- Thanks to Curiosity Stream for keeping
Legal Eagle in the air.
Get 26% off CuriosityStream and Nebula
using the link in the description.
(whooshing) Everyone knows police can't lie to you.
(buzzer buzzing) False.
(dramatic music)
If you ask a lawyer a legal question,
the answer is usually, "It depends,"
because it usually depends.
The law is a vast and complex thing.
So it won't surprise any of you that there are
many misconceptions about what is and is not illegal.
The law is complicated and it's easy to get confused
if you have no legal experience.
But the fun thing about law is that people tend to believe
that there are certain hard and fast rules that are
unfortunately, definitely wrong.
So let's dispel some myths and correct some misconceptions.
And be honest, did you believe any of these things?
(whooshing) Like, everybody knows
it's illegal to marry your cousin.
(buzzer buzzing) False.
You can marry your cousin provided it's your first cousin
and you live in one of the 21 American states that allow it.
Cousin marriage has always been popular around the world.
Gross, but for hundreds of years,
it was considered a relatively good bet
for a long-lasting union.
Think of all the family that you already share.
But things started to change in America in the mid 1800s
when states decided that cousins marrying cousins
was a bad idea, (whooshing) and interestingly enough,
cousin marriages weren't ever outlawed in England
and they are still allowed in Canada,
largely because the practice was
associated with the aristocracy.
In America, the situation was largely the opposite.
Cousin marriage was viewed negatively in part
because it was practiced by people
who didn't have lots of money,
but let's get down to brass tacks.
First cousin marriage is legal in Alabama,
Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut,
the District of Columbia, Florida, because of course,
Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts,
New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and North Carolina.
In several other states it's allowed with some restrictions.
These states include Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Utah,
and Wisconsin, where first cousin marriage is allowed
if the parties are above a certain age
or one is unable to produce.
Maine also permits it if a couple obtains
a physician's certificate of genetic counseling.
Though, note, if you do go through with it,
Susan Collins may express her displeasure
and furrow an eyebrow, but then allow you to do it anyway.
- This is disgraceful!
- But I guess this so-called myth
is actually true in certain states.
If you live in Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa,
Kansas, Kentucky, hey, Kentucky, way to go,
Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri,
Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota,
Washington, West Virginia, or Wyoming,
you'll have to look outside of the family reunion
to find a spouse, which brings us to the next myth.
The reading of the will, (whooshing)
because everyone knows when someone dies,
you gather in a big ornate room,
and then you wait silently until the executor
reads your portion of the will and hopefully,
explaining that your estranged uncle
left you millions of dollars,
or if you were expecting millions of dollars, surprise,
you get nothing or you're left with just a haunted mansion.
This is (buzzer buzzing) false.
I'm willing to bet that no one who is watching this video
has ever been summoned to a lawyer's office
for the reading of a loved one's will.
Nevertheless, many people still believe
that when someone passes away,
there will be a family gathering where a lawyer officially
breaks the news about who will inherit money and assets.
This is one of the most reliable plot lines
for a daytime and nighttime soap opera.
- I'm left with 40%, they are the major shareholders.
How did Daddy do this to me?
- The big event always takes place in the lawyer's office
or old-timey library and involves the whole crazy family,
all in one room together.
It's led by a well-dressed lawyer wearing Indochino,
presumably, who gets to do the big reveal.
You can't blame screenwriters for wanting
a reading of the will to be a real thing.
It's a great way to create dramatic tension.
And there's a lot riding on this dead person's estate.
- [Woman] I'm leaving you my keyboard.
I'm going to keep it in my room at the Q Mansion.
Please give it to Leo.
- Will someone walk away rich?
Will someone be disinherited?
Will someone unexpected show up?
Will there be a fight?
But here's the thing.
There is no legal requirement that a Last Will and Testament
be read aloud to family members,
or anyone else for that matter.
All beneficiaries named in a will are
entitled to receive a copy so they can understand
what they'll be receiving from the estate,
and when those assets will be distributed,
but there's no requirement that the executor
usher everyone into a room where the contents
of the will will be revealed.
In fact, lawyers would prefer not to do it this way
since we aren't trained to break up fights
like a bouncer at Scores.
Lawyers prefer to fight with our words, not our fists,
and wound you with a pen rather than the sword.
(bell dinging)
So if there's no requirement for wills to be read out loud,
where did this idea come from?
Well, a hundred years ago,
estate attorneys did gather the family together
to read the will because not everyone
could actually read the will on their own.
Nowadays, we sort of assume that the beneficiaries
of a will are actually literate.
But the main conflict in movies and TV shows involving wills
is whether someone will be disinherited.
And this is definitely a source of conflict
in the real world.
And since most states usually have
a very strict timeframe for contesting a will,
it could be to everyone's advantage to start the clock
by notifying disinherited heirs earlier, rather than later.
This is actually what happened
when President Trump's father died
because it's 2020 and everything involves
Donald Trump these days.
Fred Trump, (whooshing) Donald Trump's father,
amended his will to disinherit
Mary Trump and Fred Trump III,
the descendants of Fred Trump Jr. who died when he was 46.
Mary and Fred were cut out of a 20% share
of their grandfather's estate that they might have received
had their father lived.
The other Fred Trump grandchildren are in line to inherit
their parents' full shares in Fred Trump's estate.
Now the Trump children, including Donald,
told tax authorities that Dad's properties
were worth around $41 million at the time of his death.
The "New York Times" reported that the true value
was closer to $1 billion,
which obviously is a lot of money to be disinherited from.
Fred III and Mary filed a will contest nine months later,
which brings us to the next legal misconception
because everyone knows,
if you go into a casino and you start counting cards,
you can be arrested (whooshing)
because counting cards is illegal.
(buzzer buzzing) False.
Counting cards while playing blackjack,
though widely considered to be illegal, is not.
Really, you're just playing the game
that the casino is offering
at a much higher level than they were expecting.
There is no local state or federal law
that makes counting cards against the law.
Generally, the way it works in blackjack is
that it's more favorable for the player
when there are more aces and cards
that are valued at 10, the 10s, jacks,
queens, and kings, remaining in the shoe.
So card counting is simply using a system
to keep track of the ratio of low cards to high cards.
And if you have a halfway decent memory,
you can teach yourself to do this
by tracking the changing imbalance
of big and small cards in a diminishing deck.
And since you're just using your brain,
this is perfectly fine.
There's even a court case making it legal,
at least in New Jersey,
because everything is legal in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Supreme Court (whooshing)
has ruled that players can not be discriminated against
based on their playing skills,
even if they are caught counting cards.
Counting cards does not violate
the New Jersey Casino Control Act.
However, counting cards becomes problematic
if you're using a device to count cards,
or you have friends who are tipping you off.
Though, if you're playing in Nevada,
the rules are a bit different.
There is no Nevada law against counting cards,
but the casinos also have free reign
to remove people as they see fit.
Casinos are private property.
They can remove just about anyone for any reason.
So if you're caught counting cards in Vegas,
even with your brain,
you can expect the pit boss to pull you aside
and prohibit you from playing blackjack,
which takes us to the next legal misconception
(whooshing)because everybody knows that you have to wait
24 hours to report a missing person,
even if you know that your loved one is missing.
You were there when the dark van
pulled up beside your loved one,
the sliding door opened and some henchmen
who were wearing black shirts that said "Henchmen" on it,
grabbed your loved one, and threw 'em the van,
(motor running) and drove off.
And then of course, you go to the local chief of police,
who, of course, you trust because he's been
a long-time family friend,
and you confide and say that you saw them
abduct your loved one.
And he says, "Look, I'm sorry, I believe you,
"but I can't do anything about it
"because you have to wait 24 hours
"before you can report a missing person."
And it sounds reasonable.
It sounds like a law that actually exists,
but of course, your long-time family friend
has been in on the conspiracy from the very beginning.
So obviously then you have to take the law
into your own hands because you waited 24 hours
to report a missing person,
but that (buzzer buzzing) is false.
(laughing)
(popping)
A lot of people think that if a person is missing,
you have to wait 24 hours to report it to the authorities.
But in reality, there is no state or federal law
requiring police departments to wait 24 hours
before investigating a missing persons case.
In fact, in 1990, the Crime Control Act became law,
which mandated that all law enforcement agencies immediately
report a missing child under the age of 18
to the National Crime Information Center
at the Department of Justice.
And in 2003, President George W. Bush
signed the Protect Act,
which included Suzanne's Law raising the age to 21.
So anyone under that age could be reported
to the National Database immediately.
Suzanne Lyall was a 19-year-old college student
who disappeared in 1998.
And when Lyall's disappearance
was reported to campus police,
officers told her parents that brief absences
were not uncommon for college students.
So they shouldn't worry since she would probably turn up.
She was unfortunately never seen again.
And as Suzanne's case demonstrates,
there is some truth to the myth that for missing adults,
police departments once had waiting periods
before they would take a missing persons report.
The common belief was that most people
who seemed to be missing actually returned fairly quickly.
Today most law enforcement agencies
have reversed course, even for adults.
This is partly because in the age of the cell phone,
most people are reachable relatively quickly.
And if they don't respond, something is likely to be wrong.
But to sum it up, when an adult or child goes missing,
it should be immediately reported.
And under Suzanne's Law,
federal, state and local law enforcement
must report all missing persons up to the age of 21
to the DOJ without delay,
and the police are obligated to investigate right away,
which takes us to the next legal misconception,
which is that if you are accused of a crime,
(whooshing) everyone knows that you can't be convicted
on circumstantial evidence alone
because everyone knows circumstantial evidence is weak
and can't lead to a conviction.
(buzzer buzzing) False.
Criminal defendants often tell their lawyers,
"All the prosecutors have on me is circumstantial evidence.
"And you can't convict on circumstantial evidence alone."
But the number one mistake people make
about criminal law and frankly, civil law for that matter,
is that circumstantial evidence is not enough to convict.
But there's no law saying that.
And in fact, the law says the absolute opposite.
The standard of proof (whooshing) in criminal trials is
beyond a reasonable doubt.
And that means that the prosecution must prove
that the defendant is guilty of a crime charged
to the extent that no reasonable person could have
a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.
And the prosecution can prove guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt by building a case
through direct evidence, circumstantial evidence,
or a combination of both.
Direct evidence directly shows the defendant's guilt
requiring no inference whatsoever.
Direct evidence would be a video showing someone is
killing the victim or a witness testifying
that they saw the person murdering that victim.
Circumstantial evidence on the other hand
is indirect evidence that may lead to the inference
that the defendant committed a crime,
even though there's no direct proof.
That key word here is inference,
since circumstantial evidence allows jurors to infer facts
that the prosecutors don't have direct evidence to prove.
But circumstantial evidence can be extremely strong.
Even DNA evidence,
considered some of the strongest evidence out there,
is circumstantial.
For example, if a criminal defendant had traces
of the victim's blood in their apartment,
then you might make the inference
that that person was in fact, the killer,
though it's possible that that blood
could have gotten there under other circumstances.
So that might be extremely strong evidence,
but there might be an explanation for it.
That's circumstantial evidence.
Of course, not all circumstantial evidence is created equal.
Some is stronger and weaker than others.
And this is where jury discretion comes in.
It's up to the individual jurors to weigh
the importance of each piece of evidence,
and then decide together whether the prosecution
has proven his case.
For example, there was no direct evidence
that infamous Casey Anthony killed her daughter Caylee,
but the prosecution thought they had
strong circumstantial evidence.
Their theory was that Casey used chloroform
to suffocate her child.
However, the child's body was so badly decomposed
that there was no definitive determination
of the cause of death.
The prosecution had evidence that someone
in Anthony's household had done internet searches
for information on chloroform,
and traces of chloroform were found
in the trunk of Anthony's car.
And the prosecution hoped that the jury would draw
an inference that the internet search in chloroform traces,
along with the fact that Anthony didn't report
her child was missing for a month,
prove that she killed her child.
And of course, a lot of people believe that as well.
However, the jury did not think that that was enough
to prove that Casey Anthony killed her daughter
beyond a reasonable doubt.
If the same case was tried to 10 different juries,
it'd be interesting to know how many of them
would have drawn the same conclusion,
but that's not how our system works.
You can be convicted or found not guilty
based on circumstantial evidence alone,
but that brings us to the next legal misconception,
which is that everybody knows that if you're doing
something illegal and you think you might be
interacting with an undercover cop,
you should ask them if they are a police officer,
(whooshing) because everyone knows police can't lie to you.
(buzzer buzzing) False.
Our final misconception is that police cannot lie
to you during an interrogation.
Actually, they absolutely can use deception.
There's actually a Supreme Court case on it.
(whooshing) In Frazier vs Cupp, the Supreme Court affirmed
the legality of deceptive interrogation tactics.
Police in that case got a tip that Martin Frazier,
a 20-year-old U.S. Marine, might be involved
in the murder of Russell Anton Marleau.
Frazier, along with his cousin, Jerry Lee Rawls,
were seen at a bar with the victim before the murder.
During the interrogation,
the police falsely informed Frazier that Rawls had
already confessed and implicated him in the murder.
Frazier denied any involvement in the crime
and suggested speaking with an attorney.
But police continued to question him.
Police got Frazier to confess.
This confession was used against him at trial,
and he was convicted of murder.
Rawls also pleaded guilty to the same offense.
The Supreme Court rejected Frazier's appeal
stating that although police misrepresented
Rawls's testimony,
that did not make the confession inadmissible.
And later, case law has interpreted this
as allowing deception during interrogations.
This includes lying about evidence like fingerprints or DNA.
However, there are some limits.
Police, for example,
can't misrepresent a person's basic legal rights.
So if you don't know, now you know.
Now obviously, this is #NotLegalAdvice,
but hopefully you know a little bit more
about what isn't the law.
And if you're the kind of person
that likes to dispel legal myths,
or at least lord them over your unassuming friends,
you can learn about one more legal myth
over at Nebula because everyone knows,
you can't yell fire in a crowded theater.
- [Man] Fire!
- Sometimes even legal issues are too hot for YouTube
because YouTube's algorithm can be capricious.
Which is why my creator friends and I teamed up
to build our own platform where creators don't need to worry
about demonetization or the dreaded algorithm.
It's called Nebula.
And we're thrilled to be partnering with CuriosityStream,
because Nebula is a place where creators
can do what they do best, create.
It's a place where we can both house our content ad-free,
and also experiment with original content
and new series that probably wouldn't work on YouTube.
In fact, if you liked this episode,
the version that I put up on Nebula removes this ad entirely
and replaces it with an extended version that goes
into the myth of yelling fire in a crowded theater.
And actually, due to popular demand,
almost all of the videos that I put up on Nebula are
both ad-free and have an extended discussion.
They're also released early
before the YouTube version goes live.
Nebula features lots of YouTube's top
educationalish creators like Lindsay Ellis, Thomas Frank,
and Charl The Coconut with his sidekick Patrick Willems.
- [Patrick] This is Charl, my new friend.
- We also get to collaborate in ways
that wouldn't work on YouTube.
Like Tom Scott's amazing game show "Money,"
where he pits a bunch of famous YouTubers
against each other in psychological experiments
where they can either work together or profit individually.
It is ridiculously good.
So what does this have to do with CuriosityStream?
Well, as the go to source for the best
documentaries on the internet,
they love educational content and educational creators.
And we worked out a deal where if you sign up
for CuriosityStream with a link in the description,
you also get a Nebula subscription for free.
And to be clear, that nebula subscription is not a trial.
It's free for as long as you're a CuriosityStream member.
And (whooshing) for a limited time,
CuriosityStream is offering 26% off of their annual plans.
That's less than (bell dinging) $15 per year
for both CuriosityStream and Nebula.
And because I'm a lawyer,
I made sure that 26% off is by contract,
the best deal you will find anywhere for this bundle.
And since we've gotta stay inside anyway,
I'm sure you'd love watching
CuriosityStream's awesome documentaries,
and watch Tom Scott torture
your favorite YouTubers on Nebula.
So if you click the link in the description,
you'll get both CuriosityStream and Nebula for 26% off,
or you can go to CuriosityStream.com/LegalEagle.
It's a great way to support this channel
and educational content directly for just $14.79 per year.
Just click on the link in the description
or go to CuriosityStream.com/LegalEagle.
Clicking on that link really helps out this channel.
So do you agree with my analysis about legal myths?
Leave your objections in the comments,
and check out this playlist with all
of my other irreverent discussions of the law,
including crazy stuff that's happening on Reddit,
and my real lawyer reactions to a bunch
of crazy movies about the law.
So click on this link and I'll see you in court.