Embryos Are People, My Friend
Added 2024-02-23 07:04:33 +0000 UTCEpisode 1008
Today we are serving up a tasteful pairing of radically destructive activism from one supreme court with a refreshing adherence to basic Constitutional law from another. We start in Alabama, where the state's highest court just found with no any apparent legal, factual, or moral justification whatsoever that a few hundred frozen cells are legally equivalent to a "child"--because God, probably? Unclear! We then review a recent example of the U.S. Supreme Court doing exactly what it is supposed to do: reviewing and unanimously reversing an obvious Constitutional violation, in this case one which put a man who had been acquitted on mental health grounds at risk of the death penalty.
1. Alabama Supreme Court's decision in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, P.C.
2. Ketanji Brown Jackson's decision for a unanimous court in McElrath v. Georgia, 601 U.S. ____ (2024) [PDF]
3. Free downloadable version of the Century Schoolbook typeface
Comments
In Alabama, in the next census, will blastocysts count as people for the purposes of reapportionment? Will the increase in "population" cause other states to lose representatives as a result?
David Oster
2024-02-29 20:56:52 +0000 UTCwant to add my +1 to this; Matt is excellent, and I’m really happy to have an OA again I’m hoping that WTW will continue apace, but I understand you guys can only work so many hours in a day. looking forward to more Master Lydia when possible.
thoperSought
2024-02-26 05:02:02 +0000 UTCOk, so both have a premeditation element. That was my confusion. I wonder what was going through the minds of that jury.
Sam
2024-02-25 17:53:02 +0000 UTCyes, that should have been an "or" there (I was working from memory) but it was unquestionably an "and" in McElrath's case. "Malice murder" in GA is equivalent to common-law "depraved heart" murder which adds the element of "an abandoned and malignant heart" to premeditation (e.g., as here, stabbing your mother 30 times for no actual reason) so that is extra relevant to the NGRI finding I think. But either way NGRI requires a finding of an inability to form an intent in the way that someone who could distinguish right from wrong and/or is acting from a delusional compulsion can't. KBJ uncritically quoted the GA Supreme Court in the McElrath decision here, maybe they'll be able to explain it better than I can: "The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with McElrath that the verdicts were repugnant under Georgia law. As the court explained, “the not guilty by reason of insanity verdict on malice murder and the guilty but mentally ill verdict on felony murder based on aggravated assault re quired affirmative findings of different mental states that could not exist at the same time during the commission of those crimes as they were indicted, proved, and charged to the jury.”
Matt Cameron
2024-02-25 17:34:58 +0000 UTCBoth have an intent element, but doesn't the first-degree murder offense also have a premeditation element? (Also, my reading of the statute was that it was either "unable to distinguish" or "uncontrollable compulsion", it doesn't require both.)
Sam
2024-02-25 15:17:28 +0000 UTCI had the same thought at first, but then I saw that one of the elements of aggravated assault in GA is "intent to murder, to rape, or to rob." https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-16/chapter-5/article-2/section-16-5-21/. Here AA was the underlying felony for purposes of the felony-murder for which McElrath was found "guilty but mentally ill." As discussed in this episode, GBMI is simply a guilty finding with a formal (but really mostly useless) acknowledgement stapled to it that the defendant is mentally ill and needs treatment, as opposed to an NGRI verdict which finds that the defendant was fully unable to distinguish right from wrong and was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable compulsion. So here it was inconsistent for the jury to find that McElrath could have been both unable to distinguish right from wrong for the purpose of intentional first-degree murder *and* culpable for felony-murder where the underlying felony was assault committed with the intent to murder. (NGRI also fully excuses culpability for aggravated assault per Duck v. State (1983).
Matt Cameron
2024-02-25 13:58:26 +0000 UTCYes, I'm confused about what. Also, it was a legal problem because the _result_ of the two verdicts was contradictory (the defendant should go to jail vs. the defendant should be committed to a mental health institution instead of going to jail), which could be the case even if the premise of the two verdicts was consistent. (You could also have this problem where the defendant was on trial for two separate criminal acts, instead of a single act with different prerequisite states of mind.)
Sam
2024-02-25 03:20:09 +0000 UTCyayyyy so glad to hear this! This one was the best audio quality yet, thanks to Matt being excellent at receiving feedback. Should be even better Monday due to a couple more tweaks.
Opening Arguments
2024-02-25 02:15:10 +0000 UTC[thomas, not the lawyer here] Given that the entire reason this was in the SC was that the verdicts were not logically consistent, I'm going to assume there's something you're missing/misinterpreting.
Opening Arguments
2024-02-25 02:14:05 +0000 UTCI'm a bit confused by your reaction to that Georgia jury's decision. It seems possible to me, depending on the specifics of someone's mental health situation, that a person could be found incapable of premeditation, but not intent in general.
Sam
2024-02-24 20:51:31 +0000 UTCCannot wait for Monday's episode, been waiting for a deep dive on Project 2025.
Wafflepriest
2024-02-24 00:09:44 +0000 UTCHahaha, I have a Korean girlfriend. I know all too well. Sometimes, asking a woman her age can be double taboo.
Austin Flake
2024-02-23 15:46:29 +0000 UTCWeirdly enough, that would bring them closer to the traditional Korean age system.
Chris Conley
2024-02-23 15:44:35 +0000 UTCSounds like all Alabamians are suddenly 9 months older. Oyy
Austin Flake
2024-02-23 15:22:24 +0000 UTCI too am excited about the current state of this show. And I also quit listening after the hostile takeover. I became a patron when Thomas came back to show my support for him. And I very much enjoy Matt’s addition to the show. I also look forward to continuing to hear from Casey as I think it is good to demonstrate that this pod is breaking the glass ceiling and not just supporting it being broken!
Mountain Granny
2024-02-23 15:00:00 +0000 UTCSpeaking on fonts, I'm reminded of the time I invited a printer friend of mine, who was also a font connoisseur, to my wedding and printed his, and only his, name plate in the abomination then known as Comic Papyrus. It was glorious. https://creativemarket.com/blog/designer-combines-papyrus-and-comic-sans-the-end-is-near
Joshua Tamayo
2024-02-23 14:49:37 +0000 UTCMatt rapidly gunning for a permanent comedian co-host role. I lost it at "everyone else, see me after class" Love the format, construction, and comment. So happy to be a subscriber! Edit to add: "Rock em, sock em originalism" is an instant classic and I hope it supplants "sternly worded crunch wrap" from the old days.
Professional-Grade In-Car Audio Guy
2024-02-23 14:24:58 +0000 UTCMonospace fonts are usually used for programming. There are some good ones (I use Jetbrains Mono https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono/). The fact that a monospace font is used for court documents is worrying. The fact that Courier New, arguably the worst one is used somewhere is horrifying. Matt, did you look into what it would take to change it?
Adrian Mester
2024-02-23 12:20:41 +0000 UTCI stopped paying for OA after the fallout, then stopped listening entirely after the hostile takeover. A couple times I tried to listen to an episode in the interim, but I had two main problems with it. For one thing, the audio quality was noticably worse, like listening to a phone conversation. For another, without a layman on the program the show seemed to have devolved into a couple laughing jackals taking pot shots at current events. I'm glad both problems have been resolved with Thomas' return and with the arrival of Matt. I missed this show while it was gone and find myself prioritizing these episodes over other subscriptions again.
Unlikable Internet Goblin
2024-02-23 10:32:30 +0000 UTC
