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Opening Arguments

OA56: Jury Secrecy and Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado

Opening Arguments

Opening Arguments Media LLC

Atheist, Law, Politics, News, Harvard, Supremecourt, Legal, Opinion, Liberal

4.33.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2017

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today's episode, we look at a recent Supreme Court decision that could have wide-ranging effects on future trials. We begin, however, by "Breakin' Down the Law" regarding House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes.  Did he just violate the law Republicans kept trying to insist applied to Hillary Clinton's emails?  (Yes.) In our main segment, we delve into a recent Supreme Court decision, Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado, in which the Court held that a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial means that jurors must be free to report blatant racial bias in otherwise-private jury deliberations, even if the law says otherwise.  How the Court came down on this issue is also reflective of the split on the Supreme Court between the originalist justices and the mainstream ones. Next, long-time friend of the show Eric Brewer returns with a question about felon voting rights. Finally, we end with a brand new Thomas Takes the Bar Exam question #17 that asks about the common law behind "as is" used cars.  Remember that TTTBE issues a new question every Friday, followed by the answer on next Tuesday's show.  Don't forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s)! Recent Appearances: Andrew and Thomas were guests on Eiynah's podcast, Polite Conversations, Panel Discussion #6 talking about liberals vs. conservatives on free speech.  Give it a listen! Show Notes & Links
  1. Here's the story on Devin Nunes's disclosures of confidential intelligence briefings to the press and to White House flacks.
  2. And this is the text of 18 U.S.C. § 793(f)(1), which is indeed the same statute Republicans sought to use against Hillary Clinton.  This counts as irony, right?
  3. And finally, this is the Supreme Court's decision in Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado.
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Transcript

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0:00.0

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman.

0:19.8

Due to habeas corpus, you and Miss Bonifante had a common law marriage.

0:31.0

So you don't work on a contingency basis?

0:33.0

No, money down! Oops, shouldn't have this bar association logo here either.

0:45.0

Would you please point at that robot over there?

0:51.0

No further questions?

0:55.0

Welcome to Opening Arguments, the podcast that pairs an inquisitive interviewer with a real-life lawyer.

1:00.0

This podcast is sponsored by the Law Offices of P. Andrew Torres, LLC for entertainment purposes,

1:05.0

is not intended as legal advice, and does not form an attorney-client relationship.

1:09.0

Don't take legal advice from a podcast.

1:18.0

Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments, this is episode number 56.

1:21.0

I'm your host Thomas Smith, and that over there is your host Andrew Torres.

1:25.0

How are you doing today, Andrew?

1:26.0

Fantastic, Thomas, how are you?

1:28.0

Doing great, we are going to answer a very interesting question, Andrew.

1:32.0

So let's go to, let's break down some law, shall we?

1:35.0

Absolutely.

1:37.0

Down to law, breaking down to law, breaking down to law, breaking down to law, breaking down to law.

1:44.0

So, weird thing happened, again we record this a little ahead of time, but this, I think it's new news.

1:50.0

This guy, you may have seen last week, he just gave a press conference like a party,

1:56.0

he's part of the House Intelligence Committee.

1:59.0

He's a chairman.

...

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