UNBIASED - Week in Review: January 2-8, 2023

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

1. Kevin McCarthy Wins Speaker of the House Bid (1:17)2. Probable Cause Affidavit Unsealed in Idaho Murders Case (13:16)3. West Virginia Judge Upholds Ban on Transgender Athletes Competing in Female School Sports (29:10)4. South Carolina Supreme Court Blocks 6-Week Abortion Ban (32:21)All sources can be found here: www.jordanismylawyer.comFollow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok @jordanismylawyer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. You are listening to the Jordan is My Lawyer. This is your host Jordan, and I give

you the legal analysis you've been waiting for. Here's the deal. I don't care about your political views, but I do ask that you listen to the facts, have an open mind and think for yourselves. Deal? Oh, and one last thing. I'm not actually your lawyer. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. I hope your 2023 is off to a fantastic start. I have four news stories for you today. The first we're going to start, of course, with the fact that Kevin McCarthy was or won his bid for speaker of the house. We're also going to talk about the probable cause affidavit in the Idaho murder case. And then we're going to get into two state cases, one being that Virginia upheld a transgender ban on sports, and the other that South Carolina's

Supreme Court just struck down a six-week abortion ban. So those are the stories for today. Without further ado, let's get right into it. As of Friday night, Kevin McCarthy won the bid for Speaker of the House, but it definitely wasn't easy. In fact, it required a historic 15 rounds of voting. Now that's actually not the all-time high. So the last time it was above nine rounds was back in the 1800s. And we're going to go over that a little bit at the end to have kind of like a fun fact section for you. But let's talk about what the issues were, why he found himself in this predicament, because typically the party that, you know, has the majority in the house has no problem electing

their candidate to the speaker position, right? So McCarthy was actually previously the minority leader in the house. He was elected to that position in 2019, and he held that position for four years. Because of that, he was kind of expected to win the Speaker bid without really any question. But when the red wave didn't happen like everyone thought it would during midterms, McCarthy's chances of winning actually significantly decreased. And it's not that he wasn't going to win, but it was just going to be a lot harder because the way the house is broken down is that it has 435 total members. Currently the split is 222 Republicans to 213 Democrats. So what that meant is that in order for McCarthy to get the majority to win that speaker position, he couldn't lose more than four Republican votes because the majority of 435 total members is 218.

Given the fact that no Democrats were going to vote for him, he needed the Republicans. Well, there's 222 Republicans. So if you take four of those away, you're at 218, which is why everyone kept saying he can't really lose more than four. Well, there was one problem. So originally he had 20 detractors, which meant that 20 Republicans weren't giving him the vote. Some of these included Matt Gaetz. He's a Republican representative from Florida, and he said it was too risky to vote for McCarthy because McCarthy in his eyes underperformed in 2022. So he didn't necessarily want him taking that speaker position. Another oppositionist was Andy Biggs, who actually also ran for speaker, but lost to McCarthy. And another one was Ralph Norman. So there definitely were Republican representatives who were against McCarthy becoming speaker. And because of that, they weren't voting for him and he wasn't getting that majority that he needed. So those same Republicans that voiced opposition, kind of how they leveraged their opposition, I guess, is that they said they'd be willing to vote for McCarthy as long as he made concessions,

which he did end up doing. And we'll get into those concessions later. But first, let's kind of go through how the vote works. And then we'll go into how McCarthy was brought over that majority threshold. And then we'll talk about the concessions and we'll finish up with some kind of fun facts. So again, to get the majority, you either have to have 218 votes, right? Because that's the majority of total representatives, or you have to have the majority of votes of those present and voting. So it's very possible that not all representatives will be present and voting at one time. So just as kind of like a hypothetical

example, let's say there's only a hundred representatives present, likely not going to happen. We're just doing it for the ease of the hypothetical. So there's a hundred representatives present and voting. You could win with 51 votes, even though that's nowhere near that full 218 majority, but because it's the majority of the representatives present and voting, that would still be sufficient. But then it kind of gets tricky. So party members don't have to vote for their party candidate. What do I mean by that? People in the house can literally vote for anyone, even if the person they're voting for isn't serving in the house. So as an anyone, even if the person they're voting for isn't serving in

the house. So as an example, Gates, the representative in Florida, voted for former President Trump when the chamber held its seventh vote. Now, obviously, former President Trump has no elected office position. He's not definitely not in the house. So like, for him to vote for Donald Trump is just kind of a show of like, I'm willing to do anything but vote for McCarthy kind of thing. So that's kind of a little caveat. Party members don't have to vote for their party candidate and they don't have to vote for someone who's even in the house. So what brought McCarthy over this majority threshold?

Well, originally, and as I said before, McCarthy had 20 detractors, which meant that there were 20 people who did not want to vote for him. Eventually, after 11 rounds of voting, 14 of those 20 flipped. Now, keep in mind that the reason these people are going to flip is because McCarthy is going to make concessions. So by the end of it, you know, he has like X amount of concessions, but they come at each round.

Once he realizes he's kind of stuck, he makes more concessions, right? So in the 14th round, Lauren Brobert, who's a Republican representative in Colorado and Matt Gates, that Florida representative voted present. And that was like the first time they had voted present. So that brought the threshold down, but it still wasn't enough. So basically at this point, McCarthy's trying to get these people to vote present because the more people that vote present, the greater chances he has of getting elected. So once those two voted present in the 14th round, the total number of voting members became 432. To win, he needed 217 votes because that's one more than half. But the problem is McCarthy only had 216 votes. So he was short by one. So then they were actually going to call it after the 14th round,

but they ended up doing a late night 15th round and going into that 15th round, there were three representatives that voted present that hadn't previously. So he, McCarthy, essentially, you can say, gained three more votes. And that was Andy Biggs, who's a Republican representative out of Arizona, Eli Crane, who's a Republican representative also from Arizona, and then Bob Good, who's a Republican in Virginia. That lowered the threshold enough to where McCarthy was able to achieve the majority. So by the end of it, McCarthy had conceded to quite a few things, and not everyone was happy about these concessions. Obviously,

you can never make anyone happy these days, or sorry, I should say you can never make everyone happy these days. So one of the concessions that was made is that McCarthy agreed to vote separately on the 12 different appropriations bills rather than allow them to be bundled together in an end of year spending bill. So this request was actually made by the far right representatives who were not happy with the spending bill that was just passed a month ago, that $1.7 trillion spending bill, which included tons and tons of things. So they want these 12 different appropriations bills voted on separately and not included in that end of year spending bill. If you're interested, by the way,

in hearing about the spending bill that just passed last month, go ahead and listen to my most recent episode. And I cover that in that episode. Another concession he made was that he agreed to cap discretionary spending at the levels they were at the beginning of the Biden administration for both defense and domestic spending. And this came kind of as a part of a commitment to balance the federal budget within 10 years. So that was another concession. A third concession was that he agreed to create a subcommittee on the quote weaponization of the federal government. And this subcommittee would essentially be tasked with probing the federal government's information collection on private individuals and ongoing criminal investigations. So this would likely include, you know, the DOJ's

probe into the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. So basically what the subcommittee would do is keep an eye on the federal government and how they're collecting their information in their investigations. So another thing that he made a concession on was he agreed to lower the number of GOP conference members needed to start the process of removing the speaker. This process is also known as a motion to vacate. And before the number of conference members you needed to start the process was five, and now it's one. So this is one of McCarthy's biggest concessions that he made, and this could obviously have some negative repercussions down the road, just because if it only takes one representative to initiate the process, you could see it happening quite frequently if just one

representative isn't happy with certain things that McCarthy's doing. And, you know, that could cause delays, et cetera. So we'll see how that plays out down the road, but that was one of his biggest concessions that he had to make. He also promised to give house members 72 hours to review bills before they make it to the house floor. And then a few of the other promises he made was to require a vote to raise the federal debt limit, to hold votes on congressional term limits, and also hold votes on a border security plan. So as I said in the beginning,

not everyone was happy with these concessions. One of the critics was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and he said in a statement that McCarthy surrendered to demands of a fringe element of the Republican party paving the way for a MAGA Republican controlled house to cause a government shutdown or a government default with devastating consequences to our country. So of course, as with anything, you have people that are critical of these concessions. You have people that are critical of these concessions.

You have people that are happy with the concessions. That is just how the world works these days. Now that McCarthy has been elected, the House can resume its normal order of business. It can get back to work because if the House doesn't have a speaker, nothing is happening. And also, there's no, technically, there are no rules in the House when there's no speaker because the speaker sets the rules. So this is actually one of the fun facts I was going to tell you guys. Because the House technically doesn't have rules when there's no speaker, Representative Nancy Mace actually brought her dog Libby to the House vote on Thursday, which obviously normally wouldn't be allowed. You don't see representatives bringing their pets to these votes, but because it was kind of chaos and there were no votes and there

was no speaker to control things, she was able to do that. And then the second fun fact I have for you is that the last time the house voted on multiple ballots for a speaker was 1923. That's almost a hundred years ago. And then it only took nine ballots in this election. It took 15. The only other time the speaker vote has gone above nine ballots was obviously this election that just happened. And then in 1855, which was the longest vote in history, it lasted over two months and there were 133 rounds of voting. So I don't know, in my opinion, I think that this really just speaks to the division that we see in our nation and how it's really only getting worse. I, this, I don't know. I think it kind of foreshadows what the next couple of years

are going to look like. And I know some analysts are saying the same thing. I always tell you guys, it just seems like this division is not getting any better. And this kind of signals that it's just so, it's just so, there's so much controversy all the time now. And, you know, when you see something like this and you see a historical vote, something that breaks records because people can't just come to an agreement, I don't know. It, To me, it speaks volumes that our society just keeps getting more and more divided. But I want to know what your thoughts are. What do you think about this? What do you think this signals? I mean, do you think there's any underlying messages here? Maybe you don't, but if you do, I'd love to hear what you think about it. As always, I have that comment section

on my website. So if you go to jordanismylawyer.com, you can certainly find the comments down at the bottom of this episode's description page. So definitely take part in that if you have any thoughts, because as always, I would love to hear them. Now that takes us to the probable cause affidavit that was just unsealed in the Idaho murder case. So in the last episode, I reported that the Idaho murder suspect, Brian Koberger, had been arrested in Pennsylvania. I talked about how he could either waive his extradition because his arrest warrant was out of Idaho, right? And he was taken into custody in Pennsylvania. So he had to be extradited to Idaho. And he could either have waived his extradition, which is what he ended up doing, or there would have been a whole extradition process that would have taken time.

So because he waived his extradition, he was returned to Idaho and the probable cause affidavit was unsealed. The probable cause affidavit for those who may not be familiar is basically the set of facts on which law enforcement can obtain an arrest warrant. So they lay out all these reasons of why they believe this person is responsible for the crime and they present it to a judge and that judge is who ultimately signs off on the warrant. So in reading this probable cause affidavit, you basically get the full idea of what law enforcement knew, the facts that they had found and had shed light on, and why they thought this was the man.

So this is linked on my website per usual. Just go to this episode's description page and scroll down. You'll see all the sources. And this is one of them. It's available in a PDF link. So you will see all the sources and this is one of them. It's available in a PDF link, so you will see it there. Let's run through it and kind of go over what it tells us. So it says on November 13th, 2022 at approximately 4 PM, Moscow police department, Sergeant Blaker and I responded to one one two King road, Moscow, Idaho here at here and after referred to as the King road

residents to assist with scene security and processing of a crime scene associated with four homicides. Upon our arrival, the Idaho state police forensic team was on scene and was preparing to process the scene. Officer Smith, one of the initial responding officers to the incident advised me he would walk me through the scene. And the person writing this, by the way, his name is Brett Payne. He is employed by the Moscow police department. So it says officer Smith and I entered the King walk me through the scene and the person writing this by the way his name is brett pain he is employed by the moscow police department so it says officer smith and i entered the king road residence through the bottom floor on the north side of the building so keep in mind this house was a three-story house officer smith and i then walked upstairs to the second floor officer smith directed me down the hallway to the west bedroom on the second floor which i later

learned through zanna's driver's license and other personal belongings found in the room was Zanna Kernoodle's here and after Kernoodle's room. Just before this room, there was a bathroom door on the south wall of the hallway. As I approached the room, I could see a body, later identified as Kernoodle, laying on the floor. Kernoodle was deceased with wounds which appeared to have been caused by an edged weapon. Also in the room was a male later identified as Ethan Chapin, here and after Chapin. Chapin was also deceased with wounds later determined to be caused by sharp force injuries. So this was the couple, right? So if you've heard this story, there were two girls and then a boyfriend and girlfriend. The girlfriend was one of the roommates and her boyfriend happened to be staying with her that night. So the affidavit then goes on to say,

I then followed officer Smith upstairs to the third floor of the residence. The third floor consisted of two bedrooms and one bathroom. The bedroom on the West side of the floor was later determined to be Kaylee Goncalves here and after Goncalves room. I later learned there was a dog in the room when Moscow police officers initially responded. Officer Smith then pointed out a small bathroom on the east side of the third floor. This bathroom shared a wall with Madison Mogan, here and after Mogan's bedroom, which was situated on the southeast corner of the third floor. So on the second floor, you have the couple, and then on the third floor floor you have two female roommates who had their own rooms on that floor but they were sleeping in the same room on that night as girls will sometimes do

so the affidavit says as i entered this bedroom i could see two females in the single bed in the room both gonclaves and mogan were deceased with visible stab wounds i also later noticed what appeared to be a tan leather knife sheath laying on the bed next to right side. The Idaho state lab later located a single source of male DNA left on the button snap of the knife sheath. And that is ultimately his biggest mistake, obviously. So then the affidavit kind of gets into the events that took place that night. And rather than read you the whole thing verbatim, I'm just going to sum it up for you. Basically the one roommate and her boyfriend who were ultimately killed were at a fraternity house on campus from about 9 PM to 1 45 in the morning,

they got home around 1 45 and they went to the room and that was it. The two girls that were killed in the same bed were out that night at a local bar. They were at the bar from about 10 p.m. until 1.30 a.m. And then after at like 1.30, they went to a local food vendor called the Grub Truck. It's like a food truck, essentially. And it's downtown Moscow. And this Grub Truck live streams their food truck and like the activity around the food truck on a streaming

platform called Twitch. So that's the video that was kind of going viral and circulating. If you saw it, it was like the two of the, these two girls, they were at the food truck, just kind of talking out, hanging out. So then they left the food truck and they went, uh, they took an Uber home at about 1 56 AM. So according to the two roommates that survived, they said that everyone that lived in that house was home by 2 a.m. and everyone was asleep or at least in their rooms by 4 a.m. Now, this is with the exception of Kernodle, who received a DoorDash order at the house at about 4 a.m.

And the reason that law enforcement knew that is because the DoorDash delivery at the house at about 4 a.m. And the reason that law enforcement knew that is because the DoorDash delivery driver actually reported that information. So one of the surviving roommates stated that she originally went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor, and she was woken up at about 4 a.m. by what she stated sounded like gonclaves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A short time later, she says she heard who she thought was gone. Clavs say something to the effect of there's someone here. A review of the records obtained from a forensic download of Kernodle's phone showed this could have been Kernodle as her cell phone data indicated she was likely awake and using the

TikTok app at approximately 4 12 AM. So basically what's happening here is one of the surviving roommates thought that she heard Gonklabs, who was on the third floor, say something to the effect of there's someone here. But records show that it actually could have been Kernodle, who was on the second floor because Kernodle was awake because her phone records show she was on TikTok at about 4.12 a.m. So then the surviving roommate says she looked out of her bedroom. She opened her door, looked out into the hallway, didn't see anything.

And then she went back in her room and it says she opened her door a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Cronodal's room. She then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of, it's okay, I'm going to help you. And obviously it's unclear at this point, whether that male voice was Koberger or her boyfriend. Cause remember Kernodle is in bed with her boyfriend, but then at approximately 4 17 AM, a security camera located at one, one, two King road, which was the residence immediately to the northwest of 1122 King Road, which is where the murders happened, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or

a whimper followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4.17 a.m. The security camera that picked this up was less than 50 feet from the west wall of Cronodal's bedroom. So it's very close. And the affidavit goes on to say that DM, one of the surviving roommates, stated that she opened her door for a third time after she heard crying. Now this is where it gets really, really creepy. So she opens her door because she thinks she hears her roommate crying and she sees someone in black clothes and a mask that's covering the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. I literally have the chills talking about this. She described the figure as 5'10 or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male then walks past her as she stood in a quote frozen shock phase and walked

towards the back sliding glass door and left. The roommate locked herself in her room after seeing him and this is when investigators believe that Koberger left the scene. Now the combination of one of the surviving roommate's statements to law enforcement and the review of records and video footage leads investigators to believe that the homicides occurred between 4 a.m. and 4.25 a.m. It is unclear why this man saw this roommate standing there and didn't do anything. I mean, typically when you hear about these things, like killers don't want there to be any witnesses, you know? So it's very strange to me. During the processing of the crime scene, investigators did find a shoe print and this was located during the second processing of the crime scene. And basically it was like a diamond shaped pattern, similar to the pattern of a Vans type

shoe sole. And it was just outside the door of DM's bedroom, which was consistent with DM's statement regarding the suspect's path of travel, right? Because she said he walked right past her room. So you have that information from one of the roommates. And then there's camera footage that shows a white sedan that's traveling, you know, in and out of the area. And it basically says that it was traveling, you know, in the area at approximately 3 26 AM. And it details, you know, the direction that this car is heading at what times and yada, yada, yada, a review of the footage from multiple videos obtained from the King road neighborhood show multiple sightings

of the vehicle starting at 3 29 a.m. and ending at 4 20 a.m. These sightings show that the vehicle makes an initial three passes by the house and then leave via Walenta Drive. And it says that the vehicle can be seen entering the area a fourth time at approximately 4.04 a.m. It's then seen departing the area of the King Road residence at approximately 4.20 a.m. at a high rate of speed. It says after reviewing the numerous observations of the suspect vehicle, the forensic examiner initially believed the suspect vehicle was a 2011 to 2013 Hyundai Elantra. Upon further review, he indicated it could also be a 2011 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra. So based on that knowledge, the investigators were then given access to video footage on Washington State University's campus in Pullman, Washington.

Now, if you've been following the story, you know that the suspect goes to Washington State University. And a review of that video indicated that at about 2.44 a.m. on November 13th, a white sedan, which was consistent with the description of the white Elantra, was observed on WSU surveillance cameras. And then it kind of just gets into all the different places that this Hyundai Elantra traveled. And then it gets into when Brian Koberger was ultimately associated with the Hyundai Elantra. So it says on November 25th, 2022, MPD asked area law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for a white Hyundai Elantra in the area. On November 29th, 2022, at approximately 1228 AM, Washington State University police officer queried white Elantras registered at WSU. As a result of the query, he located a 2015 white Elantra with a Pennsylvania

license plate. This vehicle was registered to Brian Koberger residing at blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they eventually get the license, the license information. They see a picture of him. They see that he's a white male with a height of six feet, weighs 185 pounds. They also see in his photograph that he has bushy eyebrows. So the physical description is consistent with the description that the roommate gave. So then it gets into cell phone records and how they tracked those. The records actually show that Koberger had been around the area, like in where the King Road residence was for months leading up to the murders. So his cell phone pinged in that area

multiple times. I mean, the evidence is pretty damning. And then at the very end of the affidavit, it says on December 27th, 2022, Pennsylvania agents recovered the trash from the Koberger family residence. The evidence was sent to the Idaho state lab for testing. And on December 28th, 2022, the Idaho state lab reported that a And on December 28th, 2022, the Idaho state lab reported that a DNA profile obtained from the trash and the DNA profile obtained from the knife sheath identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father of the suspect profile, at least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father. So this doesn't mean that his, that Koberger's father killed the roommates. Obviously what this means is they took the DNA from the trash. Obviously this is where

Koberger's parents live. This was at his parents' house. So assuming his dad's DNA matches his, this is just more evidence that, you know, the DNA on the knife sheath is Brian Koberger's, if that makes sense. So because of all of those facts, the arrest warrant was granted. I mean, the evidence is there, right? It's, you can't deny it. Since the unsealing of the affidavit, the father of Kaylee Gonclavs told ABC News that they don't know Brian Koberger, but they are starting to see connections between Kaylee and Koberger. And they said they're not ready to discuss the connections, but they're, they're quote, happy, relieved, and thankful. So we don't know exactly what those connections are,

but it seems like there is some sort of connection between the two, and I'm sure that'll come out eventually. But right now, as of right now, there's no motive, there's no murder weapon, and there's no information, real information, as to whether Koberger knew any of the victims, obviously aside from what her father has said and what their lawyers have said, but there's no details. Now, what I want to know and what stood out to me is why didn't this roommate call 911 when she saw, I mean, not that that would have helped anything probably, but I'm just putting myself in that position. If that were me and I saw a man in my house, yeah, I'd be in shock, but I feel like my immediate instinct is to call 911 now I did hear that they always had people in and out of the house so I don't know maybe she thought it was someone she

knew but she also said she was just frozen in shock so I don't know it just I can't figure it out so I'd be curious to hear what you guys think about it and I also why didn't he kill her I mean obviously I'm so thankful he didn't but but typically, like I said before, killers don't want witnesses to their crime, right? So he saw her, I'm assuming they made eye contact or something. Why did he just go? I don't know. So if you have any thoughts on this or you've heard anything else, definitely comment on

my website. This is a very awful, awful story, but the parents seem to be relieved that at least a suspect was found. So these last two stories I have for you are relatively short and again they are state stories so the first one is that on thursday a federal district court judge in virginia upheld virginia's ban on transgender athletes competing in female school sports so obviously this discussion has been a hotly contested one in recent years And this stems from a 2021 lawsuit that was filed by the ACLU and its West Virginia chapter on behalf of an 11 year old transgender girl who wanted to join

her middle school cross country team. The name defendants in the case were the state of West Virginia school, uh, board of education, the Harrison County board of education, and the superintendents of those boards. So the judge's role in this case was basically to determine whether the legislature's definition of the terms girl and woman is constitutionally permissible under the Save Women's Sports Bill. So what happened was West Virginia enacted this bill called the Save Women's Sports Bill, and it prohibits transgender athletes from competing in female school sports. And in the bill, it defines what a girl is and what a woman is, which is interesting because there's, that's been kind of a question. What is a woman? How do you define a woman? And I know there's a documentary

out that kind of talks about that, but it is an interesting question. How do you define a woman? And what the, what this particular bill says, obviously everyone has a different definition, but what this particular bill says is that it, it means anyone assigned the female gender at birth in the decision by the judge, he stated, quote, I recognize that being transgender is natural and is not a choice, but one's sex is also natural, and it dictates physical characteristics that are relevant to athletics. The legislature's definition of girl as being based on biological sex is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females. The judge also rejected

the claim that the bill violated Title IX. Title IX governs gender equality, so that was one of the ACLU's points, is that this bill violated Title IX. It's likely the ACLU will appeal this to the state Supreme Court. Obviously, only time will tell. When I was looking into this case, it just said that they were kind of discussing with their lawyers to see what the next step was. Now, just as a kind of like side note, before we move on to the next story in that, in that judge's ruling where I read you a brief section of it, and he says the legislature's definition of a girl as being based on biological sex is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females. That language actually stems from

the analysis that is applied by courts when equal protection issues are in front of it. So in order to pass constitutional muster, constitutional challenge, a judge has to find that the law is quote, substantially related to an important government interest. And there's varying levels of these standards, but that was the standard that was applied in that case. So I just kind of wanted to clarify that's why he used that language. Sometimes languages are like language in these opinions can be a little bit like, why did they say it like that? So I just wanted to give you some context. So that case takes us to another state decision that is out of South Carolina. Also on Thursday, South Carolina Supreme Court struck down the state's six-week abortion

ban, stating that it violates the state constitution. So this case stems from a 2021 piece of legislation called the Heartbeat Act. And what the act did was it banned abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected. And we the act did was it banned abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected. And we've seen this in other states as well, like Georgia. And it's not that it's at six weeks, six weeks is just when a heartbeat typically is detected. So that's why they'll call it like a six week abortion ban, even though the act doesn't explicitly say six weeks, it's just when the heartbeat is detected, which typically happens around six weeks. Now this bill, the heartbeat act in South Carolina did include exceptions for rape incest. And if you know, the mother's life is in danger.

Um, but it, it was actually previously suspended by federal courts. So this is pre Roe versus Wade being overturned. It was suspended by federal courts as being unconstitutional because obviously we know, you know, prior to Roe versus Wade being overturned, there was that like, it wasn't set in stone, but it was kind of like any ban before 22, 23, 24 weeks was unconstitutional. And then once Roe versus Wade was overturned, this South Carolina ban immediately took effect. And then it ended up getting blocked again in August. This time it was a temporary block while the state Supreme Court heard the case. So it was, it was very short in duration, right? We had Roe versus Wade be over, it was overturned in June. So June, July, and then part of August is when this law was in

effect and abortions couldn't happen after a heartbeat was detected. But then in August, it was blocked temporarily, which meant, hey, look, while the state Supreme Court is hearing this case, abortions can happen as they were happening before. So now that the state Supreme Court heard the case and they made their decision and they struck down this ban, now this ban won't take effect. Unless it gets appealed, of course, but the only way it can get appealed is to the United States Supreme Court, and it's up to them whether or not they want to hear it. So the basis of the suit, which was brought by Planned Parenthood, a woman's clinic, and two practitioners, was that the six-week ban violated a patient's constitutional right to privacy. And we heard a lot, like we've talked a lot about the

right to privacy in regards to abortion, because there's a lot of controversy surrounding what is the right to privacy protect. The right to privacy actually isn't even explicitly written in the constitution. So there's just a lot of arguments from both sides. This decision was very close. This was a three to two decision. And in ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, that being the women's clinic, Planned Parenthood, and the two practitioners, the justice wrote in the majority opinion, in part, quote, the decision to terminate a pregnancy rests upon the utmost personal and private considerations imaginable and implicates a woman's right to privacy. While this right is not absolute and must be balanced against the

state's interest in protecting unborn life, this act, which severely limits and in many instances completely forecloses abortion, is an unreasonable restriction upon a woman's right to privacy. End quote. So basically what she's saying is if you balance the right to privacy, aka abortion, in this case, against the state's interest in protecting unborn life. This far outweighs the state's interest in protecting unborn life. This is a quote, unreasonable restriction upon a woman's right to privacy. Now, the governor in South Carolina, who is a Republican governor, he actually was the one who signed this bill into law. He was not too happy with this ruling. And he tweeted after the fact, quote, our state Supreme court has found a right in our

constitution, which was never intended by the people of South Carolina. With this opinion, the court has clearly exceeded its authority. The people have spoken through their elected representatives multiple times on this issue and quote, And he added that he looks forward to working with the General Assembly to correct this error. So this likely isn't done. Again, time will tell. Like I said, this could even make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it would then be up to them to determine the constitutionality of a six-week ban if they decided to hear the case, which I honestly don't know. I don't think that they would want to hear the case, which I honestly don't know. I don't think that they would want to hear the case, but they might. I don't know. It really just depends. I mean,

the whole abortion issue was such a big deal when it happened over the summer that I would imagine the Supreme Court wants to steer clear of it, but we'll see. So that's what's going on. The reason I wanted to cover those two state cases, by the way, is because sometimes when we look at these state decisions and we, and we look at these things that are happening in respective States, it can kind of show us rationale and reasoning for how things will happen on a national basis. So obviously it depends on, you know, who's in the Supreme court, what the makeup of the Supreme court, all of that stuff. But if either of these issues like a ban on transgender, you know, athletes competing in sports or a six week abortion ban, if either of those issues

made its way to the Supreme court, then reading up on how these state level judges ruled can kind of give us some perspective into the different arguments for those issues on a national level. So that's why I like to go over state cases while they may not apply to all of us. I mean, I'm sure some of my listeners are in South Carolina or West Virginia, but again, they may not apply to all of us, but they very well could down the road on a national level. And with that, that concludes our episode. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, please remember to leave me a review on whichever platform you listen,

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever it may be. It really takes two seconds to click five stars. Or if you wanna take the time to write me a review, I love hearing what you guys have to say. I don't think Spotify lets you write reviews, but Apple Podcast podcast certainly does. So with that, I will talk to you guys on Monday. I hope you have a great week. I will talk to you soon.