UNBIASED - Week in Review: March 13-16, 2023

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

1. Ohio Files Suit Against Norfolk Southern Following Toxic Train Derailment (3:02)2. The Days That Followed the SVB and Signature Collapse (11:36)3. House and Senate Unanimously Pass Bill to Declassify COVID-19 Origins (17:58)4. Biden Administration Approves Willow Oil Drilling Project (22:49)5. Republican Party’s Split Views on Support for Ukraine (29:41)6. Texas Executes Arthur Brown Jr. (34:42)All sources can be found here: https://www.jordanismylawyer.com/episodes/week-in-review-march-13-16-2023Follow Jordan on TikTok and Instagram @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 podcast. I'm not actually a lawyer. Mondays. I just felt that because my episodes are kind of a week in review, it made sense to

close out the week with that review rather than start a new week with a new review or I guess an old review where new news would be coming out. You get the point. So the new release date is Friday. This marks the official first Friday release. And we have more stories than usual today. Some are going to be shorter than others, but there are six stories we're going to cover. The first is that Ohio has officially filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern Railway because of that train derailment we talked about a few weeks ago. We're also going to talk about an update sort of on SVB and Signature Bank, which has also collapsed since my last episode. We're going

to talk about some legislative news because there is a bill being sent to President Biden, which would declassify COVID-19 origins. So we're going to talk about that briefly. Also going to talk about the Willow Drilling Project, which was just approved by the Biden administration. The fifth story is going to be kind of a Republican split on Ukraine support. So we're seeing a lot of public candidates kind of taking different sides on whether or not Ukraine support should continue. And then the last story is in regards to an execution in Texas, which happened on March 9th. So we're a little bit behind on executions. So we're going to catch up with that. Before we get into today's stories, let me just remind you, as always, please leave my podcast or review on whichever platform you listen.

It really helps support my show. It helps other people when they see my show to realize, oh, wow, this girl must be good at what she does because she still has a five-star rating. And not many people can say that after being in the biz for as long as I have, not that I've been here for very long, but long enough to say that having a five-star rating is a pretty big accomplishment in my eyes. So I really appreciate you guys taking the time to do that. If you can write a little bit about the podcast, what you love about it, that makes the review that much better. But no pressure. All I ask is that you click on the stars. So let's get into today's stories. Ohio has officially filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern Railway after last month's

toxic train derailment. So if you listened to my episode in which I covered that story, then you know a little bit about it. But let's go through a brief recap. So on February 3rd, at approximately 8.54pm, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. This is less than a mile away from the Pennsylvania border. The train had approximately 149 cars, but only 38 of those cars actually derailed. And of those 38 that derailed, 11 of them were carrying hazardous material. So the cause of this derailment is believed to be the overheating and malfunctioning of a wheel bearing on one of the rail cars. And I found this to be interesting when I was doing my research. There's actually these things called hot bearing detectors,

HBDs, and they're installed along the railroad and they're used to assess and report the temperature of the rail car equipment as the trains are traveling past them. So these HPDs actually report the temperature of the rail car equipment to the trains in real time, and they send the trains and the crew members on those trains warnings if, you know, anything is overheating or anything looks abnormal. And this, like I said, is in real time. So it's while the train is moving. So this particular Norfolk Southern train traveled past at least three HBD systems prior to its derailment. And the HBD at milepost 79.9 recorded a temperature of 38 degrees above the ambient temperature of the wheel bearing that's

thought to be the cause of this accident. So it was starting to increase above the ambient temperature, you know, the temperature it's supposed to be at. Then as the train keeps going at milepost 69, the HPD recorded 103 degrees above the ambient temperature. So clearly it's heating up and it's accelerating, right? Then at milepost 49, the HBD recorded 253 degrees above ambient temperature. And at this point, the crew of the train was alerted by this, you know, loud alarm warning from the HBD milepost that, you know, there's a mechanical issue, there's a mechanical failure happening. And that's when the train was eventually brought to a stop and it derailed. Immediately following the derailment, fire and smoke were

seen coming from rail car 23, which is the rail car that's thought to have that overheated wheel bearing, sorry. So then, you So then the cars catch fire and this fire burned for at least four days. And this resulted in the release of over a million gallons of hazardous material. So now the question is, obviously the release of hazardous material has environmental impacts. What are the health impacts? What are the long-term impacts? Because when this first happened, the residents were actually ordered to shelter in place and then they had to leave because they lit this material on fire, they burned it off. And the residents of this town were asked to leave. Well, when the residents got back, a lot of them started experiencing these symptoms like nausea, headaches, dizziness, fainting. So it's clear that

these toxic chemicals are causing symptoms, but the question becomes, what are the long-term symptoms? We don't know, right? So obviously there was a lot of stress not only put on the residents, but there was a lot of economic loss. A lot of money went into the recovery. There's going to be a lot of money going into the residents that are affected. There's just a lot that happened as a result of this derailment. So this lawsuit was filed by Ohio. It was filed on Tuesday. It's 58 pages long, and it basically alleges that the railway operator violated various federal and state environmental laws, as well as Ohio common law. And in total, there were 58 violations that Ohio is alleging. And, you know, some of the things that they're accusing the railway operator or Norfolk Southern of doing is recklessly endangering

the health of residents and Ohio's natural resources. There's obviously many, many more violations and allegations on top of that, but that's the main gist of the complaint. As part of the complaint's introduction, Ohio's Attorney General makes mention that this particular derailment was just one accident in a long string of Norfolk Southern accidents. And that in the past 10 years, Norfolk Southern's accident rate has nearly doubled. And at least 20 of the derailments since 2015 have involved chemical releases. So what Ohio's attorney general says is quote, it was entirely avoidable. And it was the direct result of Norfolk Southern's practice of putting its own profits above the health and safety and welfare of the communities in which Norfolk Southern operates, end quote. Generally speaking, the allegations of Norfolk Southern's

wrongdoing fall under the following laws. First, you have the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. Then, you know, you get into various Ohio laws like Ohio's hazardous waste law, various Ohio pollution laws, and then you have violations of common law. So common law negligence, common law public nuisance, common law trespass. And you may hear those things and you're like, you know, what do those have to do with this? Well, common law negligence relates to the defects in the train itself, as well as the train's operations. And then common law public nuisance encompasses the chemical releases into the air, public waterways, public land, things like that. And then you have common law trespass, which addresses the contamination of natural

resources. So in addition to the various, you know, economic losses that Ohio is trying to recover, the lawsuit also asked the court to require Norfolk Southern to conduct future monitoring of soil and groundwater at the derailment location, the surrounding areas and beyond, and submit a closure plan to the Ohio EPA. So they're basically saying, hey, look, we need Norfolk Southern to also monitor this situation and kind of keep track of what's happening here and what we need to be on the lookout for. So that is the lawsuit in a nutshell.

As always, I do have the lawsuit linked on my website. But before we kind of close out the story, I just want to mention Norfolk Southern's response very briefly. So they issued this response to the lawsuit announcement. I also have their response in full linked on my website. But in part, this is what they said. They said, quote, every day since the derailment, our goal has been to make it right for the people of East Palestine and the surrounding communities. We are also listening closely to concerns from the community about whether there could be long-term impacts from the derailment. To provide an additional level of assurance, we are committed to a solution that addresses long-term health risks through the creation of a long-term medical compensation fund.

Finally, we have heard the community's interest in programs that protect drinking water over the long-term. We are prepared to work with stakeholders toward that goal as well." we have heard the community's interest in programs that protect drinking water over the long term. We are prepared to work with stakeholders toward that goal as well, end quote. That, again, is the response to the lawsuit in part. It was in total, I think, like four or five paragraphs. So all of the sources to this, if you're interested in reading for yourself the lawsuit, Norfolk Southern's response, they are on my website. Just go to this episode's description page, scroll down to the bottom, and that's where you'll find those sources. My thought is that this is going to end in a settlement. The reality is a lot of these big lawsuits often do end in settlements. And on top of that, Norfolk Southern, the last thing they

want to do is bring this before a jury in Ohio, right? Because there's such an emotional connection to this lawsuit. They do not want the people of Ohio to be the ones that are going to eventually rule in this case. So I think it's going to end in a settlement. Obviously, anything can happen. You never know.

But that is where the derailment stands as of now. This case is going, I would imagine, is going to take a long time. But as updates come out, depending on the significance of them, I will keep you guys posted. So that takes us into the second story, which is another update. Previously in the last episode, I talked about SVB, Silicon Valley Bank, and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. And in this episode, I want to talk about the fallout from the collapse, as well as what has happened since we last spoke about it. So according to an exclusive article from Reuters, the FDIC has asked banks interested in acquiring SVB to submit bids by the 17th, indicating an effort to return the

lenders to the private sector. Notably, the FDIC has already attempted to sell SVB. That was last Sunday. They had no luck, so now they're trying again in a new auction. According to sources, only bidders with an existing bank charter will be allowed to study the bank's financials ahead of submitting their offer. This is meant to give traditional lenders an advantage over private equity firms in acquiring SVB, as well as Signature Bank, which we're going to get into too. So let's talk about the days since the collapse. On March 12th, just two days after SVB's collapse, we saw another regional midsize bank collapse, and that is Signature Bank. Once that happened, you know, I think it got even more serious. Obviously, it was serious. It was the first collapse since 2008. And when Signature followed, the Biden administration was like,

what are we going to do here? So that's when White House officials, various agencies, the Biden administration met over the weekend and they realized that they need to protect the bank's depositors. If they didn't, small businesses across the country might be left unable to access money that they needed to stay in business. So I actually linked a Politico article which runs through the first 72 hours after the collapse and what went on behind closed doors. But I'm going to summarize it for you. I'm just saying if you're interested in kind of reading it through and seeing, you to determine the blast radius of SVB's failures, right? How far was this going to go? What kind of repercussions were we going to see?

They knew that the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank wouldn't necessarily destabilize the entire banking sector, but it could very easily disrupt large parts of the economy. So at that point, they were like, okay, you know, we got to act. And they feared that when the market reopened, panicked depositors would pull their money in masses from other regional banks, and it would cause this sort of domino effect. Another concern was the viability of certain payroll processing companies tied to SBB. If those weren't able to operate, the number of workers at risk of not receiving their paychecks would increase

exponentially. And from there, the situation could spiral along with the spiraling of consumer confidence in the economy's stability. Therefore, there was one goal in these meetings, and that was to stabilize the situation. And what this meant was that an emergency rescue would have to take place. So by Friday afternoon, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had created a team of people to kind of come up with a plan. How are we going to do this? The team included Fed Chair Jerome Powell, FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg, acting comptroller of the currency Michael Hsu, and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly. And they eventually landed on three options. One, look for a buyer. Two, backstop uninsured depositors. And three,

launch a new emergency lending program at the Fed. By Saturday, the trigger was pulled on all three. As of Sunday morning, the administration had yet to finalize a plan, but on Sunday night, the Fed, Treasury, and FDIC jointly announced that the government would immediately provide access to all depositor funds held at SBB and signature. This meant that the government had to use its power to immediately designate SBB and signature bank as systematically significant. What does that mean? So we have institutions called systematically significant financial institutions, and it basically signifies or denotes a financial institution that U.S. federal regulators have determined would pose a serious risk to the

economy if it were to collapse. So the government designated these two entities as, you know, systematically significant financial institutions. And from there, you know, they were going to immediately provide access to all depositor funds held at these two banks. By end of day Monday, when the market had reopened, stocks ended only slightly lower. So it wasn't a huge catastrophic impact. It wasn't even close to catastrophic. still felt the blow. First Republic is the bank that's hurting the most. Their shares are down, I think it was 78% last time I checked. And now there's questions as people are asking, do we even need midsize banks? But that's obviously not something that's going to be answered now. And we're going to be watching this fallout for the next few months, maybe more. It's definitely not over, but that's where it stands now. So the big takeaway from this is that, you know, the Biden administration made that big announcement that the government will provide access to all depositor funds held at SVB and signature.

That's the main takeaway here. There is going to be more news like i said this is not over but i just wanted to provide you guys with an update on this story because the last time i had covered it was basically just when it had collapsed and i described or explained what led to that but i felt it was important to talk about what has happened since then if you have any comments on this story if you have any thoughts whatsoever you can always leave those comments on my website, jordanismylawyer.com. Scroll to the bottom. I had mentioned my sources are there, but the comment section is at the very bottom.

So you guys can always interact with each other, engage with each other. So definitely use my website as kind of a means to converse and have that substantive conversation. Now, this third story is a story that didn't make it into Monday's episode, but I thought it was worth covering anyway. It's a short story and it's that there's this bill to, it's legislative news, but it's this bill that just passed the house and it's going to the president and it's meant to declassify COVID-19 origins. So I just thought this was an interesting piece of legislation that maybe didn't make headlines, but is interesting to know nonetheless. So the House of Representatives unanimously passed

this bill to require the director of national intelligence to declassify information regarding the origins of COVID-19. This vote was unanimous, 419 to zero. All members of the House voted in support of this bill. A Senate version of the bill also passed unanimously earlier this month. And the Senate's bill, which obviously came first, came after these new assessments from both the Department of Energy and the FBI that a lab leak in China was the most likely source of the pandemic. So obviously everyone has their theories, right? A lot of people either think it was a natural born illness. It came from animals,

animal transmission. And then you have other people who think that this was a lab leak, that this was either intentionally or unintentionally leaked from a lab in China. So to kind of touch on these assessments from the Department of Energy and the FBI, there was an interview with the FBI director, Christopher Wray, on Fox News. And what Christopher Wray said is, quote, the FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab, end quote. And according to the Wall Street

Journal, the Department of Energy gave a classified intelligence report to the White House, and in that report, they concluded that the pandemic most likely arose from a lab leak. Previously, the Department of Energy was undecided as to what the source of COVID was, but this conclusion came by way of an update to a previously written 2021 document by the director of national intelligence's office. So what it looks like is this bill is, is like, okay, so this classified intelligence report from the department of energy, let's, let's declassify this information so we can get down to the bottom of why they're thinking this pandemic came from a lab. Neither the conclusion by the FBI or Department of Energy were made with

high confidence. So take it as you will. Specifically, the FBI made its conclusion with moderate confidence, as they call it, whereas the Department of Energy made its conclusion with low confidence. And that's according to people who have read the report. Importantly, four other agencies investigating the origins of the pandemic say that it was likely the result of a natural transmission. So there is a split, there are split theories as to where COVID-19 came from. And therein lies the reason for this bill. People want answers because no one has any answers with certainty. And honestly, not even the Department of Energy or the FBI have any answers with certainty, but they're just saying, hey, let's release this information to the public. Let's declassify it so we at least know where your

investigations are coming from or what you've found, what's leading you to believe this. So what's next? Obviously, we know that it passed the House. It's now going to the president. The president told reporters he hasn't yet decided whether he will sign the bill. According to his press secretary, the president is committed to getting to the bottom of the fact that one, people just want answers. And two, everyone thinks that their own theory is right, right? And they all want to prove that they're right. So you either are of the belief that it's a lab leak and it was made in a lab in China, or it came from a natural source like animals. So everyone just wants their own theory to be proven and everyone's just like, let's just figure it out already. It's just been so long, let's figure it out. So we'll see if the president signs it or not. I could see this going both ways. I could see him wanting to protect classified information, but I could also see him not wanting to be the bad

guy. And if it got unanimous approval from both the House and the Senate, why is he going to veto it, you know? And if he did veto it, given the fact that these bills passed the House and the Senate unanimously, I don't see why they couldn't get three-fourths vote if the president did veto it. So we'll see where this goes. I'll keep you updated, as always. the biden administration has approved the willow project the willow project is an oil drilling project in alaska and this approval came despite objections from environmental advocates who said that letting this plan go forward would violate the president's climate goals to cut climate pollution in half by 2030. However, the administration, while they did approve this project, they did make a point to scale it down. So before we get into how they scaled it down, let's talk about what it is. What is the Willow Project? The company

behind the Willow Project is ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips was founded in 2002. It's an American corporation that specializes in hydrocarbon exploration and production based in Houston, Texas. It's also Alaska's largest crude oil producer, and it's actually the only company that currently has oil drilling operations in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve. Notably, the two projects that it is currently operating are smaller than what Willow will be. So Willow was proposed by Canoco and originally approved in 2020 under the Trump administration. But now the Biden administration is in office. It has been reduced. So it was initially approved to construct five drill pads back in 2020,

but the Biden administration has now reduced that to three. Despite though denying two of the five drill pads, the company will still be able to drill about 90% of the oil that they're pursuing. The scope of the project size-wise was also cut by 68,000 acres. So that was another kind of downsizing effort that the Biden administration made. But according to Conoco, the project is thought to produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day. This accounts for 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. It's currently the largest proposed oil project on U.S. public land. So the project will include up to 200 total wells. It'll be spread across three drilling pads, as I mentioned before. And, you know,

this obviously incorporates miles and miles of pipelines and roads. The administration's own estimates show that the project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year, which equates to 239 million metric tons over the project's 30-year life. That's equivalent to adding about 2 million gas-powered cars to the road. So that's a little bit about the Willow Project. As you know, though, you are always going to have people for it and against it. No matter what, no matter what it is, there will always be people for and against. The proponents of the project say that the Willow project will not only lower oil prices, but it'll also bolster national security. So this essentially has

bipartisan support in Alaska, aside from a few Alaskan natives who live in the area, but I'll get to them in a second when I talk about the opponents. But state lawmakers are very keen on the fact that this will create jobs, it'll boost domestic energy production, it'll lessen the country's reliance on foreign oil, and all three lawmakers in Alaska's bipartisan congressional delegation met with the president and his advisors back in the beginning of March, and they basically begged him to approve this project. Alaskan native groups on the North Slope, where this project is actually taking place, also support the project.

They say that it'll be a much needed new source of revenue for the region, and it'll help fund things like education and healthcare. Now, on the other side of that, you have the opponents. The opponents call this a, quote, carbon bomb. And they say it'll worsen climate change. It'll harm biodiversity. It'll slow down the transition to cleaner fuels. And actually, so there was like these viral TikToks going around that were talking about the Willow Project and all of the detriment that it will cause.

And because of those viral TikToks, the White House actually received over a million letters protesting the project. And then there was a petition on change.org that got over 2 million signatures. So like I said, there are definitely opponents to this. And some of those opponents include Alaskan natives in the area. Not all of them, but some of them, they're worried about things like health impacts and environmental impacts. Opponents are saying that the Biden administration directly contradicted its own climate goals. And even though they downsized it, that downsize wasn't enough and that the trade-off wasn't worth it. But according to government sources,

the Biden administration actually felt like it had its hands tied. Hands tied. Because Conoco has existing valid leases in the area, and legally, courts wouldn't have allowed the administration to fully reject or even drastically reduce the project. If they had, if the Biden administration had tried to fully reject or drastically reduce the project, then the administration could have faced fines or even legal action from Conoco. So to them, they were like, okay, how do we do, you know, like, how do we avoid fines and potential legal action by rejecting it? But how do we also not

let them get away with everything that they're trying to get away with? And this was the compromise in their eyes. But because there will always be opponents to any action taken by anybody, it's expected that environmental law groups like Earthjustice will file lawsuits against the project and will likely be seeking an injunction. You guys have heard me talk about an injunction before that basically stops whatever they're seeking an injunction against. So in this case, they're asking for an injunction to stop this Willow project. And if it's granted by a court, that means that the, um, the, that Canoco cannot proceed with building this project until, you know, it's heard by a, by a court. So there's a bit of a race against time happening because

construction on this project can only happen during the winter season due to the, due to the fact that it needs ice roads to build the rest of the oil project's infrastructure. And this winter season could end as soon as April. So if environmental groups can secure an injunction before then to either stop or delay the project, it could delay construction until next year. But as of now, Conoco can start building. Literally right now they can start building. I wouldn't be surprised if they've already started building because this approval did not just come yesterday. So on Monday, to kind of offset this approval, the White House

made the entire United States Arctic Ocean off limits to future oil and gas leasing. It's also set to announce new rules that will protect more than 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. So it's clear that while they're saying, yes, this can go forward, they're also trying to do things that kind of mitigate the environmental harm as well. So that is the latest on the Willow Project. Now that brings us into story number five, which is that the Republican Party is kind of split on the issue of Ukraine support. And I think this is interesting because obviously we see a lot of times issues are decided based on political party. So Democrats

see things one way, Republicans see things another way. So I want to ask you, where do you stand on the United States support for Ukraine? And I ask this because this, like I said, this isn't a question that can necessarily be answered based on your political party, like a lot of questions. And don't get me wrong, I never encourage you to answer an opinion provoking question based on your political party. That goes totally against everything that I preach. But unfortunately, that is where most answers stem from these days. So this is a question that kind of leaves Republican candidates at a crossroad. So I thought it would make for some thought-provoking conversation.

So let me give you some examples. Just this week, Governor DeSantis of Florida expressed his belief that continued support for Ukraine goes against the United States' interests. He said, quote, while the United States has many vital national interests, like securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party. Becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them, end quote. And Donald Trump has a similar viewpoint, but his view stems from the fact that, you know, he says that helping Ukraine and Europe is okay, but not when Europe isn't

helping itself. He thinks that Europe is relying heavily on the United States to provide them with the help and security that they need, but they're not helping themselves, which he says is unfair to the United States. Now, former vice president Mike Pence, who is also Republican, has a different belief. Last month, he suggested that the United States actually increase its support for Ukraine, saying, quote, make no mistake, this is not America's war. But if we falter in our commitment to providing the support to the people of Ukraine to defend their freedom, our sons and daughters may soon be called upon to defend ours, end quote. So then you have Nikki Haley. She's the former UN ambassador and former governor of South Carolina. She said that the United States needs to continue supporting Ukraine to prevent a Russian takeover. She says if Russia wins, there's no reason it will stop at Ukraine or there's no reason to believe it will stop at Ukraine. And if Russia wins, then its closest allies like China and Iran will become even more aggressive. Then you have House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who supports Ukraine, but he says that there can't just be a blank check when the United States faces so much of its own debt.

And just to give you an idea of how much support the United States has given Ukraine, so far, Congress has approved more than $112 billion in aid for Ukraine in four different spending bills. And this is how the breakdown kind of works. So there's been $67 billion towards military aid, $28.4 billion towards economic aid, $14.7 billion towards humanitarian aid, and then $2.75 billion for other things. And this kind of includes things like money for oversight of spending, support for Ukraine's nuclear power sector, costs associated with moving U.S. embassy personnel, and then also spending on investigating oligarchs and war crimes. So $112 billion so far. And I'm curious to see where you stand, because as you can tell from just those Republicans that I've that I mentioned in the story, that being Governor

DeSantis, Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Kevin McCarthy, they all kind of fall. They don't they don't really fall in one place on the spectrum. If you look at the spectrum from full-on support to Ukraine to no support for Ukraine, they are kind of scattered at different places along that spectrum, which I think is interesting. So I would love to hear where you guys stand on that and what you guys think about the United States supporting Ukraine. And is there an end game, which I know there was another Republican representative who brought this up recently. You know, he was saying, look, support for Ukraine is fine. But when does it when does it end? Like, is there an end point? We kind of need to define what that end date is. So I'm just curious to hear

your thoughts on it. And I realize I just focused on the Republican Party in this story, but that's because the story is about the Republican Party. We have an election coming up in 2024. I guarantee you this will be a topic of conversation. And it's just interesting to see where these different candidates stand on this one issue. So that is that story. And that takes us into our last story, which is the recent execution in Texas of Arthur Brown Jr. So Texas executed Arthur Brown Jr. via the lethal injection on March 9th. Arthur Brown Jr. was a member of a drug ring that would move drugs from Texas to Alabama.

And at one point, he went to the home of a couple named Jose and Rachel Tavar. He had bought from them before, and this time it was a drug robbery. So he tied up the four people that were home, which included Jose and Rachel, and then two others. He robbed them of their drugs, and he shot each of them in the head. One of those victims was actually nine months pregnant at the time, and the four victims ranged in age from 17 to 32. Now, this happened in 1992, so more than 30 years ago. I always tell you guys how sometimes these people sit on death row for a very long time. So he's been on death row for about 30 years, and he had appealed his case multiple times.

His final appeal was made shortly before his execution date, and he had appealed his case multiple times. His final appeal was made shortly before his execution date. And his attorneys argued that he was intellectually disabled. And I think we actually talked about this in the last execution. The attorneys also argued that he was intellectually disabled. This is kind of a last ditch effort in some situations. I talked a little bit about the threshold. It's typically an IQ score of about 70, which is very low. I mean, you have to be severely mentally disabled to be exempt from execution. So this whole intellectual disability argument is kind of just last ditch effort. And what his attorney said was that his intellectual limitations were known to his friends

and family, that individuals who knew him over the course of his life had described him consistently as, quote, slow. Unfortunately, though, slow doesn't do it. We got a lot of slow people in this world, right? Slow is not enough to be exempt from the death penalty. So the Supreme Court denied that final appeal on the day of his execution, which allowed it to go forward. He actually maintained his innocence

until his last breath. So literally his final words were still defending himself. He said, quote, what is happening here tonight isn't justice. It's the murder of another innocent man. The state hid the evidence so long and good that my own attorneys couldn't find it. End quote. He did not get a final meal because Texas does not offer final meals, as you guys know. And again, that injection of pentobarbital, it's one lethal dose, and it was administered at 6.20 p.m. He took two deep breaths. He gasped once, snored six times, and then all of his movements stopped. And he was pronounced dead 17 minutes after the execution started. And that was at 6.37 PM. As for his accomplices in the crime, one of the guys was executed in 2006, which is kind of crazy. They were involved in the same crime and yet executed 15 years apart,

16, 17 years apart, if my math is right. You guys get the gist. Part of the same crime. One's executed in 2006. One's not executed until 2023. Kind of wild. The other guy involved in the crime was sentenced to life in prison, so he did not get the death penalty. And that is Texas's most recent execution. The next execution in the United States is set for April 6th in Arizona. So if that goes forward, a lot can happen between now and then. But if that does go forward, I will update you on that when it happens. So please don't forget to leave me a review on whichever platform you listen. And with that, I hope you have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Friday.