously, he did grant it, which meant that the governor had to modify her rule to comply with the Constitution and with Supreme Court precedent. So that's why the governor ended up revising the rule. So now, as I stated in the beginning of the story, open and concealed carry is not allowed in playgrounds and in parks, and that is the extent of the rule. So let's finish
Starting point is 00:31:18 with our notable mentions. I have two notable mentions today. Notable mentions are just things that I feel are worth mentioning, but there may not be enough information to make a whole story out of it. So the first notable mention is this fighter jet. Okay, I'm sure you've heard of this F-35 that went out on Sunday afternoon in South Carolina, and it never returned. So the F-35 goes out up in the air. There's some sort of mishap. That's what the air base is calling it. And the pilot ejected himself. He managed to do it safely and he was taken to a medical center for treatment. He was in stable condition. He's fine. But the F-35 jet was left on autopilot. So it just went on its merry way by itself. No one knows what happened
Starting point is 00:32:06 to it. Not even the military. So the military went so far as to ask the public for help. They're like, if you've seen it, let us know, like report any sightings. We don't know what happened to it. That was Sunday afternoon. As of Monday morning, they still didn't know where it was, but as of Monday at noon, authorities said we're certain it's no longer flying, but they wouldn't give any more details. And then it came out Monday night around 6.30, 7 o'clock that a debris field was found about two hours north of the time I'm recording this episode, there's no confirmation as to whether this is the fighter jet or not, but this whole story is really just leaving people wondering how a fighter jet goes missing, how there's not tracking on this jet, and the jet is said to be worth $80 million. So a lot of people are just kind of questioning the circumstances, but that's what's going on with the jet. I'm sure by the time this episode goes live, we'll have more information. The second and final notable mention I have for you is that Illinois became the first state in the country to Act took effect on Monday. And what it did in part is it made Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail for criminal defendants. The new law essentially
Starting point is 00:33:33 means that the default is now letting people go free ahead of their court date, their trial date. The purpose is to combat mass incarceration and more specifically, drop the number of defendants that are sitting in jail awaiting trial just because they can't afford their bail. But here's how the law works. So someone gets arrested, they go to an initial hearing before the judge. The default is to set them free. For defendants that commit misdemeanors or are charged with misdemeanors, they automatically go free. The more serious crimes, there's a bit more of a procedure, which I'll get into. But, you know, even though the default is to set these defendants free, they do have to come back
Starting point is 00:34:16 for their court, their next court date. But as I said, the default is to set them free. Now, it is worth noting that according to the Cook County Public Defender's Office, people accused of misdemeanors are already released from custody ahead of their court date. So for misdemeanor charges, nothing is really changing. It's the procedure for those that are charged with committing more serious offenses that's seeing more of a modification. So let's say that someone commits a violent felony or
Starting point is 00:34:45 a sexual offense or an offense involving a gun, and the prosecutor wants that person locked up ahead of their trial date. The court will hold a detention hearing within 24 to 48 hours of the arrest. The prosecutor will then have to present evidence as to why that person should be detained. At that hearing, the judge is going to have to weigh certain factors and decide based on those factors whether to keep that defendant detained. So what's the offense that the defendant is being charged with? What's the defendant's history? Do they have a long criminal record?
Starting point is 00:35:20 Does the defendant pose a risk to another person or to the community? Is the defendant a flight risk to another person or to the community? Is the defendant a flight risk? Things like that. After weighing those factors, the judge then decides whether to release the defendant. Now, these more serious crimes that judicial discretion comes into play for include things like first-degree murder, second-degree murder, criminal sexual assault, robbery, burglary, arson, kidnapping, aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm, or any other felony that involves the use or threat of physical force against another person. So as you can see, it's pretty serious crimes,
Starting point is 00:35:58 which is why there's two conflicting ideas here, right? The proponents of doing away with cash bail are like, we got to figure out mass incarceration. We can't have thousands of people just sitting in jail simply because they can't afford bail. The statistics go to show that bail being a condition actually adversely affects minorities more than it does whites. So for those reasons, people want to do away with cash bail. But then on the other hand, people are like, we don't want these criminals who are committing serious crimes to be running the streets and potentially posing a risk to other people. So those are the two sides on the issue. That concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please don't forget to leave me
Starting point is 00:36:40 a review. Have a great week, and I will talk to you on Friday.

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