Latest / Ask the Lawyer / 04/17/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton

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04/17/2025 Ask the Lawyer with Tom Peyton · Ask the Lawyer

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Speaker 6: You can put the power of Payton on your side.
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Speaker 6: Peyton on your side. Tom Payton, it's in studio with
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Speaker 6: as we go along on the show Here today an
1:19
Speaker 6: institution on Thursday mornings here on WHS in the City
1:23
Speaker 6: of Charleston. Tom, good morning, how you doing this morning.
1:24
Speaker 7: I'm doing great this morning, Sun's out, traffic was smooth,
1:29
Speaker 7: Spring is coming.
1:30
Speaker 8: I agree with all of that.
1:31
Speaker 6: The beginning of this week has been a little nicer
1:33
Speaker 6: than what I was led to believe this weekend when
1:35
Speaker 6: I was we.
1:36
Speaker 7: Turned to the corner I was looking at watching the
1:38
Speaker 7: local news there a couple of weeks ago. Seems like
1:40
Speaker 7: over the last five years we get our last frost.
1:42
Speaker 7: It's around April twenty to twenty five. At twenty twenty. Uh,
1:46
Speaker 7: not only did we have the pandemic, but our latest
1:49
Speaker 7: frost was like May twentieth or something like that. So,
1:53
Speaker 7: but you know, you get these warm sunny days, everybody
1:55
Speaker 7: gets in a better mood, forgets about the looking at
1:58
Speaker 7: their four A one K value in the news. But
2:03
Speaker 7: there's a lot in the news from a legal standpoint
2:07
Speaker 7: and political standpoint, really, at least on a national level.
2:10
Speaker 7: I h we talked a little bit last week about
2:13
Speaker 7: so security disability claims and the importance even though some
2:19
Speaker 7: people have a mental block and doing it. You know,
2:22
Speaker 7: if you have a I think it's based on what
2:24
Speaker 7: I've dealt with recently with SO Security, it's even more
2:27
Speaker 7: important that if you if you have an illness or
2:30
Speaker 7: an injury or a mental health issue that you think
2:33
Speaker 7: is going to last twelve months or longer, and you've
2:39
Speaker 7: been working and paid into the system, and you're eligible
2:43
Speaker 7: for SO Security Disability insurance. So like it's like insurance
2:46
Speaker 7: because you sort of like your retirement, you seem taxes,
2:50
Speaker 7: you pay into it, and then you become vested in
2:52
Speaker 7: it at a certain point and so you're entitled to
2:55
Speaker 7: a benefit of X amount of dollars per month if
2:58
Speaker 7: you qualify under their disability regulations as defined. And so
3:07
Speaker 7: there's resistance to that by most people because they feel
3:12
Speaker 7: like it's conceding that they won't be able to go
3:13
Speaker 7: back to work again, when in fact, you can get
3:16
Speaker 7: SO Security disability on a temporary basis as long as
3:20
Speaker 7: you have an issue that will last twelve months or longer,
3:22
Speaker 7: so you can recover from your condition or maybe find
3:25
Speaker 7: a new treatment, and then if you're able to go
3:27
Speaker 7: back to work, you can just stop your SO Security
3:30
Speaker 7: benefit disability benefit. But it doesn't cost anything to file
3:36
Speaker 7: for so security disability. They've been doing them generally by phone.
3:42
Speaker 7: Otherwise you go to a local office as long as
3:45
Speaker 7: they still exist, and then it's just answering some questions.
3:49
Speaker 7: There's no real trick to it, and that gets the
3:52
Speaker 7: process started, and that's a long process and you almost
3:56
Speaker 7: universally get rejected or denied at the beginning. And then
4:00
Speaker 7: once you get denied, that's when you can give us
4:01
Speaker 7: a call. We can we can help it, and there's
4:04
Speaker 7: no feel on those unless we win to claim for you.
4:06
Speaker 7: But it following the application starts that process, so you
4:10
Speaker 7: basically get in line because there is a significant backlog
4:14
Speaker 7: and has been for you know, ten as long as
4:17
Speaker 7: I've been practicing law, there's been a delay. Maybe in
4:20
Speaker 7: the early two thousands that was much quicker, and it
4:24
Speaker 7: used to be we always went to the physical SO
4:27
Speaker 7: Security off mostly in Charleston for our hearings, and the
4:31
Speaker 7: judge can see your client because they're trying to figure
4:33
Speaker 7: out whether this person really doesn't have the ability to
4:36
Speaker 7: do full time work that they're and they get to
4:39
Speaker 7: ask them questions under oath. Things like that. Last five years,
4:43
Speaker 7: certainly since pandemic they've been almost universally phone hearings, so
4:48
Speaker 7: that the judge that never actually puts eyes on the client,
4:51
Speaker 7: which I don't like because if I'm trying to kind
4:53
Speaker 7: of size somebody up or judge credibility, I like to
4:57
Speaker 7: see the person because you can sometimes you know, I've
5:00
Speaker 7: done enough of us that I get kind of a
5:05
Speaker 7: if somebody's in pain, you know, there's not a pain meter,
5:07
Speaker 7: so we can't go stick the needle in deal's arms
5:11
Speaker 7: and say, oh, yeah, he's got a pain nine out
5:13
Speaker 7: of ten, and that's twenty out of the twenty four
5:16
Speaker 7: hours of a day.
5:17
Speaker 2: It's not possible.
5:18
Speaker 7: So there are a lot of conditions that you might
5:22
Speaker 7: have objective signs for, like something on an MRI where yeah,
5:27
Speaker 7: that could cause severe disabling pain. You could also see
5:30
Speaker 7: that on an MRI and maybe in person be it
5:32
Speaker 7: doesn't cause any pain or just a little annoyance. So
5:36
Speaker 7: you know, you can kind of tell when somebody's in
5:39
Speaker 7: significant pain that it's pretty consistent because they're distracted. I mean,
5:45
Speaker 7: you can see their mannerisms that their job almost is
5:49
Speaker 7: to deal with the pain a lot of times, and
5:51
Speaker 7: they're shifting and they're moving and they got to get
5:52
Speaker 7: up and down. You can't see any of that when
5:54
Speaker 7: you're doing phone hearings, and you know the metal records
6:00
Speaker 7: don't always tell the tape. But you want to get it.
6:04
Speaker 7: You want to get that application filed. It doesn't cost anything.
6:07
Speaker 7: If you go back to work sooner than you thought,
6:10
Speaker 7: you just drop your claim. It doesn't it's not like
6:13
Speaker 7: it counts against you because you filed a claim and
6:15
Speaker 7: then didn't follow through with it. It doesn't mean anything.
6:17
Speaker 7: As long as you don't go to the hearing and
6:19
Speaker 7: actually have a hearing, it doesn't affect your ability to
6:21
Speaker 7: file future claims.
6:23
Speaker 2: Now.
6:25
Speaker 7: The reason why I would reiterate that this week even
6:28
Speaker 7: more than last week is because we've had some dealings
6:30
Speaker 7: with SO Security Office this week. And I don't know
6:33
Speaker 7: whether this is the beginning of the days fallout, but
6:36
Speaker 7: I think it might be an example of what we'll
6:38
Speaker 7: start to see when we've had these haphazard mass firings
6:44
Speaker 7: of employees, some of which you have been there for decades.
6:50
Speaker 7: So we get a letter this week on Monday in
6:53
Speaker 7: the mail, Oh, it's SO Security, which there's definitely some
6:57
Speaker 7: waste in the SO Security administration. We get tons of
6:59
Speaker 7: letters and mailings that are unnecessary that could either be
7:03
Speaker 7: sent out electronically or don't really need to be sent
7:06
Speaker 7: out at all. But as I said Latin, you've got
7:09
Speaker 7: an entity that large, you're going to have waste in it.
7:12
Speaker 7: It's not possible not to. You're going to have some
7:15
Speaker 7: fraud and some abuse. Oh, we got a call.
7:16
Speaker 8: We have a call.
7:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, Okay, we have a call. Let's take a pause
7:18
Speaker 6: right there. We'll come back that in just a moment.
7:20
Speaker 6: Talking about so security disability benefits. We'll circle back to
7:23
Speaker 6: that in just a moment. If we have a caller
7:25
Speaker 6: that's called in this morning, has a question for Tom.
7:27
Speaker 8: You're on the air. What's your first name?
7:29
Speaker 9: Good morning, My name is Frank.
7:31
Speaker 8: Hey, Frank, what's your question for Tom?
7:34
Speaker 9: I'd like to I'd like Tom to address the issue
7:37
Speaker 9: of due process. There's a lot of news surrounding the
7:42
Speaker 9: deportation of people to l Salvador, and I'd like Tom
7:47
Speaker 9: to address the importance of due process and what that
7:51
Speaker 9: means under the constitution.
7:53
Speaker 7: Sure, yeah, so, And we've got a couple interesting things
7:57
Speaker 7: on the national level happening right now. You've got, uh,
8:01
Speaker 7: there's a judge I believe in the d c circa
8:03
Speaker 7: that if you recall it ordered the executive branch to
8:08
Speaker 7: halt planes, the executive branch to halt planes and stop, uh,
8:15
Speaker 7: don't don't fly any planes to deport folks to I
8:18
Speaker 7: think that was the Venezuelans. I think that was going
8:22
Speaker 7: to El Salvador. I'm not sure I can recall it.
8:24
Speaker 7: So then that was Uh, then what happened was it
8:29
Speaker 7: was basically, uh, you have the I think the president
8:32
Speaker 7: or whatever he is of of L Salvador tweeting oops
8:36
Speaker 7: too late, and then you have Marco Rubio like sharing
8:40
Speaker 7: that tweet endorsing it. Basically just you know, thumbing their
8:44
Speaker 7: nose at a court order. And that case was appealed
8:48
Speaker 7: all the way up to the US Supreme Court and
8:51
Speaker 7: they it wasn't a victory for the Trump administration, accepting
8:54
Speaker 7: so far as the Supreme Court said, this is the
8:56
Speaker 7: improper venue. You got to file a habeas type petition.
8:59
Speaker 7: It's got to be filed where the person is was
9:02
Speaker 7: initially detained. Maybe, but that judge is still trying to
9:08
Speaker 7: figure out what Trump administration did, uh in defiance of
9:12
Speaker 7: his order. And so that's being played out right now.
9:15
Speaker 7: Whether the government government agents are going to be held
9:17
Speaker 7: in contempt. And then we have the other case that's
9:21
Speaker 7: going on where the person was mistakenly deported and is
9:27
Speaker 7: now in the El Salvador prison, which is apparently one
9:31
Speaker 7: of the most unsafe UH prisons in the world. And
9:36
Speaker 7: this is where the US Supreme Court ruled that the
9:39
Speaker 7: Trump administration must facilitate the return of this person. And
9:44
Speaker 7: then the Trump administration is basically thumbing their nose at
9:47
Speaker 7: that order, and the back down to the trial judge
9:51
Speaker 7: is where it is now.
9:51
Speaker 2: She has basically said, well.
9:52
Speaker 7: We're going to conduct some depositions and that means in
9:59
Speaker 7: the visual decision makers from ICE and otherwise I think
10:03
Speaker 7: by the twenty third of April have to sit and
10:05
Speaker 7: answer detailed questions under oath. This gets back to Frank's
10:08
Speaker 7: question about due process because oh, well, you know see
10:11
Speaker 7: on social media and some acquaintances I have, Well, he's
10:15
Speaker 7: just getting rid of the gang members and the terrorists.
10:16
Speaker 7: But when you start labeling people like that, I mean,
10:19
Speaker 7: these folks have had zero due process. Due process is
10:22
Speaker 7: a concept that depending on the contact, the legal context,
10:27
Speaker 7: it's different standards, but it always involves notice from the
10:32
Speaker 7: government about what you're accused of or why they're taking action,
10:36
Speaker 7: and some opportunity, even if it's just a summary proceeding,
10:40
Speaker 7: some opportunity to combat the allegations in a court before
10:47
Speaker 7: a neutral arbiter, a judge, a hearing examiner, something like that.
10:52
Speaker 7: So what's happening in this situation, Folks that while they're
10:56
Speaker 7: not US citizens, I think it's universally accepted that they
10:59
Speaker 7: do have due process rights, as many of them are
11:04
Speaker 7: legally in the United States at this point. And so, uh,
11:10
Speaker 7: you know it. I've had so many cases over the
11:14
Speaker 7: years and situations where there's criminal complaints filed, there's news
11:18
Speaker 7: media information. Now we've gotten you know, social media on
11:21
Speaker 7: the Internet, which seems to be some of the quote
11:23
Speaker 7: evidence the administration is relying upon. Where when you get
11:27
Speaker 7: down into the case and you have a hearing and
11:29
Speaker 7: somebody's asked particular questions on earth about what happened, and
11:32
Speaker 7: you get to hear from the other side, the facts.
11:34
Speaker 2: Are not what they were indicated to be at first blush.
11:39
Speaker 7: And so that's why you have due process, Like you
11:41
Speaker 7: can't to say, well, all these people are gang them
11:44
Speaker 7: and that's what the Trump administration keeps putting out, Well,
11:47
Speaker 7: these are these are gang members in terrorists, Well, who
11:49
Speaker 7: would who would want to, you know, help them in
11:52
Speaker 7: any way. We've got to get them out of the
11:53
Speaker 7: country because they're a threat to everyone. And and that
11:58
Speaker 7: is when when you just accept that without any due process,
12:03
Speaker 7: that's when we're getting into like Salem witch trial type stuff.
12:07
Speaker 6: I can insert just one thing that I just read
12:09
Speaker 6: this morning that in the context of all this is
12:11
Speaker 6: honestly concerning, and I don't try to get too much
12:13
Speaker 6: into into panic or people trying to make something more
12:18
Speaker 6: than what it is, but a representative of the administration,
12:21
Speaker 6: Sebastian Gorka, who's I guess President Trump's terrorisms are or
12:27
Speaker 6: something along those lines, suggested this morning that anyone, including
12:31
Speaker 6: American citizens, who think that this particular man who was
12:36
Speaker 6: put in the l savagory in prison needed due process,
12:39
Speaker 6: that those people are aiding and abetting terrorists, right, even
12:43
Speaker 6: American citizens. So if we're not doing due process for terrorists,
12:48
Speaker 6: eventually that's going to be for American citizens.
12:49
Speaker 7: If you take the you know this, well, they're just terrorists.
12:53
Speaker 7: So they're just gang members, and you just lump these
12:56
Speaker 7: people together, and obviously it's pretty apparent that they haven't
13:00
Speaker 7: done any individualized investigation of a lot of these people.
13:02
Speaker 7: They've have had something that detects a tattoo or something
13:05
Speaker 7: like that, or I think the fellow that's in that
13:08
Speaker 7: was mistakenly shipped to l salvad Or. It's supposed to
13:11
Speaker 7: be facilitated by our government back here. You know, there's
13:16
Speaker 7: some the Trump administration has had to present some evidence
13:20
Speaker 7: that they relied upon. It's it's mostly well, it's all
13:23
Speaker 7: basically hearsay, but it's a confidential informant that you know,
13:28
Speaker 7: in my years of doing criminal defense, confidential informants are
13:35
Speaker 7: some of the most uncredible witnesses that you can have
13:40
Speaker 7: because they're always informing.
13:42
Speaker 2: Uh, they're not law enforcement, you.
13:44
Speaker 6: Know, is one of these A TV has really done
13:47
Speaker 6: a disservice onement because because TV seems to really hero
13:50
Speaker 6: worship cis. You know, dy knows what A is.
13:53
Speaker 7: Well, they're almost universally they're testifying because they're afraid of
13:57
Speaker 7: something that will happen to them, like they've got in
14:00
Speaker 7: a deal or they've got an immunity, and so they're motive.
14:02
Speaker 2: I mean some many.
14:04
Speaker 7: Times they're testifying and the consequence if they don't testify
14:09
Speaker 7: on behalf the government or give information is they go
14:11
Speaker 7: to prison, you know, or they lose their livelihood and
14:14
Speaker 7: their liberty. So when very rarely do you have that
14:17
Speaker 7: type leverage over a witness like the government has which
14:21
Speaker 7: causes juries. Rightfully, so to be skeptical of what these
14:24
Speaker 7: people suck. And there's been no you know, it's whether
14:28
Speaker 7: their testimony is coroborated. There's been none of that testing
14:31
Speaker 7: in these cases because there's been no due process, which
14:36
Speaker 7: the US Supreme Court found they are required to have
14:39
Speaker 7: due process, which was one of the points brought out
14:42
Speaker 7: by the US Supreme Court when they found that the
14:47
Speaker 7: judge the court in DC was the improper venue for
14:50
Speaker 7: these type cases and reversed it. They said, you have
14:53
Speaker 7: to provide some due process and you have to quit
14:57
Speaker 7: facilitate getting this person that was mistaken he sent to
15:00
Speaker 7: this El salvad Or prison back back here. But you know,
15:04
Speaker 7: you take that concept and maybe it's easier to say, well,
15:07
Speaker 7: these are these are illegal aliens or whatever you can
15:09
Speaker 7: label them. However you want to justify it to maybe
15:13
Speaker 7: meet the political uh leaning that you have. Now you
15:17
Speaker 7: can take that to you know, people ask me, I
15:21
Speaker 7: don't do a whole lot of it anymore, like, well,
15:22
Speaker 7: how can you defend uh the worst cases to defend factually,
15:26
Speaker 7: or you know, child crimes, especially if they're sex based.
15:30
Speaker 2: I mean, they're awful to deal with. They'll keep you
15:33
Speaker 2: up at night.
15:34
Speaker 7: Uh murder obviously, But you know, do if we take
15:39
Speaker 7: the same attitude we've got uh from the ministration on
15:43
Speaker 7: the cases we've been talking about, and let's apply it
15:45
Speaker 7: to well, he he just violated the rights of a
15:51
Speaker 7: child sex offender or a murderer.
15:54
Speaker 2: Who cares?
15:55
Speaker 7: But I mean, like I'm when you represent those folks,
15:59
Speaker 7: and sometimes you represent folks that are guilty of a crime,
16:02
Speaker 7: maybe not all the crimes the government's charged them with.
16:04
Speaker 7: Maybe there's something that shows they're less culpable than the
16:08
Speaker 7: government says. But that's the whole legal mechanism in maintaining
16:14
Speaker 7: our society is that you're in essence defending the constitutions
16:17
Speaker 7: sometimes because maybe you don't affirmatively say your client didn't
16:22
Speaker 7: do this or something, but you have to hold the
16:24
Speaker 7: government to their standard, which is beyond a reasonable doubt,
16:26
Speaker 7: And so if they can't prove it, then they don't
16:29
Speaker 7: get to put somebody in prison. But if you take
16:33
Speaker 7: the most heinous crimes imaginable and just say, well, they
16:37
Speaker 7: shouldn't get any due process. I mean, that's basically what's
16:39
Speaker 7: happening here. Are we at that point in society where
16:44
Speaker 7: an administration, the executive branch can just label we go
16:48
Speaker 7: with it. And because these folks are labeled a certain
16:52
Speaker 7: segment of heinous segment of society, then do we just
16:56
Speaker 7: disregard all due process rights? And that's where I think
17:00
Speaker 7: getting into like the Salem witch trial, and it's me
17:03
Speaker 7: dealing with it as a lawyer and on kind of
17:05
Speaker 7: a policy level and seeing it in action because I
17:09
Speaker 7: deal with it every day, and the court system it's
17:12
Speaker 7: real dangerous. I mean, I mean, I think it's it's
17:15
Speaker 7: a real slippery slope. And and you know, I think
17:21
Speaker 7: folks got to step back a little bit, who are
17:23
Speaker 7: endorsing this and look at it from a long term
17:28
Speaker 7: policy or global aspect in relation to what's our society
17:32
Speaker 7: going to be?
17:32
Speaker 2: Like?
17:32
Speaker 7: Is that what we're going to do now is just
17:35
Speaker 7: let someone be categorized as a You can figure out
17:39
Speaker 7: who the convicted sex offenders are. I think every state
17:42
Speaker 7: has a registry, So maybe we just go and you know,
17:46
Speaker 7: if they are violating a registry, then we just we
17:49
Speaker 7: don't need to hearing, just let the law enforcement decide
17:51
Speaker 7: if they did and put them in prison for the
17:52
Speaker 7: next forty years.
17:53
Speaker 6: And the thing that just what you were talking about
17:57
Speaker 6: as far as no due processing that and it just
17:59
Speaker 6: concerns me so much because if I were to look
18:02
Speaker 6: and think that there was a strategy about this, and
18:04
Speaker 6: I don't know what it is, or if there is,
18:06
Speaker 6: or if it's just you know, being overly concerned about stuff.
18:09
Speaker 6: But it seems like that we're redefining, for example, what
18:12
Speaker 6: terrorism is, and then we're redefining.
18:16
Speaker 2: Or redefining the word facilitate exactly.
18:18
Speaker 6: So what it seems like what's going to happen is
18:21
Speaker 6: that the ability to accuse saying, a naturally born American
18:25
Speaker 6: citizen of terrorism for being sympathetic to insert cause here.
18:32
Speaker 6: That's that's against what the administrative would be. It's basically
18:36
Speaker 6: it's criminalizing dissent.
18:38
Speaker 8: It's it's just.
18:41
Speaker 2: It's h.
18:43
Speaker 7: Extremely dangerous from our societal standpoint. I don't I don't
18:48
Speaker 7: I think it will be stopped. I think the courts
18:50
Speaker 7: will ultimately stop it. But we have, like right now
18:52
Speaker 7: we're having the showdown with you know, the judge in
18:54
Speaker 7: the DC Circuit who, Yeah, he's still trying to figure
18:58
Speaker 7: out who violated or if they intentionally violated his order
19:02
Speaker 7: prohibiting these planes from delivering deportes.
19:05
Speaker 2: To another country.
19:08
Speaker 7: But that one'll be you know, there's a technical aspect
19:10
Speaker 7: of that because in essence, he doesn't have jurisdiction over
19:14
Speaker 7: the merits of that case any longer because it was
19:16
Speaker 7: the improper venue. But he's and then ultimately that would
19:19
Speaker 7: be up to if he finds good calls, then he
19:22
Speaker 7: can you contempt can be a criminal charge. And he
19:25
Speaker 7: said on the record that if he doesn't, if the
19:29
Speaker 7: if the US Attorney won't prosecute someone, then he'll appoint
19:31
Speaker 7: a special counsel to look into whether there should be
19:33
Speaker 7: criminal contempt charges filed. So see how that one plays out.
19:37
Speaker 6: Is is that is there a point here where I
19:40
Speaker 6: guess that that that the legal system can force the
19:42
Speaker 6: administration say it's what seems to happen. So before they're
19:44
Speaker 6: just ignoring, like are they going to ignore subpoenas and
19:47
Speaker 6: in different things like that, I mean, at what point
19:49
Speaker 6: is we're going to be enforcedment?
19:50
Speaker 8: It's like you have to obey the law.
19:52
Speaker 7: Right, Well, that's that's where we get I mean, that's
19:54
Speaker 7: where you get to you know, are they quote the
19:58
Speaker 7: US Supreme Court said facilitate the return of the one
20:03
Speaker 7: guy that's in the El Saler prison that was mistakenly
20:05
Speaker 7: sent there. And now the Trump administration has got lawyers
20:09
Speaker 7: who are basically saying that, well, we are borders open
20:14
Speaker 7: if he gets to the border, and that's facilitating, which
20:17
Speaker 7: I think when you look up the plain meaning of facilitate,
20:20
Speaker 7: that's clearly not what it means in this context. But well,
20:25
Speaker 7: you know, if individuals are going to be deposed that
20:28
Speaker 7: are making those decisions, that's where the rubber will hit
20:30
Speaker 7: the road because they're gonna have to answer now. Then
20:32
Speaker 7: they'll assert some kind of privilege and make up excuses
20:35
Speaker 7: about why they don't have to testify. Amiles following that
20:38
Speaker 7: case will be very interesting because it's like, how.
20:41
Speaker 2: What can the court do?
20:42
Speaker 8: Travelers?
20:43
Speaker 7: You can't, I mean, the US government isn't really a
20:46
Speaker 7: corporate entity you can find necessarily, So individuals are going
20:50
Speaker 7: to have to answer. And that's where you know, lawyers
20:52
Speaker 7: play a role in this because they you know, it's
20:56
Speaker 7: a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes if a sex of
21:00
Speaker 7: under a murderer is found in their case is dismissed
21:03
Speaker 7: because of a constitutional error, even though you know in
21:05
Speaker 7: fact they're guilty. But that's that's the way it works
21:09
Speaker 7: in our society at times. And then then you know
21:12
Speaker 7: where it seems obvious they committed the crime, but they
21:14
Speaker 7: still get due process. I mean, lawyers, I think should
21:18
Speaker 7: have a role in helping educate folks that aren't in
21:22
Speaker 7: the legal field about you know, how our society relies
21:27
Speaker 7: upon those constitutional principles and and the rule of law,
21:31
Speaker 7: and that's provides us structure, and it's it's eventually it
21:36
Speaker 7: will if we don't follow those constitutional principles. Eventually it's
21:42
Speaker 7: going to come down where it's all fine until somebody,
21:44
Speaker 7: you know where you know, your grandson has a tattoo
21:47
Speaker 7: of a crown and all of.
21:49
Speaker 6: A sudden, he's or autism awareness, as it turns out,
21:51
Speaker 6: was one of the criminal ails rept.
21:53
Speaker 7: Up by the government without any due process. So you know,
21:58
Speaker 7: for all the lawyers out there, I mean, I you know,
22:00
Speaker 7: it's not a I'm not sure it appeals to your
22:02
Speaker 7: customer base or not a clientele, but we all have
22:06
Speaker 7: a duty to remind folks that what the role the
22:10
Speaker 7: rule of law plays and do process plays in the
22:13
Speaker 7: functioning of our society.
22:15
Speaker 2: And and we're.
22:17
Speaker 7: Going to see how that falls out in uh, the
22:21
Speaker 7: modern legal environment with some of these cases, because the
22:24
Speaker 7: Trump administration is going to keep pushing it. And this
22:26
Speaker 7: this facilitate thing where the judges ordered uh you know,
22:30
Speaker 7: depositions testimony in our oath of individuals, various individuals that
22:34
Speaker 7: are decision makers. You know, there'll be a transcript and
22:37
Speaker 7: we'll see what they say. They'll they'll probably be trying
22:39
Speaker 7: to search some sort of privilege and then I'll go
22:41
Speaker 7: up to the courts and back down. So we'll see
22:43
Speaker 7: how this plays out. But just you know, you can't
22:48
Speaker 7: bite into this labeling of judges as whatever, lunatics as
22:53
Speaker 7: you know, and things like that when there it's not
22:56
Speaker 7: the way in which you combat a legal decision that
22:59
Speaker 7: you just agree with.
23:00
Speaker 2: Gotta take a break, yes, go and take our break.
23:01
Speaker 8: When we come back.
23:02
Speaker 6: We still take your phone calls. You can get it
23:03
Speaker 6: on the phone line and if you like three zero
23:05
Speaker 6: four three four two eight one three one, we'll continue
23:07
Speaker 6: any conversation that Tom wants to or address whatever issues
23:09
Speaker 6: agree with.
23:09
Speaker 2: Gotta take a break.
23:10
Speaker 6: That's going to take our break. When we come back,
23:11
Speaker 6: we still take our phone calls. You can get it
23:13
Speaker 6: on the phone line and if you like three zero
23:14
Speaker 6: four three four two eight one three one, we'll continue
23:16
Speaker 6: any conversation that Tom wants to or address whatever issues
23:18
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23:21
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24:41
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25:04
Speaker 6: Hey, I guess that music didn't fade out for very
25:06
Speaker 6: law you're listening to ask the lawyer this morning. Tom
25:09
Speaker 6: Payton is in a studio with us this morning, you
25:11
Speaker 6: can give us a call three zero four three four
25:12
Speaker 6: two eight one three one. We were talking a little
25:14
Speaker 6: bit about soci security disability before the call. We got
25:16
Speaker 6: into a call that had to do with a due
25:17
Speaker 6: process in context with what's going on with the deportation
25:23
Speaker 6: or I guess the deportation or arrest or whatever it
25:26
Speaker 6: is of those who are accused of being illegal immigrants
25:31
Speaker 6: or doing illegal activities. Address that a little bit. But
25:34
Speaker 6: the phone lines are open for you. We still have
25:35
Speaker 6: a little over ten minutes left in the program. So
25:37
Speaker 6: if there's anything you want to talk about in any direction,
25:39
Speaker 6: especially if you want to put the law on your side,
25:40
Speaker 6: if you have any questions on how the Payton Law
25:42
Speaker 6: Froom can help you this morning, you can give us
25:44
Speaker 6: a call with three zero four three four two eight
25:45
Speaker 6: one three one.
25:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, And just to follow with myself where I was
25:47
Speaker 7: going with the so Security issue, which is why you
25:49
Speaker 7: should file sooner than later if you're in that situation.
25:53
Speaker 7: So we got a letter Monday, but you get a
25:55
Speaker 7: lot of letters from SOI Security that are redundant nothing,
25:58
Speaker 7: but this one said something to the effect of you
26:01
Speaker 7: know you're so SO security. If you win a case,
26:04
Speaker 7: they pay the feed directly to the lawyer. The Sobecurity
26:06
Speaker 7: Administration does because it's a percentage of the back pay.
26:09
Speaker 7: So we got a letters saying well, Payton Law Firm,
26:10
Speaker 7: pllc is not eligible for direct payment. You aren't registered
26:15
Speaker 7: properly or something. Keeping in mind we've been paid on
26:19
Speaker 7: hundreds and hundreds of claims we've prevailed on through the
26:23
Speaker 7: Sobscurity Administration ever the last decade, thought oh well, there
26:27
Speaker 7: were some new forms lately we had to fill out.
26:30
Speaker 7: So on the bottom it says, if you have questions
26:31
Speaker 7: about this, call this number. Say my apparent legal calls
26:34
Speaker 7: the number, and I'm I can overhear the conversation and
26:38
Speaker 7: it's let's just say it's Fred on the other end
26:42
Speaker 7: of the line.
26:42
Speaker 2: So first it's she's.
26:43
Speaker 7: Like, we got this letter and says this on it,
26:47
Speaker 7: and and so she's going through it with and he's
26:49
Speaker 7: it's just small talk back and forth about what it says.
26:51
Speaker 7: And then eventually I can hear him say, well, what
26:54
Speaker 7: why are you calling me? And uh, well, because.
26:58
Speaker 2: That's the number.
26:59
Speaker 7: On the bottom of the letter, it says to call
27:01
Speaker 7: because there's a million numbers you can call for so Security.
27:03
Speaker 7: And so Fred didn't have any clue about what the
27:09
Speaker 7: letter was about, and he didn't know why we were
27:12
Speaker 7: even calling him.
27:13
Speaker 2: Or his I guess wherever he is. Maybe he's working
27:16
Speaker 2: from home or something.
27:17
Speaker 7: But all right, so, well you know why you call
27:21
Speaker 7: me because you're you're a number on the letter that
27:23
Speaker 7: you're Sociecarity Administration Chris Social Security Administration sends letters that
27:27
Speaker 7: aren't signed. It just says so Scarity Administration at the bottom.
27:30
Speaker 7: So uh. And it ended up being like, well, you know,
27:35
Speaker 7: we we'll assume we're gonna keep getting paid when we
27:38
Speaker 7: win cases because you don't know anything about this.
27:40
Speaker 2: It was like fine, and then you know that was
27:42
Speaker 2: into that.
27:43
Speaker 7: Then then we uh, Fred calls back, Ah, maybe he's
27:47
Speaker 7: found something out. So he called back to tell my
27:51
Speaker 7: staff that we should, uh, we just need to go
27:53
Speaker 7: back and start from the beginning. Well what does that mean?
27:57
Speaker 7: Do we go to the local Elveston Saint Aubans, Well
28:00
Speaker 7: from the beginning, it's like, well, what do you mean
28:02
Speaker 7: start from the beginning, Like, this isn't even particular to
28:05
Speaker 7: a one client or the other. It's just a general
28:08
Speaker 7: letter to our Law Firm. I'll just go back to
28:10
Speaker 7: the beginning. It's like, well, what do you mean by
28:11
Speaker 7: the beginning, Well, I don't know, you just go back
28:13
Speaker 7: to the beginning. So obviously that person had been fed
28:16
Speaker 7: some kind of AI information or something and has no clue,
28:19
Speaker 7: I mean, no context for how the system works, what
28:23
Speaker 7: they're you know, the process, what you do to get
28:26
Speaker 7: direct payment, maybe when you even get paid. This just
28:29
Speaker 7: makes me wonder if some of those large percentage of
28:32
Speaker 7: employees that knew what they were doing because they've been
28:33
Speaker 7: there for many years have been replaced by Fred who
28:36
Speaker 7: is just let me just be like throwing anybody.
28:38
Speaker 2: Off the street.
28:40
Speaker 7: I mean, maybe has some specially he knows about what
28:42
Speaker 7: we called the number we were supposed to call, and
28:43
Speaker 7: he had absolutely no clue. Which is why you need
28:46
Speaker 7: to file sooner than later to get in line, because
28:48
Speaker 7: it's not going to get better as long as this
28:51
Speaker 7: administration continues to have hazardly discharge people, especially in experienced folks,
28:57
Speaker 7: from employment.
28:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and you need
29:00
Speaker 6: any help along those lines. If you get if you
29:02
Speaker 6: get a letter you have questions about or whatever, you
29:03
Speaker 6: can call the Peyton Law Firm.
29:04
Speaker 8: Threes are four seven five five fifty five fifty six.
29:07
Speaker 8: Threes are four seven, five five fifty five fifty six.
29:09
Speaker 8: Let's go ahead. We have a phone call. Another phone call.
29:10
Speaker 8: Let's get one in before we have to leave the airway.
29:12
Speaker 8: This morning, you're on the air with Tom Payton. What's
29:14
Speaker 8: your name? Caller? This is Bob, Hey, Bob, Bob, what's
29:17
Speaker 8: going on?
29:18
Speaker 10: Hey?
29:19
Speaker 11: Tom? I don't know if this is in your wheelhouse,
29:20
Speaker 11: but I've always had a question in regards to the
29:24
Speaker 11: you know, the undocumented or illegal immigrant issue that's going on,
29:28
Speaker 11: which is probably one of the most paramount issues in
29:30
Speaker 11: the country right now. Is there anything constitutionally that limits
29:37
Speaker 11: the rights and privileges under the Constitution to its citizens only,
29:43
Speaker 11: or if anybody's in the country, are they automatically covered
29:46
Speaker 11: whether they're here illegally or not. I'll hang up and
29:50
Speaker 11: listen to your response.
29:51
Speaker 7: It's not in my wheelhouse, and that I haven't litigated
29:54
Speaker 7: anything like that. But my understanding is it's first of all,
29:59
Speaker 7: some of the folks being deported or not illegal aliens
30:02
Speaker 7: like the fella that's in El Salvador that was mistakenly
30:05
Speaker 7: put there. He he didn't come through the legal process
30:07
Speaker 7: to get here, but he was essentially granted legal asylum
30:11
Speaker 7: by a court.
30:13
Speaker 2: Uh.
30:13
Speaker 7: And so when you're here on a on a on
30:17
Speaker 7: a green card for example, or or you have some
30:20
Speaker 7: visa to allow you to stay here, my understanding is
30:22
Speaker 7: that you have constitutional rights at that point, So you
30:25
Speaker 7: have a due process. Now, I thought once you get
30:29
Speaker 7: on our soil generally have constitutional rights as well. So
30:36
Speaker 7: I don't think that is something that's being argued that
30:43
Speaker 7: the constitutional principles of due process. I don't think that
30:45
Speaker 7: Trump administration is arguing that it doesn't apply to any
30:48
Speaker 7: of these individuals. Now, what they're doing is they're they're
30:52
Speaker 7: they're stretching definitions and sometimes the facts to try and use,
30:57
Speaker 7: you know, wartime type statutes that have never been applied
31:01
Speaker 7: in this situation to It's almost a kin to like
31:05
Speaker 7: a martial law type argument, the Enemy Aliens Act or
31:10
Speaker 7: whatever it is from like the seventeen hundreds, to argue that,
31:13
Speaker 7: you know, the person protesting at Columbia University, I guess
31:18
Speaker 7: it was a pro Palestinian protest. He's akin to a
31:22
Speaker 7: spy or something using an old statute that has only
31:27
Speaker 7: been using like the War of eighteen twelve World War
31:29
Speaker 7: One and World War Two. Of course, it was used
31:31
Speaker 7: in one of the World wars to create these camps
31:35
Speaker 7: for Japanese Americans, which is another scar on our history.
31:39
Speaker 7: But yeah, I think that I don't think that's an
31:41
Speaker 7: argument's being made. So I think they do get constitutional
31:46
Speaker 7: due process even though they're not full fledged citizens. I
31:51
Speaker 7: don't know that one hundred percent, but I've read it
31:54
Speaker 7: that most legal scholars, and you always find some outlier
31:57
Speaker 7: somewhere that, but most legal scholars believe that applied. I
32:00
Speaker 7: haven't seen the argument from the Trump administration as it
32:02
Speaker 7: doesn't generally apply. They're just saying they can go around
32:05
Speaker 7: it based on national security based statutes and then stretching
32:11
Speaker 7: the law and the facts to meet those definitions.
32:16
Speaker 6: One thing that I saw last night was Secretary of
32:18
Speaker 6: State Marco Rubio said that specifically referencing like Green card holders,
32:24
Speaker 6: is that sure, you've made it into the country and
32:27
Speaker 6: you're here legally, but you have to re earn that
32:29
Speaker 6: every single day, and any actions that the government deems
32:32
Speaker 6: as qualifying as a Green card holder, you lose your privilege.
32:37
Speaker 6: So and his argument is that dissent basically against the
32:41
Speaker 6: US government that gives you rights to be here, is
32:43
Speaker 6: grounds for you to have your Green card withheld.
32:46
Speaker 7: Yeah, if you can prove that descent that is not
32:53
Speaker 7: a threat to our national security. Verbal descent is the
32:58
Speaker 7: basis for deportation. To me, that's the violation of the
33:03
Speaker 7: First Amendment and is illegal, unconstitutional, And I think that
33:09
Speaker 7: still applies to folks that are here on Green cards
33:11
Speaker 7: and visas, and so, you know, it's just we'll see
33:15
Speaker 7: how it plays out. Now, there's been some reference to,
33:17
Speaker 7: you know, applying some of these principles to even US citizens.
33:20
Speaker 6: So it seems like to me, again I don't mean
33:22
Speaker 6: but it seems like there's a bit of a boiling
33:23
Speaker 6: the frog principle that's going on here. You start with
33:28
Speaker 6: questionably illegal immigrants with questionable backgrounds, which very few people
33:32
Speaker 6: have a problem with, you know, okay, and then you
33:34
Speaker 6: get to you know, maybe Green card holders that had
33:37
Speaker 6: minor infractions. Okay, maybe you can see that. Now we're
33:40
Speaker 6: getting to people that are just maybe verbally disagreeing with
33:43
Speaker 6: some of the things from the government. It seems like,
33:46
Speaker 6: you know, instead of putting the frog in the pot
33:48
Speaker 6: at boiling, we're turning up the heat a little bit
33:49
Speaker 6: to see at what point the frog jumps out.
33:51
Speaker 11: Yeah.
33:51
Speaker 2: And beyond that, what the government's doing.
33:54
Speaker 7: They're targeting law firms and blackballing them for you know,
34:00
Speaker 7: this is clients they've had in the past, or I
34:02
Speaker 7: mean trying the US government. I mean, this administration is
34:07
Speaker 7: not conservative as I define it at all. It's the opposite.
34:11
Speaker 7: I mean, it's trying to essentially manipulate the global economy
34:15
Speaker 7: with government overreach, I mean, and control universities, free thought
34:22
Speaker 7: at universities, and and like Harvard right now is resisting.
34:25
Speaker 7: So we'll see how that comes out, because the administration's
34:29
Speaker 7: threatening to pull I guess a couple of billion dollars
34:31
Speaker 7: from funding because of some equity or some kind of
34:38
Speaker 7: provisions that Harvard refuses to rescind at the request of
34:41
Speaker 7: the United States government. So it's it's not a conservative
34:44
Speaker 7: government in my mind for sure. And this is a
34:48
Speaker 7: you know, tariffs, I think, measured tariffs.
34:52
Speaker 2: I mean there's certainly with some imbalance.
34:54
Speaker 7: I guess personally on a political level, I don't really
34:56
Speaker 7: have a problem with a measured balancing of the playing
34:59
Speaker 7: field in relation to tariffs. Again, it's just been done haphazardly,
35:02
Speaker 7: but I did feel it this week for the first
35:04
Speaker 7: time and you realize why it's called a tax.
35:07
Speaker 2: Uh.
35:08
Speaker 7: So, you know, I'm on the board of a local
35:10
Speaker 7: nonprofit and we ordered some let's just say it's patio furniture.
35:13
Speaker 7: We have no idea where it comes from. And we
35:15
Speaker 7: deal with a company in the United States. Yeah, it's
35:19
Speaker 7: a dealership. We have a sales middleman and then they
35:22
Speaker 7: get the product from somewhere. So we got our our
35:24
Speaker 7: payment order this week gets emailed to me. Just for
35:27
Speaker 7: whatever reason, I'll sellinary. So you have the usual like
35:30
Speaker 7: you know, X amount of dollars per unit, and then
35:33
Speaker 7: you have I don't know if there was sales tax,
35:35
Speaker 7: there might have been a spot for sales tax or
35:37
Speaker 7: use tax.
35:38
Speaker 9: Uh.
35:38
Speaker 7: Then there was freight, you know, which is of course
35:41
Speaker 7: they'd already quoted us the price months and months and
35:43
Speaker 7: months ago. I got ready to ships and you got freight.
35:47
Speaker 2: You know.
35:47
Speaker 7: It's then there was another line. It just said tariff
35:50
Speaker 7: with no explanation, and it was ten percent of the
35:53
Speaker 7: of the gross price. And uh, I thought that was
35:57
Speaker 7: interesting because that I have no way to say is
36:01
Speaker 7: that it's not like sales tax. Really, we say, well,
36:04
Speaker 7: you know, we're not in the city of hurricanes, so
36:06
Speaker 7: we only pay six percent instead of seven percent sales tax.
36:09
Speaker 7: And there's confusion because of that. For example, our zip
36:12
Speaker 7: code might be a hurricane zip code, so out of
36:13
Speaker 7: state vendors just assume we're in a municipality when we're not,
36:17
Speaker 7: for example. But I have no way to go back,
36:19
Speaker 7: and they can charge a tariff in essence at tax
36:23
Speaker 7: if they want, because it's not a tax being remitted
36:27
Speaker 7: like consumer sales taxes to someone else.
36:29
Speaker 2: So, uh, we'll be interesting. That's but we're all going
36:32
Speaker 2: to start to feel that soon. And and.
36:36
Speaker 7: That's why you've heard some folks economists, et cetera say
36:40
Speaker 7: it's a tax, because ultimately that was it wasn't It
36:42
Speaker 7: wasn't a bump up in the price really on paper,
36:47
Speaker 7: but there's actual a line item for tariff at ten percent. Now,
36:50
Speaker 7: I mean, what would it be if it was some
36:52
Speaker 7: of the components of this furniture comes from China. Is
36:54
Speaker 7: it going to go back to one percent or we're
36:58
Speaker 7: going to pay you know? But it's just that's what
37:01
Speaker 7: we're going to start to see. And so hopefully, hopefully
37:05
Speaker 7: that will get straightened out for too long and there'll
37:07
Speaker 7: be some evening out and prediction on what's going to happen.
37:11
Speaker 2: But time out out of time.
37:12
Speaker 6: Yep, out of time. Okay, that's Tom paying from the
37:14
Speaker 6: Paython Law Firm. Past and give Tom a call any
37:16
Speaker 6: questions that you have about the law, how you can
37:18
Speaker 6: put the law on your side. The Payton Law Firm
37:20
Speaker 6: is available three zero four seven five com p E
37:22
Speaker 6: y two and Payton Law Firm dot com. You can
37:24
Speaker 6: also leave an email at that site and Tom and
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Speaker 6: uh Harvey. We'll get to it.
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Speaker 8: Tom. Thank you so much of your Tom. We appreciate it.
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Speaker 2: Glad to be here. See you next week.
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Speaker 8: We'll see you next week.
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Speaker 6: That's the Payton Law Firm on five A d w
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Speaker 6: c HS, the Voice of Charleston dab on five DY
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Speaker 6: Live is up next. Have a great day everyone, finding
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Speaker 6: d w c HS amninty six point five.
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Speaker 2: That's in Charles Stick one oh four point five Cross
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Speaker 2: Lane by w VRC Media Station. We're proud to live
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Speaker 2: here too,