UNBIASED - Week in Review: September 22-25, 2022

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

(0:25) Intro(2:20) Arizona Judge Lifts Injunction on a 1901 Near-Total Abortion Ban(7:33) President Biden Promises to Codify Roe v. Wade if Two More Democrat Senators are Elected in Midterms(11:11) Appeals Court Rules DOJ Can Regain Access to Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents(15:04) Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's Exclusive Interview with CNN and What We Can All Learn From It(21:02) U.S. Lets Tech Firms Boost Internet Access in Iran(25:41) Alabama Execution Gets Put on Hold Less Than a Day Before Scheduled ExecutionThis episode is sponsored by Good Party. To learn more about Good Party, visit https://goodparty.org/?utm_source=pod&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=sep_2022_jordan-is-my-lawyer_independent_general&utm_content=independent_general&utm_term=general.Links to all sources can be found at www.jordanismylawyer.com 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 Law podcast. 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 a lawyer. What's up? Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Monday. I hope you had a great weekend. We are currently bracing for a hurricane here in South Florida. So I'm trying to get everything in order.

I'm actually leaving to go out of town this week as well. And of course, the day that I'm supposed to leave is when the hurricane is supposed to hit. So got to figure out what to do about flights and all that stuff. That's what's going on with me. But I hope you guys had a chance to listen to my bonus episode on Thursday. That was a really great episode. I covered a few things. I figured because I took away the true crime episodes, I could at least give you guys another law episode. So make sure to listen to that episode if you haven't already. Today, we have a record number of stories. So I have six stories to go through. So it's going to be a information

filled episode. You guys are as always going to walk away feeling great. And before we get into today's stories, I just want and before we get into today's stories i just want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you by good party with the midterms fast approaching good party is here to help good party isn't a political party but rather a movement to help good independent candidates run and win good party promotes thinking outside of the traditional two-party system and helps good independent-minded people like you find good independent candidates. Our country deserves representatives who will put politics aside and pass laws that will serve all of us, not just the two-party leaders or big money donors.

Go to goodparty.org today to learn more about the independent candidates in your state ahead of midterm elections. You can also find that link in the podcast description on whichever platform you listen. Let's get into today's first story. So on Friday, an Arizona judge ruled that the near total abortion ban in Arizona can take effect. Now this ban was enacted in 1901, before Arizona was even granted statehood in 1912. And basically what this ban says is that anyone that performs a surgical abortion or provides drugs for a medication abortion can face two to five years in prison. And the exception here is when an abortion is necessary to save the mother's life.

Now, procedurally, once Roe versus Wade was decided in 1973, Arizona was halted from enforcing this ban because of the injunction that was put in place. And you guys have heard me talk about injunctions in the past. An injunction is basically just where a party is prohibited from doing something. So the court puts a stop to whatever action this party is taking. In this case, the court stopped the state from enforcing this ban once Roe versus Wade was overturned and the right to abortion was granted. Now, once Roe was overturned and the power was given back to the states, Arizona requested to lift the injunction. And when I say Arizona, I'm talking about the Attorney General of Arizona who argues on the state of Arizona's behalf. So on August 19th, a judge heard arguments from the assistant attorney general as well as the attorney for Planned Parenthood and its Arizona affiliate.

And the assistant attorney general argued that because Roe was overturned, the sole reason for the injunction in the first place is now gone. And because of that, the judge should allow that ban to be enforced, right? So basically, they're saying there's no reason for this injunction to be put in place when the reason for the injunction is now out of the question. There's no more right to an abortion. The attorney for Planned Parenthood argued that allowing the ban to be enforced would render a host of more recent laws regulating abortion meaningless. So the attorney basically asked the judge to let licensed doctors perform abortions and have the old ban just apply to unlicensed practitioners. So in that case, unlicensed practitioners who performed an abortion

or provided drugs for a medication abortion would face prison time, but licensed doctors would not. The judge did not buy that argument though and ultimately sided with the assistant attorney general and stated that because the injunction was filed only in response to the Roe decision, now that Roe's been overturned, the injunction must be lifted entirely. There is no basis for the injunction. So the judge did say that Planned Parenthood is free to appeal the decision, which it likely will. But given the landscape of the state Supreme Court, it'll be tough. The reality is, is that the seven justices on the Arizona state Supreme Court are dueling conservative. And so I, you know, it's going to be hard. And Arizona is one of those states

that once Roe versus Wade was overturned, they jumped into action. So actually the day before this injunction was lifted, there was a new Arizona law that took effect banning abortions after 15 weeks, which was passed back in March in the anticipation of Roe versus Wade being overturned. But it took effect the day before this injunction was lifted. So as of Wednesday, abortions after 15 weeks were banned. But then Thursday, the injunction was lifted. And now this 1901 ban took effect.

And that's why Doug Ducey, a Republican governor in Arizona, and actually, interestingly enough, the former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, he's the one who signed the 15-week ban. And he's arguing that this new law, the 15-week ban, actually takes precedence over the 1901 abortion ban. Now, for whatever reason, he didn't send his attorneys to argue that in court. So it's unclear what will happen with that. But I'm sure at some point we'll see a legal battle of, you know, which law takes effect, which law takes precedent. Is it this new law, you know, that's current with the times, the one that just took effect this week and was just passed in March of this year?

Or is it going to be decided that this 1901 ban actually takes precedence? So, and I do think from a legal perspective that if we did see that battle play out, you know, if it was between the new 15 week ban or the old 1901 total ban, I do believe that new 15 week ban would take precedence. So we'll see what happens with that. Obviously, as with anything, it's going to take time. Um, and this decision will likely be appealed. And then, you know, in time we'll see what happens with that. Obviously, as with anything, it's going to take time and this decision will likely be appealed. And then, you know, in time, we'll for an abortion can face two to five years in prison. And again, that exception is when it's necessary to save the mother's life. So that is where Arizona stands. And that brings us to our next story, which is that President Biden at a Democratic National Committee event on Friday promised to codify Roe versus Wade into law

if two additional Democrat senators are elected in the upcoming midterm elections. So he says that the power to get things done is in the hands of the American people, especially the women, and that people need to get out and vote. And if the American people can elect two additional Democrat senators, then President Biden allegedly will fulfill his promise to codify Roe versus Wade into law, meaning that at the federal level, there is a right to abortion up until, you know, 22 weeks or whatever it is. He also said that if Republicans gain control of Congress after midterms, Republicans would try to pass a ban on abortion, which he vowed to veto. And that kind of brings me back to last episode, we discussed Senator Lindsey Graham's bill. He had proposed a 15 week ban on abortions

at a federal level. And, you know, we talked about why that won't pass. It's not going to get the president's signature. And in order to overcome a presidential veto, there needs to be a super majority vote, meaning it would have to pass the house and Senate by two thirds. And that, you know, that system is meant to check the president's power in the case where significant support for the bill exists. So if the president did veto a bill, it can go back. And if it gets a two thirds vote in the House and the Senate, then that bill can still become a law. But in this case, with the political landscape that we see right now, it's just not going to happen. And with President Biden saying that, that if Republicans gain control of Congress after midterms, Republicans would try to pass

a ban on abortion. The reality is a ban on abortion would only happen if enough Republicans were elected that Republicans held a super majority in the Senate and the House. Unless that happens, there will be no federal ban on abortion, basically. But currently, the Senate is made up of 50 Republican senators, 48 Democrat senators, and two independents. even with 50 democrats in the senate which would be those two more he's asking for you still have to take into account the cloture rule in the senate which requires 60 votes to cut off debate in the senate and send it to a vote it's not guaranteed that 10 additional senators either republican or independent would vote to end a debate in the Senate and send a bill like this to a vote. You see what I'm saying? So what I gathered from this

is that President Biden could be implying the invocation of the nuclear option, which means that you would only need 51 votes to send the bill to a vote, rather than that 60. And in that case, it'd be a lot easier to just get one more senator to send the bill to a vote rather than that 60. And in that case, it'd be a lot easier to just get one more senator to send the bill to a vote. Now, back in May, Democrats tried to codify Roe after the Supreme Court opinion was leaked. Remember that draft opinion was leaked, but they weren't able to do it because the Senate couldn't get the 50 votes needed to move past the filibuster. They couldn't get the 60 votes to even send the bill to a vote. So even then, there were efforts to invoke the nuclear option, which is what we just talked

about. But two Democratic holdouts blocked that effort. So they weren't able to invoke the nuclear option. So in sum, with the two senators that President Biden is asking for, the nuclear option could happen, but nothing's guaranteed. So that's what's happening with that. Now switching gears a little bit, on Wednesday, an appeals court ruled that the DOJ can continue its review of the classified records seized from Mar-a-Lago. I previously reported on this. I believe I spoke about it on, if not last Thursday, it was definitely this past Monday. But basically the DOJ had asked the court to be able to review the classified documents because remember, the court granted former President Trump's request for a special master. And in doing that, they told the DOJ that they had to stop their review

of the seized documents until the special master conducted their own independent investigation. And the DOJ was like, okay, well, you know, we still want to be able to review the classified documents because our team has already separated out the documents. We already know what's classified and what's not. And we just want to review those classified documents. Everything else we don't care about. We just want to be able to review this. The lower court judge said no, that they had to wait until the special master finished his review. So the DOJ appealed that decision. And on appeal, the DOJ argued that not only was its investigation impeded by the order set in place by the lower court judge requiring it to stop reviewing, but national security

concerns were just swept aside. The three-judge panel on appeal agreed with the DOJ, saying in part, it is self-evident that the public has a strong interest in ensuring that the storage of the classified records did not result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security. Ascertaining that necessarily involves reviewing the documents, determining who had access to them and when, and deciding which, if any, sources or methods are compromised. The court also said that the injunction by the lower court judge imposed real and significant harm on the United States and the public. Now, Trump's lawyers had been asked to provide evidence of

declassification because, you know, this whole time former President Trump has been saying that he declassified the documents and the court asked Donald Trump or his lawyers to provide evidence of that, but his lawyers didn't do that. So it's really unclear if there is evidence of that or not, but the appellate court did say that the declassification argument is a red herring because even if he did classify some or all of the documents, it wouldn't explain why Trump has a personal interest in them. So that's the appellate court's take on it. Notably, two of the three judges who ruled on appeal were nominated by former President Trump. The third judge was nominated by former President Obama. Trump's lawyers have not commented on this. They haven't

said whether they'll appeal this decision or not, but they can appeal it if they want to. So we'll see what happens. And I know you look, I know everyone's kind of sick about hearing about this. People are just like, when something happens, let me, let me know. And I get that. I feel the same way, you know, but the reason I do this is because, you know, I know a lot of people see headlines and they don't, they don't, they don't look past the headlines. I just want to kind of give you guys more context. I likely won't report on this again unless something comes out. The last episode where I did cover this, I said that the special master was told by the judge to issue like recommend or not recommendations. What was the word she used? I think it was like to issue reports every so often

on what he's finding throughout his review. So, you know, if he issues a report and something's worth reporting on, then I'll definitely tell you about it. But until then, you can count on me not talking about this much more until we know something of substance. so now let's talk about an exclusive interview with former justice Stephen Breyer it was an exclusive interview done with CNN and I thought that it was really important I'm going to keep it really brief but I think it's just a really good opportunity to learn I guess is the best word it's kind of like a teaching moment. So Justice Stephen Breyer, for those of you who don't know, was nominated by President Clinton in 1994. He just retired this year after some pressure to retire so that the current president could appoint a new justice

and there could be another, you know, liberal-leaning justice on the court. Breyer himself was liberal-. So people were saying, you know, you're going to retire anyway, just do it now while we have a democratic president and we can get a new left leaning judge on the court. And I know like some people have told me in the past, they don't like when I say certain justices are left leaning or right leaning and they're supposed to be impartial. And the reality is, is that they are impartial, right? Like in their job, they have to be impartial, but certain justices do lean certain ways. And even in law school, we are taught that like that, that's just a thing, right?

Certain justices are going to vote, you know, in favor of pressing issues like gun rights and abortion and other justices are going to vote against that stuff because their own personal viewpoints, which dictate their political views, are going to steer them in that direction. And that's not me having any sort of bias. That's just literally what it is. Like I said, in law school, we were taught that. So when I say that Justice Breyer was a left-leaning justice, don't, don't like come after me. I'm not, I'm not trying to be biased. That's, that's just the fact. So again, he was associated with the liberal wing of the court and he was one of the dissenting justices in the recent case of Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe versus Wade.

But in his interview with CNN, he talks about the last year on the court and how he was frustrated because he found himself in the dissent in many cases concerning pressing issues, specifically cases involving abortion and gun rights, mainly, obviously. Those are like the most hotly contested issues right now. But when he was asked if he liked the Dobbs decision, this was his response. No, of course I didn't. Was I happy about it? Not for an instant. Did I do everything I could to persuade people? Of course. But there we are, and now we go on. We try to work together. It's a little corny the way I think, but I think it. And that is an incredible proposition. Here you have someone on the highest court in the land making decisions for the people of this

country. And you can imagine how contentious this court is at times. Yet even him, even he is able to say, look, I'm not happy about this, but we have to try to work together and we have to move on. And I think that's but he was asked about Justice Thomas's wife in the interview because right now she's involved in a lot of drama. Supposedly, she was part of the fight to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, and she's testifying in the January 6th hearings coming up. But the interviewer asked Justice Breyer what he thought about Justice Thomas' wife and everything she has going on. And he said, quote, I'm not going to criticize Ginny Thomas, whom I like. I'm not going to criticize Clarence, whom I like. And there we are.

End quote. And that's all he said. He wouldn't even speak on it. And he wouldn't dare speaking poorly on either of them. And he actually likes these two individuals. And the reason that's such a big deal is because Justice Breyer and Justice Thomas disagreed on almost everything. Okay. Like on almost every landmark case you look at, they were on opposite sides of the field. One would dissent while one was riding the majority. One was riding the majority while the other one was dissenting. They did not

see eye to eye on a lot of things, but yet they still saw the good in each other. And, you know, I think one, not only does that speak to just the court itself, the court gets a lot of hate, but the members of the court always, always get along. They always like each other. You will rarely find two justices that don't like each other. And when Justice Breyer announced his retirement, Justice Thomas said in part, though Justice Breyer's tenure on the court draws to a close, our friendship and deep affection redoubles and endures. And he talks about how the two of them and their wives such delightful and dear friends whom we love. And I just think that this goes to show that even people with views on opposite sides of the spectrum can get along. And we can all benefit from that realization. Another example of this, by the way, is Justice Ginsburg and Justice Scalia. Justice Scalia was right-leaning in

his views, and Justice Ginsburg was left-leaning. And they were, like, best friends. It just really upsets me that, like, everyday people have such a hard time getting along, yet you have these people in such powerful positions that see things very differently than one another and yet are the best of friends. But with that, let's switch stories a little bit and talk about our fifth story, which is that on Friday, the Treasury Department said that it was allowing American tech firms to expand their businesses in Iran to boost internet access for the Iranian people. If you haven't heard, there has been a lot of unrest in Iran. And it comes after Masa Amini was killed on September

16th by police in Iran for not properly wearing her headscarf. By the way, if you can hear this rain, I am sorry. It just started raining so hard here. But Iran has a strict Islamic dress code, which requires women to wear headscarves or hijabs. And Masa was wearing hers incorrectly, and she was arrested, and officers reportedly beat her head in with a baton and banged her head into one of their vehicles. She went into a coma and died shortly thereafter. Now, police in Iran say that there's no evidence of mistreatment and that she just suffered sudden heart failure. After her funeral on September 17th, protests erupted with crowds. They were burning headscarves. They were attacking symbols of the regime. And these

protests grew. And then different cities were protesting and it's gotten kind of out of control. I think I read that this was the largest unrest in years in Iran. But, you know, they're upset for good reason. And the authorities don't know what to do. And they blocked the internet to prevent the unrest from spreading. Because they blocked the internet, the United States wants to help the people of Iran and get them the free flow of information that they need and they deserve. So the United States Treasury Department said that an updated general license for these American companies or these companies in the United States will expand the range of internet

services available to Iranians. And it will authorize tech companies to offer the Iranian people more options of secure outside platforms and services. So previously, there were there was a lot of regulation with conducting business in Iran. And there were, you know, there was a lot of ways in which businesses could be sanctioned. So this next level of license, it's called a D2 license, and it basically expands what United States companies are able to do. And this expanded license specifically seeks to tackle the following issues. So it'll add covered categories of software and services to include social media platforms, collaboration platforms, video conferencing, cloud-based services, and tools that incorporate communications functions, which include online maps, e-gaming, e-learning platforms, automated

translation, web maps, and user authentication services. This expanded license will also provide additional authorization for services that support the communication tools to assist ordinary Iranians in resisting repressive internet censorship and surveillance tools deployed by the Iranian regime. This expanded license also does other things. These are just the things that stood out to me, but I did include a link to not only the United States Department of Treasury statement on this expanded license, but also the license itself. So you can see kind of a synopsis of what the license does on the Department of Treasury's website, and then you can also read the license

if you're interested in that. So that can be found on jordanismylawyer.com. In relation to this, on Monday, Elon Musk tweeted that his satellite internet firm Starlink, which provides internet services via a huge network of satellites, essentially, would seek permission to operate in Iran. And the United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said in a statement that the partial relaxation of internet restrictions was a concrete step to provide a meaningful support to Iranians demanding that their basic rights be respected. BBC News reported that it's unlikely this will have an immediate impact due to the fact that it doesn't remove every tool of communications repression, but nonetheless, it is a move in the right direction. So hopefully this does help the

people of Iran because it's never a good sign when the government is not only censoring your speech, but restricting your access to the internet and social media and ways of communication and ways to obtain information. That's never good. So let's talk about our final story, which is that Alan Eugene Miller was set to be executed in Alabama on Thursday, but his execution was called off at 1130 the night before because the Alabama corrections facility couldn't get the lethal injection underway before the midnight deadline. So Alan Miller was convicted of killing three people in a 1999 work rampage. He worked at a place called Ferguson Enterprises, which was a heating and air conditioning company in Alabama. And he went into work one day with a gun drawn and he shot two people immediately upon

entering his workplace. He then left, drove five miles down the road to a former workplace, and shot the assistant manager there. Allegedly, rumors were being spread about him. Some rumors included that he may be a homosexual, and he didn't like it, so he killed the people. He was sentenced to death that same year, and he's been sitting on death row ever since. So for 23 years, but on Monday, so the last week or so has been a bit of a turbulent ride for him. So on Monday, just three days before his execution day, a federal judge granted an order prohibiting Alabama from executing him because he said he chose to die by nitrogen hypoxia, but the corrections officials lost his paperwork and were just going to execute him by way of the lethal injection. But he said, no,

you can't execute me the way you want. I'm entitled to a choice. I turned in my paperwork four years ago when nitrogen hypoxia became an option. I put the documents in a slot in my cell door. A prison worker was supposed to collect them. You guys lost them. And if you execute me any other way, that violates my constitutional right. So as a little bit of background about nitrogen hypoxia, nitrogen hypoxia has never been used. It's untested. It's unproven. The state's really not ready to use it. But as of July 1st, 2018, the state did give nitrogen hypoxia as an option. So inmates had a choice between the lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, and the electric chair. And for whatever reason, despite it being introduced in 2018, these facilities haven't taken the requisite steps to get the protocol down as to how they're going to

execute by way of nitrogen hypoxia so no one's ready to do it and alabama is not the only state that offers it i believe there's two other states i want to say it's missouri and i actually do not know off the top of my head but there are two other states at least that offer nitrogen hypoxia as an option despite it never being used. The problem is the people who want nitrogen hypoxia, who are proponents of nitrogen hypoxia, say it's a more humane way to execute, it's cheaper, it's easier, and yet there's no way to test it. So these people think it's easier, they think it's more humane, they think it's going to work better, but it's never been tested because you obviously can't kill a lethal injection is the default method of execution unless the prisoner affirmatively chooses another option and the choice has to be made in writing

and it has to be delivered to the warden within 30 days after the certificate of judgment is issued which basically affirms the death sentence in this case Miller's argument is that he did that when nitrogen hypoxia became an option. He filled out his paperwork, the facility lost it, and he can't be executed any other way because that's a violation of his rights. Well, the judge issued an order which told the state that they basically need to clean up their act, they need to iron out their nitrogen hypoxia protocol, and they can't execute Miller before they do that. So the state then appealed to the Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court's order, finding that it was, quote, substantially likely that Miller submitted a timely election

form, even though the state says it doesn't have any physical record of a form, end quote. That decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which said on Thursday night, so three hours before the execution was supposed to go forward, in a five to four decision that the execution could happen by way of the lethal injection. The facility though, being that it was three hours before the execution, didn't have enough time to turn it around and get the lethal injection ready in accordance to protocol because there's certain things that these states have to do before they can execute an inmate.

So they have to, you know, confirm that the inmate even has veins that can be used with the IV line. If not, they have to take a different route. And there's just things that have to be done ahead of time. So the three hours before the execution wasn't enough time. And at 1130 that night, they're basically like, look, we're not going to get this done by midnight, which is our deadline to do this. And we can't do it.

So Miller's execution has been put on hold. He just went back to his cell and that was it. So I'm sure his execution will be rescheduled and he will end up being executed by the lethal injection, but it hasn't been rescheduled yet. So we will find out. But you know, it's always interesting when these things happen because people always ask me, why do people sit on death row for so long? And it's literally exactly this. It's like, something is always going wrong. Like these inmates are always, you know, filing lawsuits and filing appeals and trying to delay their execution.

And not only are they trying to delay it, but the time sitting on death row is long in and of itself. And then there's issues with the methods of execution. And that's the deal with that. So that concludes today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed all six stories today. If you have any thoughts on anything I talked about, feel free, please, to comment on my website.

I now have a comment section on each episode description webpage. So on my website, jordanismylawyer.com, just find whichever episode you listened to and then the comment section will be down at the bottom. As always, I also have the sources linked. So if you ever want to look more into something, you can find the sources there and it's, it's pretty easy to navigate. I want to, you know, make it easy because I know research is not easy. It's not easy these days. They don't make it easy on us. So it's all there for you. And with that, I cannot wait to talk to you guys next time. I'm going to have to figure out what to do about this hurricane situation. I don't know if I got to

reschedule my flights. I don't know. So that's what I'll be doing over the next few days, but I hope you guys have a great week and I will talk to you soon.