Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
It's Lacey and I'm Lauren, and welcome to another episode of the Llamas podcast.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: So for today, we're kind of just doing a little bit of pop culture and then misinformation in the news and those type things kind of in November and kind of wrapping some stuff up.
But today, I guess one thing I did want to mention as we are going into this holiday season for everybody, it is stressful, it is intense. And recently I found out an attorney who I knew wasn't friends with or anything, but just knew had committed suicide. And you never know what somebody's going through. And I just felt it weighed heavy on me to say, let's all try to be nice to each other because we don't know what somebody's going through. And as attorneys, I think sometimes we get mean to each other or like, take cases too personally and you never know what somebody's happening in somebody's head. So I know holidays are hard times, especially for people, and just be nice. I don't know, I just felt like I needed to say that. I mean, I hope all of our listeners are nice, but I mean, I.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Don'T know for sure. I mean, it's through the grapevine, but I'm not saying names, but somebody. Me and Lauren, both new through classmates, we were told a parent died that way. And I'm not divulging any more information than that because I, like I said, heard it through the grapevine, but, you know, it broke my heart. And so to, to hear of two possible people passing that way, definitely reach out to those that you love and just remind them that you love them. And I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan and Marshawn Neyland just died by suicide and it's been in the media and have listened to some of the audios and it's just heart wrenching. But he was depressed and he suffered from mental illness. And you know, somebody's like, what do we do? What do we do? And I truly don't know what you can do because some of the. Sometimes it comes out of nowhere, sometimes there's a history and I don't know the answer, but I think what you said, Lauren, is great. Just, just be nice because you never know what somebody's going through. Being nice might save their lives or at least if they are going through a hard time and something like this happens, you know, at the end that you were nice and showed them love and kindness.
So I definitely think it's something to remember, especially going into the holiday season, because I think the holidays can bring some of the highest highs, but they can also bring some of the lowest lows. And it just depends on kind of like where you're at in that moment in your life.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I feel like holidays are when you miss people extra like people that are weren't there anymore and a lot of times just as more emotional with the holiday. So.
And I have no idea what happened with this attorney. I do know attorneys. We live in a very stressful world.
Everybody thinks we're perfect, but we're not. We're humans. And it just if you are using an attorney for everything, be nice to us too. And opposing counsel be nice.
It's just a hard world sometimes to be nice. And speaking of attorneys, who is not a new attorney is Kim K.
She's still my lawyer.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: She's still my lawyer.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: So I don't know, just in a pop culture thing.
Kim K. Did not pass the California bar. I don't know a lot about the California bar. I don't know how it works but I know you got to pass the bar to be an attorney. So just being rich didn't get her to pass the bar.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: That's not it. Like I was watching, I avid like big Kardashian fan. I know way too much about their lives. But she is, she does too much. So she failed the multi state the first time but she passed it the second time. And it is not conventional the route she has taken to be a lawyer. And we've covered that in a previous episode. You can go back and listen to that. But no, she did not go to law school. She doesn't have an undergraduate degree. And you know make maybe it's harder in this sense. But what I will say is when I was studying for the bar exam I did work. I will say I did work. I worked two or three jobs in that summer but they were jobs like lifeguarding where I would have breaks that would allow me to study. I still went to class all morning and actually no I didn't. I had quit. I only worked the one job, it was swim coaching. I quit my other two to study for the bar.
But she is a mother of four. That's a full time job in and of itself. Yes, I know that she has help. I know she has the money to get help, but it doesn't. She still has four kids she has to take care of and I mean we all see who she co parents with. That's not really a co parenting relationship. And he's not even in this country. Most of the time. I mean, she said they haven't seen him in several months, so everything is on her.
And even if she's away, she still got to schedule people to come, have people come, make sure they're scheduling. She filmed a new show while trying to study for the bar exam in addition to filming the Kardashian show that's on Disney, their reality show on Top of the Skims with Nike Drop. Like, there's just. She should have said, you know what? I want to be a lawyer. If she truly, if this is what she wants to be, she's. And turn things down like, no, I'm studying for the bar exam.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: And.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: And that's your only job. Instead, like, she's studying for the bar exam in between breaks, between shows and kids and all this other stuff. And it's just like, no, I'm not shocked she failed. Like, seeing what all she had on her plate at the time. I think it was really stupid of her to like think that, like, that I was. That was going to work. Like, you have to prioritize studying for the bar. And I don't think she did that. Lover. Hope she passes, but that just wasn't the smartest decision.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: I just think she thought she could pass it because of who she was. Honestly, I will say that we had some single working mamas who passed the bar with us and they are amazing people. So it can be done. Like, you can pass the bar with a lot on your plate. Because it always amazed me. I was really good friends in law school with a girl who was a mom, had two kids, and she still managed to be a good mom during law school. And she did pass the bar on her first time. I will say she had good support in her mom, like grandma for the kids. But she was a single working mom and she did it. And remember there was this other lady in our class, it was also a single working mom. And she just said she had to treat, you know, law school in the bar like a job. Yeah, you just treat it like a job. Go, you know, study, you know, the nine to five. I will say I don't know if I could pass the bar again today.
I feel like my brain.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Two kids. Like, I. I admire the women you just mentioned so much more because I mean, to. To pass it the first time and take care of kids like that is just very impressive and admirable, honestly, because I know their studying was a lot, a lot harder to do than Mount.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: I don't even know if it's the two kids I Feel like it's just like my brain has hit a capacity level that is just like, no, I can't. It's not that I can't learn, but when you learn for the bar, you're crunching. Now, I will say in South Carolina, they've changed the bar and it's easier and it makes me mad. I'm one of those people. It needs to be as hard for you as it was for me.
We had a three day bar. Now it's down to two days.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: But I did not know that.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: But with the three day bar, like, literally, you're expected to like throw up about, I don't know, three years worth of knowledge and classes you didn't even take and understand them. And honestly, no lawyer actually practiced. The general practice is done. So, like out of this law exam, I don't practice in insurance defense. I don't need to know about portability and carrying on and stacking. But we had to learn that.
And it was hard and grueling and I just don't know if all of that can fit at one time anymore.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I wouldn't want to. I mean, my. We're not moving or going anywhere, but my husband loves to pose these things.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: If I ever got a job at.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: This college, what would we do? Or this college? And every time I'm like, you better make enough money for me not to have to work because I'm not taking another bar exam. And I stand by that. I am not practicing law in any other states. I'm never taking a bar exam again. I don't want to. I don't care to.
So if he. I said, if you're moving, I better make enough money to get flights to see my family here and not have to be an attorney.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not taking another bar. If I was, it was going to be Florida because I want to go live with the Mouse. But you'll be Mickey's lawyer. Yes, I just see Disney will hire Disney. If you're hiring an attorney who does wheels. I could do wheels for all the stuff, half at Disney and it'd be a benefit. And then I go. But speaking of crazy things that's happening in the world, specifically South Carolina, Lacy wanted to get into a topic of Nancy Mace.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: And I'm not getting into her policies or anything like that, you know, But I think it's important with anybody that we base things off fact. And one thing, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people, especially in the political world, spread things that are not factual.
I Also get annoyed with it on social media. One, one of our really close high school friends, Lauren, her mom, defriended me because she made a comment about people not getting arrested during the protests a few years back. Like, few. I don't remember what the protests, I don't know if they were George Floyd or something else, but there were some protests and cop cars were on fire and she made a comment about there not being anybody arrested and people were getting away with it and it just wasn't true because I see all the arrests daily because of our advertising. So it's like, actually many people have been arrested and they have court dates that are going to come up. So many people, you know, they're, they're not getting away with it. They're going to have to go to court and face their charges. And I got defriended solely based on giving that factual information. So I'm starting to see similar things again.
So. So Alan Wilson is our Attorney General right now, and I do have to work with his office. And I, the, the assistant Attorney generals that I have worked with are just, I admire them so much. They, they are great to work with. They are great to have conversations with. I had a case with one of them right now that's pending, and I went and met with him in his office for like an hour. And just so kind, so cordial. Like, they're just. It is such a great staff. Like, I can't say that enough. Like, I don't know Alan Wilson on a personal level, but I can say the attorneys that I work with are just really have been a pleasure to work with, honestly.
But I saw where Nancy May said it was Alan Wilson's fault that somebody charged with a sex crime only got one day in jail. And that's just not how it works. Like, Allen Wilson is an Attorney General. He's a lawyer. He's not a judge. So a judge sentences. And I don't want to say that means you can go after the judges because people don't know the whole story, right? And they're just making these assumptions. And that's what Nancy Mace is doing. She's just trying to get people riled up about something.
And honestly, I think she's just trying to take heat off of some of the things she's done. So she's just trying to make stuff up. And so just everybody knows when you're arrested for a crime, you have to go in front of a judge to set bond. Alan Wilson doesn't set bond. He's not allowed to set Bond.
So the one day that this guy. I can't remember his name is. You can go Nancy's page and find out. But he was arrested for sex crimes. It appears it was from like one of those stink operations with the police.
But he did get a bond. And I can't remember if his charges were bond deniable. So that's another thing. You may see charges that like, give you the ick factor, but. But a judge has to get bond so that we only have a few crimes. Murder is one of them. CSE first with a minor is one of them. But those are.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Are rape in general. Like if it was an adult rape is that.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Can it. It. It's not a mandatory bond deniable offense.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Okay. So they can give bond based on the circumstances.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Correct. So certain degrees, they can deny bond if they want to. But as far as like cannot set bond. The magistrate, the magistrate cannot set bond on CSC first with a minor if it's combined with like kidnapping, some other charges. With an adult, it can be bond deniable. But it honestly like CSC third with an adult, it has to give bond second. Depends. But you know, you may see some things that give you the dick. Huh?
[00:13:26] Speaker B: It goes to a. So like, the magistrate on certain cases doesn't have authority to bond or not bond. Does it go to the circuit court to a higher level judge? Because magistrates in South Carolina are not attorneys, but circuit court level judges have to be attorneys. So they do understand the law. So I think that's something to remember. Like a magistrate. I'm not saying they don't understand the law, but like, they are not attorneys. So when she says like a magistrate jurisdiction, it goes up to a higher level judge who's done more training and more experience.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And our magistrate, some are lawyers, which are right. It's not a requirement. So some are not. So when you are arrested for a crime, you go in front of a magistrate judge first. You can't skip that step. You have to go to that step. And they are. So if it was CSC first with a minor, then it would. They have to deny bond. The magistrate does. And then you can file a motion to get bond from a circuit court judge and then it's up to a circuit court judge. And that takes time. That takes usually one to two months to schedule. So that person is in jail without bond until they can have an actual full hearing in front of a circuit court judge. But I don't remember seeing this guy with it. So I'd have to look at his charges. But I'M pretty sure the judge had to give bond in this case, so he got out after one day in jail. But if you want to be upset at that, you have to look at our statutes. You have to be upset at our laws. That's not on our judges, that's not on Alan Wilson, that's not on his staff.
You know, if he. If he had charges that required a bond, then the judge had to follow the law. You can be mad about the law and think the law needs to change, but you can't put that on Alan Wilson.
Anyways, when he did plead, it looks like he got probation. So once again, she's saying that he only got one year. No, he was put on the sex offender registry. Sex offender registry is hard.
It tells you where you can live.
You lose certain freedoms. They could come in and take your computers and search it at any time with your own websites. We all know that. We can go and see if there's anybody on the sex offender registry online. So it's public information.
And you might say, yes, well, somebody's on the registry, they should have to do all these things. Yes, I agree. But let's all agree to that. That is a. An additional punishment, you know, yes, it should be done, but it is an additional punishment for somebody to be on the registry. It's really hard to find jobs when you're on the registry.
If you have a child, school functions, like, even if your allegation is with an adult, it's going to prohibit certain events and going to certain events with being on the registry. So it is an additional punishment. In addition, he did have probation. And so the way probation works is you have a prison sentence hanging over your head that you still face if you don't complete that probation. So to say that he only got one day is inaccurate. He's a sex offender. He's a registered sex offender. He also got probation. It'll be sex offender probation, which is a lot harder than regular probation. That's probation fees that he's going to have to pay. And if he doesn't do all these things, he still faces a prison sentence.
So I just think it's complete misinformation to say that he only got one day.
And to take it even further, we don't know what went on in this case. We don't know. Was the evidence really weak? Like, did the state not really think they had a strong case for trial so they negotiated this idea? Also, I don't know if probation was recommended. You know, maybe the assistant Attorney General asked for an active prison sentence. But the, you know, the defense lawyer had mitigation that convinced the judge that probation would be an appropriate sentence. We don't know. And that's. I say bring all that up. Is when you're reading stuff like this, it's probably a lot more going on than what you see.
But at the end of the day, Alan Wilson is not in charge of sentencing.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: I'm gonna say no matter what went on, Alan Wilson didn't have a thing to do with it.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Because you know about this case.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: No. And he only gets involved in certain.
You're not gonna go see him, go try some little case, which is usually.
I mean, this. You're right. He had no idea probably this case existed.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: At all. So no matter her feelings on anything, she's smearing the wrong person at the end of the day.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And there may be reasons that some people.
I don't know who I was running for governor at this point. I don't think everybody's thrown a name and a hat yet. But, you know, you may have some factual basis not to vote for Alan Wilson, Nancy Mace, Pamela Evatt, like. But base it on fact.
I just don't like it when they spread things that just aren't true. And I was gonna comment on one of her comment sections, but I saw a couple people comment that, you know, Allen Wilson is an attorney general. He's not a judge. And I don't want to get hate on our judges. Like, I definitely don't want this to go in that direction either, because our judges get enough hate anyways.
And the thing is, is if you are. If you have an opinion on. Go sit in and watch them. You know, you don't know everything that they heard that day.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: When sentencing, a trial or a plea or whatever is a snippet of information. And literally, I don't know if people realize this. Your judges get death threats all the time. I clerked for a judge. I know this. They get death threats.
You know, people do things to them. So they're not.
It's a hard job to be in. And please do not think your judges are making millions of dollars because you can look up their salaries. They are not. A lot of people would rather stay.
Not me. I don't make. Like, estate planning is not where you're making massive, massive bucks, typically. But in some areas, like family law, the attorneys practicing in front of them make way more money than they will ever make. Because a lot of times, going to be a judge is a pay cut. Now, granted, you get power and that may, you know, and you get state retirement benefits. But these judges are not these crazy, vindictive people. They're just taking what they hear and doing the best they can. And you can have one case, and if you put it in five in front of five different judges, you're probably going to get five different outcomes.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: And.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Because they're people.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's not fair in the big grand scheme of things. Right. We want to try to stay fair and consistent. But like you said, these are humans and they're coming in. They're supposed to be fair and impartial. And I think they try their best, you know, but I just, I feel for our. I mean, and you got to think about these cases.
The judges don't want to hear these cases, but they have to as part of their job. You know, this is what they have to do. They have to listen to these things and sentence and. And I do think they all try to stay consistent, at least with themselves. Right. But think of the things that they're. They're hearing that, you know, I was in court, you know, Yesterday with Judge McCaslin, you know, hearing people say, you know, being accused of or pleading guilty to, you know, felonies, violent felonies, and defense attorneys asking for probation because these people have jobs and they have children and they have these things. But, you know, the facts are hard to hear, too. And that's just hard to be in that position knowing that if you sentence this person to prison, you know, they're not gonna. They're gonna lose all of these things at the same time. Maybe that's what justice is in this case. And so they're. They're trying to make the best decision, like you said here and everything. And so if you see a sentence that you don't like, you don't. You don't know what all that judge heard. First off, you don't know, maybe that maybe they got. Somebody got probation and you can't understand why. Well, maybe they went to counseling for two, three years, like, or treatment. Or maybe they were on drugs and sober and now working treatment plans and facilities and have a job and all those things.
You don't know the whole picture unless you are in that courtroom and if there's a recommendation by the Assistant Attorney General's office and you don't know why they made that, well, maybe the cops involved are no longer with the agency and it's going to be hard to prosecute that person. And so it's better to work out some type of deal that's going to put them on the registry or at least put something on their record at a bare minimum or. But there's just so many factors that go into this and I just hate that people just jump to conclusions and it's just a knee jerk reaction to it when there's just a fuller picture. And I hate that Nancy Mace is playing a part in it.
It's just really annoying.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: 1 like Please, for instance, like when somebody takes the plea, that doesn't mean they're automatic. We've talked about this before. It doesn't mean you're guilty, doesn't mean you're innocent. A lot of times what it means is I've balanced and this is both sides are doing this. We're balancing the weight of if I go to trial, the prosecution's thinking this the same way as the defense is thinking what's the likelihood I'm going to get a conviction or not. And as a defendant in the case, you're thinking, okay, I go to jail for a year or I can plea and do probation and then weigh in your cost of what do I have to pay my attorney? What am I going to have to pay for probation fees? And the prosecution's doing the same. So when they bring this to a judge and they've worked out a plea, the judge is typically going to try to line up with what they've worked out because both sides have made this mutual agreement. And in the civil world judges don't have to agree like so that is something different like with the criminal world and with the civil world. So if you have a med mail lawsuit, you know, and you reach a settlement unless a minor or an incapacitated person or an estate is involved, you just settle it out of court and nobody ever knows. The judge doesn't know what you settled for. You can have non disclosures but in the criminal world you've worked out a deal but you still can't guarantee this deal because this judge ultimately gets to decide. But they are going to rely really heavily on the prosecutor and the defense attorney agreed to because the judge knows all they've worked out behind the scenes.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Another thing is I believe in the criminal world most of the times when I have somebody, you know plead it is appropriate, right? The evidence you know is is there and trying to work out the best, the best deal that we can.
But with that comes accountability. When a judge sees somebody take accountability for their wrong actions instead of taking it to trial and dragging it, especially if there's an, there's A victim in the case, they're going to give that defendant some credit, as they should.
You know, somebody takes, I mean, a trial is a lot of money. It's a lot of time.
And if it's a victim case, judges know how, how hard that is and emotional. And we hear trial tax, I don't agree with it. If somebody takes it to trial, they get a trial tax and gets more time. But you know, on the flip side, if you're going to a trial tax, you got to take into consideration the judges are going to give maybe some more leniency for somebody that, you know, doesn't put the court system through that. And it says, takes accountability and says, yes, I was wrong, I did this wrong.
And they look at that too.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: And I think we do see a lot of misinformation, especially in these type situations in the political world and in the legal world. Just misinformation just all the time launched at us. So if you have questions on things, Bless you. Or anything like that, where Lacey sneezed, if y' all didn't hear. But if you have questions on anything like that, like, send it to us, DM us, we're happy to like, look into the legal parts of it.
Now, don't send us like big stuff that the news is covering constantly. Like, but if there's certain, like legal cases, are there certain things that are local or not as huge? Like, don't send us stuff about the President of the United States. We're not getting into him, but like more of your local level stuff or just things you have questions about. We're happy, happy to answer those because.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: A lot of this stuff I wouldn't know if I wasn't in the job I'm in. So I love just educating people on my world because I think it makes us better voters, better humans, smarter, more intelligent all around. Right. So I'm always trying to grasp information in fields that I don't know a lot about. I ask people a lot of questions and professions that not my own. Even Lauren. I go to Lauren and ask her all kinds of questions in her field because I just, I always want to be getting more knowledge. So please reach out. If you ever see anything like Lauren said, message us and maybe we'll message you back or throw the content on an episode. But we love talking about our jobs. If we didn't like them, I don't think either one of us would be doing them.
But yeah, definitely, let us know.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: All right, bye, everybody. See you next week.
