- I'm Devin Stone, a practicing lawyer
and adjunct law professor
and host of the Legal Eagle Law Channel,
and I'm here to answer your questions from Twitter.
This is Law Support.
[upbeat music]
From @Grainneuaill, "Where is the line
between hate speech and free speech?"
Actually, there is no line.
A lot of countries take different philosophies
when it comes to hate speech, but in the United States,
hate speech has the same kind
of First Amendment protections as most speech.
Now, there are some quasi-exceptions to that.
When it comes to certain crimes,
you can get an enhancement if it was done
for a racially or hate-related reason,
but for the most part,
just when we're talking about free speech,
hate speech is free speech,
and you can love it or hate it,
reasonable minds will differ on that one.
From airbagmoments, "Serious question for lawyers:
If I threaten my judge with death in the courtroom,
isn't he/she now prejudiced against me
and must be replaced?"
So this is a great example
of the difference between prejudice and undue prejudice.
Courts are designed to prevent things
that cause undue prejudice in the courtroom.
We don't want an outside influence
unfairly prejudicing the judge, the jury, or anyone else.
But what happens inside the courtroom
is pretty much fair game.
That might be prejudicial,
but that's not unfair or undue prejudice.
So don't go around threatening the judge with death.
Whatever happens in court can and will be used against you.
From blueroadearth, "Why was OJ found not guilty
in criminal court but liable in civil court?"
This question was phrased very well,
because they show the difference between liability
and criminal liability or guilt in this context.
Now, the standard in a criminal case
is beyond a reasonable doubt.
So if someone is found not guilty,
it doesn't mean that they didn't commit a crime.
It just means that the prosecution didn't meet their burden.
Now, in the civil context,
you're trying to make the victim's whole
for the damages that you have caused them,
and that's exactly what the estates
of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman did with OJ Simpson.
Even though the state was not successful
in criminally prosecuting OJ Simpson,
they were successful in filing a civil suit,
where the standard is only a preponderance of the evidence.
Basically, more likely than not.
From @marzobound, "When is a grand jury
used over a regular jury
if it's just ordinary people either way?"
So the jury that actually decides
whether someone is guilty or not is called a petit jury.
P-E-T-I-T.
It's Latin, don't ask.
A grand jury, on the other hand,
is actually a much lower bar.
A grand jury is used by prosecutors
to decide whether to indict someone.
And the reason that people often say
a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich
is because it's completely one-sided.
It's really just a basic check to decide
whether the case can go forward.
It doesn't actually decide
whether someone's guilty or not be.
Bbrooks4791 asked, "Why not testify if you're innocent?
Why plead the 5th if you're innocent?
This applies to anyone."
It does actually apply to anyone.
Just because you are invoking the Fifth Amendment,
which is the protection against self-incrimination
and being forced to testify against yourself,
that doesn't mean that you committed any crimes.
Maybe you don't want to testify
because that might open you up to unrelated crimes.
You might be innocent of the thing you're accused of
but might be guilty of a whole bunch of other things,
or you might be completely innocent
of everything and just not want to testify.
You might be really bad on the stand,
so be glad that if you're ever accused of a crime,
you aren't going to be forced to testify against yourself.
You have the option not to testify.
From MurkTheMods, "How do Draft Kings and Fan Duel
get around anti-gambling laws?"
So for a long time, Fan Duel and Draft Kings
were completely illegal across the entire U.S.,
except for fantasy-related sports betting.
Those are generally considered games of skill.
However, when it comes to general betting on a sports book,
that was considered gambling and was illegal until 2018.
When the Supreme Court struck that law down,
it was left up to the states.
And now, there have been a lot of states that have said,
"We are totally fine with people gambling in our states.
We would really like the tax revenue."
And as a result, it's now legal to use online websites
like Fan Duel and Draft Kings.
From iShould12, "How much of a difference is there
between a guilty plea versus no contest?"
So if you are accused of a criminal violation,
you have a couple options
if you don't want to go to trial.
You could just enter a plea of guilty,
but sometimes you have the option to plead no contest.
Effectively, in the criminal context,
you're treated exactly the same as if you had pled guilty.
If your crime harmed someone and they then sued you
after you pled guilty, well, you would be civilly liable
for whatever damages you caused,
almost automatically, because the standard
in a criminal case is so much higher than a civil case.
But if you plead no contest,
they have to prove that you are liable in the civil context.
Generally speaking, if the option is available,
a smart defendant will plead no contest rather than guilty.
From RedRollins1, "You know why there are so many
frivolous lawsuits in America?"
So I think that people vastly overestimate
how many frivolous lawsuits there are.
It's a lot of selection bias going on.
You're not gonna hear about a breach of contract case
that involves a vendor who got 10,000 industrial widgets
when he ordered 12,000 industrial widgets,
and some of them were nonconforming.
You're not gonna hear about that because it's super boring,
but you are gonna hear about the most ridiculous cases
that are out there, the most frivolous cases,
because those are the ones that are interesting
and are going to make news.
From BetterTEc_h, "And lo and behold,
UMG sues for fake Drake and The Weeknd song generated by AI,
but whom can it sue apart from the company
that made the AI?"
Artists do often have rights to their likeness,
and sometimes, even the rights to how they sound,
but we are entering a brave new world
where the law is going to come down
in terms of what constitutes infringement or not.
It's gonna be an interesting outcome,
because it's not at all obvious
where that's gonna come down.
Cdashiell asks, "Can you actually avoid being sued
by simply avoiding being served papers?
That would be a ridiculous loophole."
I agree, that would be ridiculous,
and generally speaking, that's not the case.
What happens is if you avoid service for long enough,
you get to do what's called substitution of service,
where instead of physically handing
the service papers to someone,
you just put it into a newspaper,
and then you might not even know
that the proceedings have started.
And believe me, you do not wanna have a lawsuit
against you and not participate.
What happens is a default judgment where you just lose,
and you didn't get a chance to defend yourself.
Don't play games except service and just hire a lawyer.
It's the better way to do it.
From xtraspicytums, "Why are there so many
accident lawyer billboards in LA?
Can someone enlighten me here?
Because once I started noticing them, I can't stop now."
There was actually a Supreme Court case in the 1970s
that allowed lawyers to advertise on billboards.
Before that, the law said they couldn't.
And look, if you are going to advertise
related to car accidents,
putting up a billboard is probably the best way to do it.
Query whether you are creating more accidents,
but that's just what we call a virtuous cycle.
You're creating your own market, so that sounds great.
From @quasiasher, "Wait, how is Jury Duty,
the TV show, remotely legal?"
Waivers, lots and lots of waivers.
From @yuliettecai, "Spare tips to make
studying law less boring, please."
I would say this.
Behind every single case is a story.
And unless you are studying civil procedure,
you can basically ignore the procedure of a case
and just focus on the story of what happened.
Whether you're talking about a breach of contract
or a horrible accident, there's probably something
really interesting going on in the background,
and it makes it a lot easier to remember
and it makes it more interesting to study as well.
From @hbnw7, "Why does the law
have to be complicated and expensive?"
Question mark, question mark, question mark.
It's because lawyers hate you,
and they wanna make an example of you.
You, in particular.
Lawyers get a lot of flack.
Our job is to be careful.
And the thing is, reality is really complicated.
There's a lot of stuff that can go wrong.
If you're writing a contract or you're writing a law,
you have to make sure
that you cover all of the different edge cases.
And not only that, language is really complicated,
especially the English language.
So there's a million different cases
about what constitutes a chicken.
What happens if a boat has the same name as another boat?
What happens if you write a law and you forget a comma?
All of those things have absolutely happened.
Judges, juries, and lawyers have to try and figure out
what to do when something is ambiguous,
and the world is ambiguous all the time.
From springtamige, "How do lawyers ethically defend
their client when there is, say, video evidence
of them trying to run over a person twice?"
Everyone is entitled to a good defense.
And there are a million different reasons
and ways that a lawyer might defend even a guilty person,
even if they think that person is guilty.
Maybe the prosecutor is trying to convict someone
and get a sentence that's way, way too high.
We don't want someone who's accused
of petty burglary to face the death penalty.
And so there are a lot of different degrees
that you can use to defend someone,
regardless of whether they're guilty or not,
and everyone deserves a reasonable defense.
Shubhgautam52, "Will AI replace lawyers?"
You probably don't want an AI lawyer anytime soon.
A lawyer is not just simply a machine
that knows what the law is.
A lawyer is a person with theoretically
years of expertise that can help you
strategically to achieve your goals.
And that's not something that AI
is well-positioned to replace anytime soon.
What I suspect is going to happen
is that AI is going to make a lot
of the drudgery of practicing law way easier,
and it will allow lawyers to focus
on the really value add stuff
and allow them to think strategically
and to better represent their clients in the future.
So I welcome our AI overlords.
From Dean_Hare_Photo,
"When does attorney/client privilege end
and that the lawyer is a co-conspirator begin?"
Well, there is a law on point,
and that is called the crime fraud exception.
If a lawyer helps a client engage in fraud,
then the attorney-client privilege is pierced.
And theoretically, if the lawyer really
is engaging in criminality,
then they can become a co-conspirator.
From ButterflyBabes5, "Why is perjury not enforced?
So many are saying nothing will happen
to #AmberHeard for lying under oath.
Then what's the point of taking the oath?"
So first of all, perjury is actually enforced.
Perjury being lying under oath.
That being said, it's really hard to convict someone
of perjury just because you lost a civil case.
That doesn't mean that you engaged in lying.
And in fact, even in the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp context
where there was a counter suit and Johnny Depp won,
that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone
on the other side of that was necessarily lying.
And generally speaking,
prosecutors have better things to prosecute
than a marginal case of potential perjury.
From malihaness, "How do lawyers just know the law?
Like I had to learn the nitty-gritty
of one law and it drove me nuts.
You're telling me law students just learn every law
and then some international law?"
Lawyers rarely know every law.
The body of American law that's out there is just,
it's too huge.
And it's not possible for any one person to know.
What tends to happen is, you know the law that you use
in practice all the time.
Say a prayer for all the lawyers out there,
because if you come to us with a novel question,
we're probably not gonna know the law
off the top of our head and we're gonna have to research it.
And frankly, you want it that way.
From Peter Unwin, "When a driverless car is involved
in an accident, who should be responsible?"
When a driverless car gets into an accident,
there are two potential avenues of liability.
One is negligence and the other is product liability.
When it comes to product liability, basically,
if you put a product into the stream of commerce,
you're what's called strictly liable
for any damages that that product causes.
A manufacturer could also be liable
based on a negligence theory,
that there was some industry norm
they should have followed and they didn't.
But there are a million other people
that might also be liable under a negligence theory.
Maybe there was another driver who was responsible.
It's gonna be a case by case basis,
but those are gonna be the leading theories
under which someone's going to be liable.
From NancyGerlach1, "How does Supreme Court
choose to hear a case?"
That is a fascinating process.
The short answer there is that of the nine justices,
four of them have to agree to take up a case.
You cannot appeal to the Supreme Court as a matter of right.
The Supreme Court has to issue
what's called a writ of certiorari.
In other words, they only decide what cases they hear.
Now, on what basis do the Supreme Court Justices decide?
Often, if there's a conflict between the states,
if there's a matter of supreme national importance,
like we saw in Bush versus Gore or Roe versus Wade.
Sometimes, they'll take on a case just because
they want to interpret a law or statute
the way that they want to interpret it.
From Lesliew string of numbers,
"Can there even be a real crime in the metaverse
if it does not translate into a real crime
in the physical universe?"
Well, there's all kinds of crimes in the real world
that do not involve a physical act.
There's the civil action of defamation,
and that can happen in the real world or in the metaverse.
If you meet the elements of a crime in the metaverse,
I would suspect that that crime is going to be prosecuted
in the same way that it would be prosecuted
in real life too.
From friendofgandalf, "Why is there a statute
of limitations for crimes?"
The reason the statute of limitations exist
is because after a whole lot of time has passed,
often, it can be really hard to find evidence.
It might be impossible to find witnesses.
So it's a balancing act.
We wanna punish the guilty,
but we don't wanna punish the innocent.
So we have a statute of limitations to make sure
that it's fair for a defendant
to be able to defend themselves
in a case where a lot of time has passed,
and otherwise, they wouldn't be able to defend themselves.
From StoveAllergy, "When lawyers say something in court
and object to it and the judge tells the jury
to disregard that, do they think
it's deleted from their brains?"
No, definitely not.
Lawyers are fully cognizant of the fact
that things that happen in court,
even when you get eliminating instruction from the judge,
it's impossible for anyone
to literally forget what has happened.
That being said, a judge knows when you're screwing around.
And if the judge thinks that you are intentionally
violating the decorum of the court,
the judge will use something called contempt.
And sometimes, lawyers go to jail
over things that they did in a courtroom.
Kollackwalker asks, "It's like appeal, appeal, and appeal
until you get the answer you like.
Is that justice?
How many appeals do you get?"
So generally speaking, you only get one appeal.
Now, theoretically, there are different courts of appeals,
so you might theoretically get one more shot at the apple,
but courts of appeal that are above
the intermediate court of appeal are like the Supreme Court,
and they only take the cases that they want.
So it's very rare to go past one appeal.
Alright, that's all of our questions.
I hope you learn something today, and until next time.
I'll see you in court.