Latest / Dumb Defenses / 17. A Six-Pack and a Ghost
Transcript
- Frankie: Hello and welcome back to the Dumb Defenses podcast, where we go around the world and through time to bring you the weirdest legal theories. I'm Frankie. Judah: And I'm Judah. Frankie: And I think Judah's got our fresh hell for this week. Judah: I do. And I wanna talk about it but I'm really sorry to all of our listeners, especially all of our lawyer listeners, because this is a math related fresh hell. Frankie: And we went to law school 'cause we don't do math. Judah: We don't no. I don't like math. Frankie: Yeah, no. Judah: math is good though. If you like math, congratulations. So to Frankie: You can become a QDRO attorney. Judah: Yes. and make a lot of money. Today I want to talk to you about the domestic debt servicing feedback loop. My sources Yeah, yeah, yeah. My Frankie: Even even that title makes my brain hurt. Judah: sources are the Monthly budget release from the United States Senate called Growth of the National Debt for September 2026, which has so much math in it. But Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: also the American Action Forum article, Interest Payments on the National Debt, The Near and Long Term Outlook by Jordan Herring. Bless you, Jordan, for explaining this to me. And net interests costs will double again over the next decade. An article from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Frankie: That sounds like word salad to me. Judah: Okay, it's so this is all right, okay, let's take let's step let's step it back. Let's talk about math. Let's talk about why you should care about this. Because our national debt payment, like the interest payments that the United States government made on our national debt. Just a few years ago. Frankie: Which is like several trillion dollars at this point. Judah: It's about thirty five trillion dollars. Frankie: Jesus Christ. Judah: right now but the amount that we paid in interest just a few years ago was about two hundred to three hundred million dollars and what we're looking at today is that the interest that we pay on our national debt is a trillion dollars and by twenty thirty six it's anticipated that it'll be two point one trillion dollars Yeah. Frankie: Isn't this all just like fake money anyways? Judah: It's not fake money, it's real debt. So, Frankie: Okay. Judah: do you know the difference between the deficit and the debt? Frankie: No. Judah: the common analogy, which is how when I asked Frankie: Hmm. Judah: Google to explain it to me like I'm dumb, somebody explained to me, is think about it like a credit card. So over the Frankie: Mm. Judah: course of a month, your charges for that month that you don't pay, that's a deficit. But your total outstanding balance for your credit card is the debt. So the deficit is the amount of money that the government overspends for a fiscal year that they did not collect in taxes for one year. But the Frankie: Okay. Judah: total amount is the national debt. Frankie: Whether or not you have the money to pay for it. Judah: Yes, so just this staggering amount of money is not just because of the increase to the national debt which has happened. The the federal government continues to overspend what it takes in. And a lot of that that we've seen you can Frankie: Is the fucking Iran war. Judah: It's not fucking Iran war, it's the changes to the taxing structure that Trump enacted in both of his terms. Frankie: yeah, 'cause apparently you actually need money to run a government. Who knew? Judah: Yes. And how the debt is structured is it's divided between long term bonds, short term bills and notes. So about 50% of our national debt is in notes. And 22% is in short term bills and only 17% is in long term And because the interest rate is going up, like our economy sucks, our interest rates are rising, when notes and short-term Frankie: Right. Judah: bills turn over, you have to refinance them at the new interest rate. So we're not locked into an old interest rate. And so we're seeing that even things like from the pandemic, longer-term things are turning over. And then we're getting turnovers in these short-term bills and notes. So in 2021, our interest payments were $352 billion. And today they are a trillion dollars. Frankie: Jesus Christ. Judah: And the amount that we pay in interest rose from 1.6 of our gross domestic product for the nation, 1.6%, and it's 3.2% in 2025. and it's expected to be 4.6% of our gross domestic product by 2036. And if you think about that in the staggering amount of dollars that is our gross domestic product as the United States, what we're paying. On the interest on the bills is growing and growing and growing. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: So more and more of our dollars are going to go just to interest payments that aren't even taking down the national debt, but that we have to pay. That's why you should care about it. The Frankie: Well, it's like the first several years of a amoritized mortgage schedule, you're paying essentially interest with very little principle. Judah: Right. And we are not taking down the national debt. It is growing and now these payments are ballooning because the interest not just is the debt's increasing, but the interest rates that we're paying on the debt is increasing. so to pay that down, we either need to find a way to increase gross domestic product so there's more taxes going in to pay down which is not happening or we need to allocate and change a law to allow the federal government to spend more dollars to pay down the national debt. Frankie: does that have to do with like moving the debt ceiling and stuff? Judah: so the debt ceiling is how much debt we're allowed to have. And Frankie: Yeah. Judah: instead of bringing the debt down, all we're doing is allowing the federal government Frankie: Raising the debt ceiling. Judah: to have more and more debt. And the result of that is not just like, hey, we've got a bill and it's just sitting out there. Like I think people have this idea that this national debt is kind of this imaginary thing that doesn't have real consequences. It has real consequences. We are paying just interest on the national debt and that interest is consuming an alarming amount of money. And to put things into perspective, there are estimates that say it would cost, and this like depending on the source, it would cost about a trillion dollars to institute nationalized health care. or universal health care. So if you think about that we are spending on just an interest rate on a national debt, what it would take for people in this country to have universal health care instituted, Frankie: That's horrific. Judah: it's alarming. And so when I wanted to talk about the fresh hell like this is not being publicized and I'm not a math person. So I wanted to explain this to a fellow not math person to say of our Frankie: What the hell? Judah: of our list of things to be concerned about, the national debt is one of them, and it's Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: extremely alarming, and so it's another example about how our current like non-functional taxing structure is going to be penalizing the American public for a long time. 35.2 trillion dollars is a huge amount of money, and that we're paying here, here's just a trillion dollars every year. We're not even taking that down. And every year, whenever you see the debt ceiling, Frankie: And it's not going to anything. Judah: it's not going to anything. It's going nowhere. We are paying bankers, we are paying people that own and a lot of them is other countries that own our notes and our bills and our bonds. Frankie: I mean, doesn't like China still have war bonds from like World War II that they could bankrupt us with at any moment? Judah: Well, I mean there's different agreements and there's a lot of things and I didn't do that much research, just the long story short, but we owe an alarming amount of money and every year and every time the interest rate changes and the interest rate goes up, not only are like more people screwed out of being able to potentially purchase their own home, but even if you aren't doing that, we have the national debt out there and That is getting bigger and bigger. And even if the national debt didn't get bigger, because the interest rates are going up, our payments on the national debt without taking the national debt down are still getting bigger and bigger. Frankie: And that money can go to so many other things that Judah: Right. Frankie: would actually help people than just again putting money in the pockets of other countries. Like this whole the tariffs will fix everything. No, the tariffs is money paid by us to other countries in order to import goods. Like I said couple of weeks ago, I get one of my meds from overseas. Every time I get meds I have to pay them thirty bucks for their tariff recuperation fee. Judah: So our deficit predicted for the fiscal year of 2026 is another $1.9 trillion. So we are charging on a credit card that we cannot pay. And if you'd like more, I can include the Yes you do. Frankie: Yeah. Because you need money to run a country. It costs money. Judah: You could also go, and I I guess we could include this if you really want to get nerdy. And I looked at all of this for you. You're welcome. You're welcome that I had to read all this. Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: The Congressional Budget Office Economic Outlook Report for 2026 to 2036. I looked at that with my own eyeballs for you, the listener. And nobody has sent me a cookie Frankie: I'm so sorry. Judah: recipe yet, and I made myself do math. Frankie: I'm gonna double check the email to see if they don't think there was anything. Judah: And so that is our what is the fresh hell this week, Frank. What do you think about that? Did you know about that? Frankie: I did not. My eyes generally glaze over when it comes to economic stuff. we did get an email in the inbox. It is not a cookie recipe, it's somebody selling us something. Judah: Well, just say, if you want to send me your favorite cookie recipe, I've only been asking for months now. And I well, shut up. I looked at all these numbers. I looked at all these numbers and nobody sent me a cookie recipe. And that Frankie: Yeah. Judah: is our What in the Fresh Hell this week. I want to say now that at the end, we're also to balance What in the Fresh Hell out. At the end of the program, we are gonna be adding a segment. called Light at the End of the Tunnel to give you a little good news. So we're gonna end with light at the end of the Frankie: Yes. Judah: tunnel. And now on to you, Frank. Talk to us about something that I already forgot even though we talked about it yesterday. Frankie: Yesterday for us, last week for everybody else. I am doing the case of Jouppi v. Alaska. this is a case that has to do with Alaska's relationship with alcohol. And so I'm gonna do a little bit of a historical background for y'all. the sources that I have are A Short History of Alcohol and Bars in Alaska by Doug Vandergraft. I looked at the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office web page for Alaska. And then I looked at the Alaskan Supreme Court case and SCOTUS blog. So Alaska has had a long and sordid history with alcohol, going all the way back to the late seventeen hundreds, early eighteen hundreds, when it was owned by Russia. And so Russians were trading with the Aleutes, and the native Aleutes would accept liquor in exchange for furs, whale blubber, fish, et cetera, et cetera. The US bought Alaska from Russia in eighteen sixty seven and promptly passed the Alaska Act of eighteen sixty eight, which made it illegal to import liquor to the territory. In eighteen seventy three, Alaska was deemed Indian country which made further illegal to sell alcohol because you couldn't sell alcohol to any Indian or Alaskan native. The law required that violators be brought before a judge within five days. However the nearest judge was in Oregon. So enforcement was pretty much impossible. Judah: And also said you you couldn't import alcohol, as we learned readily from our several prohibition related Frankie: Yeah. Judah: episodes that we've done, making alcohol is very easy. Okay. I'm jumping in too soon with the you can make alcohol anytime. Frankie: Well, we're getting there. Yeah. Right. So so instead of enforcing the laws that you can't import or sell alcohol in Indian country, the army that was stationed there taught the natives to spike their traditional beverage by adding molasses and yeast. This concoction, rumored to have begun in the Tlingit village of Hootchenoo, was named hoochinoo and is where the term hooch originates. Yaa Judah: We're learning all kinds of facts today. Frankie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. that was a fun little factoid I was like, I did not know that. So Alaska was granted its own government by the Organic Act of 1884, which restricted all alcohol except for medicinal and scientific purposes. But again, there weren't really resources to enforce it. And then you start getting saloons and all that kind of stuff that we talked about previously. so after the gold rush of 1898, Congress repealed all of Alaska's prohibition laws, making way for licensing of bars and alcohol sales. In 1912, Alaska became an official territory of the US. I'm not entirely sure the difference between when the US just owned it and when it became an official territory, but I digress. Communities began to vote to prohibit the sale of alcohol again. And similar to how we talked about several weeks ago, with the national prohibition movement, politicians were essentially tying all the woes of the territory to alcohol and the saloon lifestyle. Unfortunately, this then led to the bone dry law, which prohibited all alcohol sales, leading physicians to complain that people were dying of the flu because they couldn't prescribe any medicine containing alcohol. As can be expected, bootlegging and moonshining took off because of the lack of ability to actually enforce the laws. Speakeasies were popping up everywhere, including thirty to forty in Anchorage, which at the time only had 1900 occupants. Judah: I mean so Alaska still most of it is very much like very Frankie: Very remote. Yeah. Judah: remote, self sufficient, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: very outlaw, anti government, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: certainly the horrors that we've inflicted upon the native Alaska villages, wouldn't endear the federal or likely state government to make people be like, listen, I'm a hundred miles from something. You can only get here by sled dog from the next closest Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: large town. I'm definitely gonna follow the law. Frankie: Right, right. And it like all along it's been enforcement issues, right? And especially since like before they were even a state, it was like, Hi, the closest magistrate's in Oregon, good luck. Judah: For our international listeners, we're sitting in Oregon and if we wanted to go to Alaska, we'd have to fly over all of Canada to get there. the whole height of Canada, we have to go all the way to Canada just to get the bottom of Alaska. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So thirty to forty speakeasies in Anchorage, which had nineteen hundred occupants at the time. Again, I don't generally do math in public, but that's like one for every twenty people. Judah: No no it's not. it's alright, yeah, we're not math people. We are great lawyers. We're Frankie: Alright, pulling out our phones. Judah: great lawyers. Frankie: Nineteen hundred divided by forty is forty-seven and a half. I was close. Judah: Yeah. Yeah, so for every forty and if you think that some of those people are children, that Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: you think like you and forty of your friends are drinking so much that you're keeping a speakeasy open. Frankie: A single speakeasy open, yeah. So lots of speakeasies, lots of bootlegging, lots of illegal alcohol. on April 7th of 1933, the territorial governor repealed the bone-dry law, initially only for beer or wine, but liquor was soon also legalized, and so then began licensing varying levels of bars, cocktail bars, which are two different things, etc. This level of liquor control ensued through statehood and up until 1979, which is when the state legislature allowed individual communities to decide whether or not they wanted to allow the sale and importation of alcohol. So in 1986, that was extended to individual communities to determine whether they wanted to prohibit individuals to possess alcohol. So there's a difference between selling and importing and possessing. The Alaskan Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office now differentiates between dry communities where alcohol is not allowed, period, and damp communities where there are some limitations on alcohol. This local option law allows individual communities to determine whether or not they are dry, damp, or wet. So that's our background. Judah: Nobody's moist. Frankie: I found like one source that said moist, and I was like, no The Judah: Moist moist. Frankie: law says damp. The law says damp. Judah: Okay, nobody's moist. Frankie: Nobody's moist. so Kenneth Jouppi, who is the subject of our case, owned a small airplane that he used to taxi people between the remote communities in Alaska under the name KenAir LLC. This was his air taxi company. He had a flight chartered from Fairbanks to the village of Beaver, which is a dry community, and one of the passengers brought three cases of beer on board. both Mr. Jouppi and KenAir were charged with bringing alcohol to Beaver and were convicted at trial. But there was conflicting evidence over how aware of the beer Mr. Jouppi would have been, but the jury concluded that there was one six pack in an open grocery bag that he should have known about. So this is essentially over a six pack of beer. he was sentenced to a hundred and eighty days in jail and both Judah: He got six months in jail for a six pack. Frankie: Yep. that's not the horrific part of this. So he was sentenced to a hundred and eighty days in jail, and both he and KenAir were sentenced to both probation and fines. As a condition of probation, he was not to transport any alcohol to any dry county or to consume any alcohol. a no intoxicants clause is pretty common across everywhere when the crime involves some sort of intoxicant, even if it's like a delivery and you're not using, they'll include the no intoxicants clause. So the court also initially required that pursuant to Alaskan law, the aircraft utilized in the commission of the crime must be forfeited, but upon reconsideration, the trial court did not impose the forfeiture because the alcohol had been seized in Fairbanks prior to departure and thus it wasn't a completed delivery. And so the trial court felt that that didn't fall within the mandatory forfeiture law of the aircraft. The state appealed and the Court of Appeals reversed finding that the statute required forfeiture, even if the delivery was not completed. So that's the first trip. Judah: So they took so they took his Frankie: That's Judah: airplane. Frankie: Yes. That's the first trip up to the appeals court. on remand, Mr. Jouppi then challenged the forfeiture under the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment in its entirety reads Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. So we usually, you know, just generic, like everyday people, if they think about the Eighth Amendment, generally think of it as cruel and unusual punishment, but it also has this excessive fines clause. And so based on that, the trial court held an evidentiary hearing and ultimately decided that forfeiting the plane constituted an excessive fine. Judah: I would agree with that. It's Frankie: Yeah. Judah: a six pack. What did it cost? Four dollars? Frankie: Right. and another important part of this is that the court found that the plane belonged to the individual and not to the company. And that plane was valued at $95,000, which is nine and a half times the maximum ten thousand dollar fine that could be imposed on a person. Had it they Judah: So they pierced the corporate veil. Frankie: did. Had they found that the company owned the aircraft. That fine could be up to five hundred thousand dollars. So it would not have been excessive. Judah: So I'm gonna talk about piercing the corporate veil, so yeah, Frankie: Yeah, 'cause people don't know what that means. Judah: okay, it's a legal term. So if you own a business and your business is an L L C which is a limited liability corporation, or like an S Corp or a C Corp, it exists as a separate thing from you individually, even if you own it. So like Frankie: So remember back when we were talking about sovereign citizens, how they had their person entity and the federal corporate shell entity. It's like that but for real. Judah: But for real, yeah, 'cause they're taking something that is an actual thing. So your business is separate from you as a person. So if your business gets sued and you have personal assets, even if like you got paid from the business, that generally speaking, people cannot come after you personally for something that your business did. But there's certain circumstances where somebody can come after you personally, like the government, or if you're getting sued, Frankie: and usually these are in situations where it is a sole proprietor company. So this dude, you know, Ken Jouppi, Judah: Yeah. Frankie: was the only person who owned KenAir. Judah: And so they're saying that, yep, we're gonna pierce that corporate veil, we're gonna go straight through the LLC, protections from his LLC, which in this case was good for him. It's usually Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: very bad for you, and say that you as an individual own this airplane, it doesn't belong to the company. So that that's Frankie: Right. Judah: why it's limiting the amount that they can find him. Frankie: Right. And what's a little bit weird about this case is that it wasn't a civil suit, it a criminal action, and the company was also charged criminally, which happens occasionally, but generally more in terms of like white collar crime stuff. but anyways, the court found that he owned the plane, not the company which would have had a much higher ceiling on its fines. The court further found that while serious, the volume of beer, a total of 1,152 ounces, only 72 of which he was quote unquote willfully blind to, think six twelve ounce beers, could have been for personal use and not for sale. And thus it was not so egregious as to warrant the forfeiture. Right? You had a couple of cases of beer, people were going to visit family. It's not like they're going there to sell alcohol in a dry town. They're going there to consume the beer themselves with a couple of family members, right? So the state appealed again, and the Court of Appeals vacated that ruling and remanded for a second time for further proceedings. stating that the trial court had not applied the correct test for excessiveness in determining whether the forfeiture was, quote, grossly disproportional to the gravity of the offense, end quote. they also had remanded it because in this evidentiary hearing the trial court refused to hear evidence from the state, which is not great if you're trying to not have your thing reversed on appeal. ultimately the Court of Appeals found error in the trial court not taking into consideration what would have happened had Mr. Jouppi actually completed the delivery. This is, you know, how Oregon deals with deliveries. It's like, but you coulda, therefore it's completed delivery. Judah: Well, we had like a three year window. Tine Tiny window and then the legislature changed the law. Yeah. Frankie: We had a beautiful brief window when that was determined to be unconstitutional under the Oregon. And then the legislature's like, we're gonna fix it. Anyways. On remand, they gave the trial court direction to determine whether forfeiting the airplane would deprive Mr. Jouppi of the ability to earn a living, and if they conclude that a full forfeiture of the airplane would be excessive, to consider the state's argument about a partial forfeiture of the airplane. Not entirely sure how that works. They didn't go into it. Judah: Just one wing. Just give us a wing off the airplane, it'll be fine. Frankie: Right. So Mr. Jouppi appealed from that Court of Appeals decision, the one that remanded the second time. He appealed that to the Supreme Court of Alaska, arguing that the trial court should have been affirmed and that the idea of a partial forfeiture should not be considered. The state then cross-appealed, so there's both sides are appealing, arguing that the straight reversal was appropriate. As full forfeiture is constitutional, and the state supreme court granted a hearing on both the appeal and the cross appeal. That's what in Alaska they call granting certiorari If we're talking about like the federal supreme court in Oregon, it's called granting the petition for review. In Alaska, they call it granting a hearing. So Supreme Court's gonna hear the case. The Supreme Court held that the forfeiture does not violate the Eighth Amendment, quote, because it is not grossly disproportional to the gravity of the harm caused by Jouppi's alcohol importation offense, end quote. In deciding this, this guy lost his airplane. Judah: So this guy lost his airplane for a couple cases of beer that he wasn't even taking anywhere, it was somebody else. Frankie: Yeah. So in deciding this, they first decided whether or not the forfeiture was a fine, so in order for it to be a fine, it would have to be a punishment for an offense, as opposed to serving some sort of a remedial purpose, which would be like a civil forfeiture. so what a civil forfeiture is, is that property involved in a crime by virtue of it having been involved in a crime can be forfeited. cases I that I've seen that kind of a thing in is in like drug deliveries. The state will file for a civil forfeiture of the cash involved in that. And you'll actually see on the docket like state of Oregon versus five thousand two hundred and fifty four dollars. Yeah. Yeah. Judah: Or like a Dodge Charger. State of Oregon V Dodge Charger. Frankie: So that's what a civil forfeiture is. So the Supreme Court of Alaska found that the forfeiture was punitive and therefore a fine because the state had moved against Mr. Jouppi personally and not just against the airplane, and that the purpose wasn't to compensate the government for a loss, and that on its face it was just a part of the punishment. They then go on to proportionality to determine whether it's excessive. And remember, it must be grossly disproportionate in order to be excessive, because the legislature had made this rule that must be deferred to and that the court's weighing is inherently messy. They essentially said, a court weighing things is imprecise. We need to follow what the statute says. They also observed that gross disproportionality arguments rarely win. So a non-exhaustive list of factors to be weighed. The nature and extent of the defendant's crime and its relation to other criminal activity, whether the defendant falls among the class of persons for whom the statute was principally designed, other penalties that might be imposed on defendant under applicable provisions of law, and the nature and extent of the harm caused by the defendant's offense. So, they went through each of these in turn. The nature of the crime was knowingly transporting alcohol to a dry community. They found that weighed in favor of forfeiture not being grossly disproportionate. The class of persons targeted by the statute, yes, this is exactly the behavior and type of persons that were targeted by the statute. Interestingly enough, had he imported the alcohol via ground vehicle or watercraft. Forfeiture is only required if he had a prior conviction of a list of convictions, but with an aircraft it's mandatory for everyone. I guess because aircraft are more mobile, I don't know. It didn't really explain it. So because he falls so squarely into what the statute was looking at, that weighs in favor of forfeiture not being grossly disproportionate. Whether or not there are other fines. they said it's only nine and a half times the maximum fine. they were comparing this to case law where the forfeiture was like magnitudes more. It was like the maximum fine was like one or two thousand dollars and it was millions of dollars is the case law that they're going off of. So like in comparison, this isn't that bad. and so they found that it's proportional to what the legislature intended and therefore that factor also weighs in favor of the forfeiture not being grossly disproportionate. And finally finally, the nature what? Judah: I was just gonna say, like, we're we're getting real lawyery. I keep going on mute because I have a gigantic cat on my lap and he meows qu Frankie: I know she pretty. Judah: this is Pippin. He he's eighteen pounds, he's not fat and we didn't know he was gonna get this big when we adopted him from the bucket of kittens at the adoption event. so someday we're I think we should do a whole episode on civil forfeiture because it's grossly misused Frankie: Yeah. Judah: and people are losing their homes, you know Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: things that are completely unrelated to the crime that you don't know about. Like you could just lose 'cause if if it's deemed remotely tangentially related Frankie: Yeah. Judah: that the government of states, federal government seizing homes, cars, tens of thousands of dollars, things that were not used in the commission of a crime. But if you have something that is necessary to the crime, like the drugs themselves. So like Frankie: Like it. Right. Judah: if you have an illegal object or a hard drive containing child sex abuse material, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: that seizure what they're taking is a different kind of seizure and those are ultimately destroyed. Like Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: so like drugs that are seized are ultimately destroyed. Child sex abuse materials and any hard drive containing that content because it's illegal is incinerated. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: This is for Frankie: Yeah. Judah: the government's benefit, that they're taking this guy's airplane, his whole business, his whole livelihood, because he flew some people who were visiting family and they wanted to take some beer to a dry community. Frankie: Yeah. And so like the the first two factors I'm like, yeah, okay. The third factor I was like, mm, this is getting a little This last factor that they talked about pissed me off. The they're talking about the last factor of the nature and the extent of the harm. They talked about alcohol abuse in rural areas leads to increased crime, alcoholism, fetal alcohol affective syndrome, and death. And quote, substantial harm to public health and the administration of justice. And because of that, they found that forfeiture was not grossly disproportionate. And that is making a mountain out of a molehill. He was convicted Judah: This guy is Frankie: of like there were there were multiple, but he was convicted of a single six-pack of beer because that was the only one that they thought that he should have been aware of. Judah: Yeah, so like people are sneaking alcohol. Frankie: And it didn't even like it got seized before he took off. It didn't even get there. Judah: This This is completely absurd. And to say that like, this guy who is taking so he didn't purchase the beer, he didn't receive any financial benefit from the beer, he Frankie: One of his customers snuck it onto the airplane. Judah: so what we're talking about in essence is that he should have known about a six pack of beer and either did it and allowed it on or didn't but should have. And he loses his entire livelihood, a nearly one hundred thousand dollar airplane, plus legal fees for all of this, because at its core what the state is trying to do is say whenever we seize something, no matter what or no matter what the justification is, that we get to keep that thing. And this could Frankie: Yeah. So Judah: happen to you. Frankie: right. So the Supreme Court refused the Court of Appeals order to remand because they said any additional findings of fact wouldn't change their mind. they said the most persuasive issue of he would lose his livelihood was essentially given up when Mr. Jouppi testified that he had largely retired and if he got the plane back he would probably sell it. And there was also no evidence that the forfeiture forced his hand into retiring. He also owned a second airplane for his company. Now, even if he would have just sold it, that's ninety five thousand dollars he would have had in his pocket, right? Like it's still something of value. Judah: And this guy, he doesn't own like a whole fleet of planes. It's not a large company. Frankie: Two he has two planes. Judah: it's him. it's an old guy who's taking people from one place to a different place, because there's a lot of places in Alaska that are only accessible by aircraft. Frankie: Yeah, air taxi is a thing. Judah: Yeah, it's a normal, regular, ordinary occurrence. I am so mad because this is just some guy with a small business. Frankie: Well, there's potentially hope. So he Judah: Okay. Frankie: has petitioned for certiorari with SCOTUS, and SCOTUS granted it, and it has been added to their twenty six twenty seven term. The question presented is quote whether in determining whether a fine contravenes the excessive fines clause, which holds the amount of the fine must bear some relationship to the gravity of the offense that it is designed to punish. Courts may consider the gravity of the underlying offense purely in the abstract or should consider the gravity of the specific defendant's wrongdoing. So, when this comes back around sometime next summer, we'll revisit it, and hopefully Mr. Jouppi can get his plane back. Judah: This is stupid. this is an absolute waste of government resources. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: and them keeping after that is like this is a show of force that if we take something Frankie: It's ours. Judah: it's ours no matter what. Okay. Well stay tuned. Frankie: Yeah. So stay tuned when it comes back around. that will be my case for that week. We will see what happens. Judah: I'm gonna be honest, I am not afraid for the public safety for some old guy in an air taxi with a six pack. Frankie: A six pack is not going to wreak havoc. A six pack's not gonna cause somebody to have alcoholism. Judah: No, it's not gonna significantly contribute to any kind of harm, especially since the facts showed that these were people visiting their relatives who Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: were gonna maybe drink a few beers over the holidays. It's Frankie: Yep. Yep. Judah: not like I'm gonna go, I'm gonna give this to a six year old and and then Frankie: Right. It's not yeah. It Judah: I'm gonna let them fly this plane. As people how many people, how many of our listeners have taken alcohol to a family function? I'm guessing a significant proportion have. Frankie: Right me I gave out wine at my first wedding. Judah: we had a dry wedding, but Frankie: I was in a wine making kick and I wound up making a really good like cranberry cinnamon wine and I had like two cases of it and I was like, I'm not gonna drink all of this so I just put it in the family's baskets. Judah: I mean I'm sure they enjoy it. I think I remember sampling that when you made Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: it. anyway, so okay, I'm so mad for this guy. This is st this is so Frankie: I know, right? Judah: stupid. alright. Well w st Frankie: Stay tuned, hopefully we'll have good news in the spring. Judah: hopefully we'll have good news in the spring. since this episode is gonna be coming out right before the gay Christmas season, better known as spooky season or Halloween. I will be doing Frankie: This is Halloween, this is Halloween. Judah: I will be extending our celebration for the spooky season by doing spooky or spooky adjacent cases from the time you're listening to this to the episode that's due to come out closest to Halloween. So we are celebrating gay Christmas for the long haul. this is our advent for Halloween. Frankie: He Judah: And we're extending it. So that's the promise and I'm gonna start with a pretty famous case, but you might not have heard of it. It's State V Shoe, better known as the Greenbrier Ghost. Frankie, have you heard of the Greenbrier Ghosts? Frankie: Mm. Judah: Okay. So our tale takes place in Greenbriar, West Virginia. in 1897. So gonna situate us. You can actually read large portions of this case. I was able to find recordings of actual testimony Frankie: cool. Judah: Well, not I mean like written recordings, not actual vocal recordings, but s Frankie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, but still. Judah: some of the actual testimony. I'm in an article which I'll send to you, Frankie, so our listeners can read this very interesting portion of testimony. So, the good news and the bad news, like when we're always fact checking things, is this case is known as the only case in American history where a ghost was allowed to testify. Okay, Frankie: Yeah. Judah: that's not actually true. There was no ghost testimony in this case, but I think that the the facts are actually cooler than what it's known for. So background. Elvira Zona Hester met a blacksmith named Edward Shue in West Virginia. And he whined and dined and charmed her. He's pretty new to the area. And over her mother's objection, because her mother already did not like this guy They get married. Yes. And it wasn't. Yes. Frankie: That's actually like a big thing at that point in time. Judah: there was an age difference. There was some concerning things about this man, but Elva just fell in love with him and decided to marry him. It's kind of unclear from the articles exactly how long before. Elva's body was discovered, spoiler alert, that they got married, but it wasn't a very long marriage. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: In 1897, Elva is discovered by an errand boy who Edward Shue actually sends to the house, dead in a kind of unusual position at the bottom of their staircase. The Eren Frankie: Like crumpled like she fell down the stairs. Judah: it was sort of made to look like that. Her body was kind of contorted, her head was at an odd angle, her arm was at an odd angle, there's blood there. And so the errand boy runs back and gets Edward, who comes back to the house, and the the doctor slash coroner, not a large community, it is one guy Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: comes to the house to check it out. I forgot to pause here for my sources. I used How Ghosts Evidence Convicted a Murderer from the Huffington Post by Gary Rogers. Not a ghost, I'll get to that. Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: an interesting article from Metro News, The Voice of West Virginia. The Greenbrier Ghost is an odd West Virginia tale by Dave Weekly. And from An article from Appalachian Historian.org, The Greenbrier Ghost, What The Records Really Show by Alex Hall. I did mostly rely on the Hufton Post article and this Appalachian Historian article. I just thought they had some better set of facts, but they're all they're all very interesting. So it's January. This woman's only 23 years old when she's discovered. Dr. George Knapp. comes to the house to examine her. And by the time the doctor gets there, Edward Shue has already redressed his wife. He's changed her clothes and he's moved her body to the bed. Frankie: That's not good. Judah: So she's redressed, different outfit, and has been placed in their bed. And she's been dressed in a really high neck dress and Edward is hysterical and is like cradling her head and refuses to move or really allow the doctor to examine her. And so out of respect And Sadie is making spooky husky sounds in the background. Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: that's the the doctor doesn't really push it and also doesn't really get the suspicious elements that are already happening here. And so Frankie: Yeah. Judah: he stops his examination, Dr. Knapp stops his examination and diagnoses this woman with Everlasting faint. That's how she died. Is everlasting faint. Frankie: Is that like the old timey equivalent of your heart gave out? Judah: It unclear. It is a truly fake diagnosis. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: then this woman, who whose married name is actually Shue, but I refer to her by her maiden name, has a traditional wake. so a wake for people who don't know is like a pre funeral tradition that is very common amongst many cultures and is very common in the American South where people gather in a room where the body is laid out and pay longer respects, frequently accompanied by things like heavy amounts of alcohol. So she has a wake, and the people who go to the wake notice that Edward Shue, whose nickname is Trout, so obviously he was hella cute, is being weird AF. When the casket's opened for people to come view, because it's a wake, people come look at the body, they touch the body, they say things to the body. She's wearing this high neck dress, he insists on putting a pillow behind her head and immediately just drapes a scarf across her neck. And so they're like, Okay. Frankie: This tells me that her throat was slashed. What? Judah: No. And then she's buried. So it's he's being weird with the doctor, he's being weird at the wake, he's not been charged with anything, she gets buried. Cut to her mother, Mary Jane Heester, or Hester, not sure how to pronounce it. This lady already dislikes this guy, and then her daughter, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: who's only twenty three years old, dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances. So according to her story, she prays to the Lord every night for four weeks for God to show her the truth about how her daughter died. And after four weeks of praying, her daughter appears to her in a vision. She insists she is not asleep, but appears to her in visions, in a set of visions, and tells her so ghost telling mom the circumstances of her death. Frankie: Hehehehe. Judah: And reveals a history of her husband's physical abuse. So the ghost tells mom that okay he he's got a history of physical abuse. He was physically abusing me. And he was really angry when he had come home that day that I that there was no meat with dinner, but then explains that there was all these jellies, and that Edward Shue. Strangled Zona and the ghost told her mom crushing her windpipe and snapping her neck at quote the first joint. Frankie: Ooh. Judah: And in the vision, Zona turns her head a hundred and eighty degrees to demonstrate that that Frankie: That her head's not attached anymore. Judah: her head's not attached anymore and her neck was snapped at the first joint. So Mary Jane goes to the local prosecutor. John Preston and tells him about this vision and is very, very insistent. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: So the prosecutor looks into it and reopens the case based on the fact that there was not sufficient review by the coroner. and exhumes the body. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And they find evidence of bruising, a crushed windpipe, and a dislocation of the neck, showing evidence that the neck was snapped. Preston's investigation also found out that Edward Shue did have a history of violence, he'd Frankie: Mm. Judah: served prison time for assaults and theft, and had been married twice before with another wife dying under mysterious circumstances. Frankie: Jesus. Judah: And apparently also had been making comments to locals to the effect of no one can ever prove that I killed Zona. Not a great start. Frankie: Yeah, it's not a great start. Judah: So this all comes out after the autopsy, which occurs February 22nd, 1897, with the cause of death being changed after that autopsy from everlasting faint to basically being killed by manual strangulation compounded by a broken neck. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And the evidence was that her Her first and second cervical vertebrae were fractured. So this mom had not had a chance to examine the daughter's body, had already said these things to the prosecutor, Frankie: And it all just lined up. Judah: and it all lined up, coming out to be true. So Edward Shue is put on trial for murder. And Preston, the prosecutor, is like, hey, I'm not gonna call mama to Frankie: Mom. Judah: the stand. I don't want these visions being put into evidence at all. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: Just all this other evidence. But the defense counsel decides to put her on the stand to try and discredit the state's evidence. And yeah. Frankie: Put mom on the stand to try and discredit it. Good luck with that. Judah: And it had the opposite effect. To what the defense intended. Frankie: I mean, yeah, had they talked to her first? Judah: I don't know what they were thinking, but the jury winds up like what it looks like is really believing that this mom had genuine visions because Frankie: Mm. Judah: she provided information to the state and all it Frankie: That there was no way she could have known. Judah: there's no way she could have known that came to be true. It's all true. So there so we have just citizens, local citizens who are coming and they're like, You know what, instead of making this woman look crazy, you've now made us believe that God has intervened, allowing Frankie: Right. Judah: a vision of this young woman that compelled her mother so much that the state reopened the case and everything she said turned out to be true. And I will send you the article that has a portion of the defense's questioning of Miss Frankie: nice. Judah: Heaster so Mr. Shue was convicted of murder instead of being sentenced to death, he was sentenced to life in prison and wound up dying in prison a few years later. But absent this mother's intervention, which Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: she on the stand and had consistent testimony said was a vision that God gave her of her daughter, and insisted she was not asleep, that man would have gotten away with murder. Frankie: Again. Judah: Again, he never got convicted of the mysterious death of his first wife. Frankie: Mm. Judah: and this includes the judge cautioned the jurors in trial not to take these visions as fact. Frankie: Right. Judah: and gave instructions about the reliability and credibility of the spectral evidence. Frankie: Right. Judah: And yet the jury was only out on a murder case for a little bit over an hour. Frankie: Wow. Judah: So they only deliberated for an hour and ten minutes before coming back into the courtroom and saying, This guy is guilty of murder. He died of disease three years after. And Frankie: So I just want to explain my reaction to this, right? So and granted, nowadays murder trials have significantly more evidence, like autopsy reports, lots of science stuff, right? But generally, like the joke is on misdemeanor, low felony cases, that if you can confuse a jury for an hour Even if it comes back as guilty, that's still a win for the defense. An hour on a an hour Judah: Yeah. If you can't baffle an out Frankie: on a murder case is wildly short. Usually murder cases there's deliberations for days. Judah: Yeah. If you've got a bad case and the jury stays out for any amount of time, you're like, heck yeah, I did a great job. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: so yeah, days of deliberation, jury asking to re examine evidence, ask questions from the court. Super normal. This is a murder case, very high level. The jury's out for an hour and ten minutes. Which is just like Frankie: That's baffling. Judah: Yeah. So why I think this case is more interesting than a ghost testified, a ghost did not testify, but that this woman claimed to have had these visions, had a very consistent story, was compelling enough for the prosecutor to reopen the case for valid reasons because the coroner did not do a proper examination, and Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: then her visions and the information she gave, which was very specific. Very, very specific, included medical information and Frankie: Mm. Judah: information about this guy's past, that this mom had no other way of knowing, came out to be true, and she got justice in death for her murdered daughter. And that is the kickoff to our spooky season. Next week I'm gonna be talking to you about the real horror of the Frankie: That's two weeks. Next Judah: Two weeks. Frankie: next week well we'll talk about next week in a little bit, 'cause Judah: Yes. Frankie: you have your good news or light at the end of the Judah: Yeah, so we're Frankie: tunnel. Judah: yes, so now we're doing light at the end of the tunnel to wrap up our case. We're gonna talk about Ireland's reaction to the Trump family. It Frankie: my god, it was beautiful. Judah: is so beautiful. so Trump has a golf course in Ireland and Ireland hates him. so much. There have been historical protests and people following him around, trying to make him have a bad time. this latest trip has been particularly impressive, with people carving messages into famous beaches, showing up at airports by the hundreds. Frankie: They in the dirt next to the landing strip of the airport carved like Trump Go Home or something like that. Judah: Yeah. pro-Palestine messages. Beyond that, this ties into the McClumer quote unquote controversy getting kicked off the Ed Sheeran tour that his backing band, Who is Irish, dropped out with a message Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: saying, you know, like, won't be silenced. Ireland once was in a position sort of similar to Palestine. We support Palestine and an Irish opening act. So all of Ed Sheeran's lost his entire band and all of his opening acts, but two of Frankie: Yeah, yeah. Judah: them are Irish who dropped out and gave very pro Palestine message. Country of Ireland is carving messages so Trump can see them as he's flying in. There are four to five hundred protesters outside of the airport. They are following him to wherever he goes and protesting Trump and also supporting the people of Palestine and opposing the genocide that's going on there, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: very much showing up for the American president in a way that he does not like, trying to make his stay as miserable as possible. Also I want to talk about the Melania documentary and what the Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: United Kingdom did there. They were the best. So the Melania documentary was sort of like force-distributed by this large media company, and it was in 155 theaters across the United Kingdom. I couldn't find Ireland specific details from this, but across the United Kingdom. across the a hundred and fifty five different theaters, the average theater ticket take per theater for the entire run was two hundred and twelve pounds total. Frankie: Which is like twenty people. Yeah. Judah: total for the entire run, which was beaten out by not even a re release, but showing of Return of the King in the theater. So more people wanted to just see Return of the King. Frankie: In theaters. Yeah. Judah: On the big screen that they wanted to see the Melania documentary. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And I just want to share my thanks and gratitude. And also a fun fact the term boycott comes from Ireland, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Judah: and it is from when the English were taxing and raising prices on land in Ireland and trying to bankrupt farmers and trying to squeeze as much money out of the Irish people as they possibly could have. and there was a man named Charles Boycott who overdid it, and the people of Ireland decided as a collective, like an entire community, to ignore Charles Boycott. They wouldn't serve him, they wouldn't sell him things Frankie: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Judah: They wouldn't talk to him. He wound up having to be returned to England by the military. And the next year, the Oxford New English Dictionary included the word boycott in a reference to this specific person and his actions Frankie: Yep. Judah: and what the Irish people did to him. So the Irish people did invent not the practice, but the term of boycotting by just getting together as a large group and agreeing not to have any business dealings or Frankie: With this guy. Judah: or personal relationships with this man whatsoever, making his ability to stay in Ireland impossible. And I Frankie: Ha ha ha. Judah: appreciate that so much. Frankie: Yes Yes So Judah: So thank you to Ireland for all of your support. We appreciate it. Frankie: Yes, absolutely. I'm just double checking my calendar here. Yes. So next week we have another special guest host. Our friend Annette Smith is going to be on to talk about the troubled teen industry and what Judah: Which is spooky and scary enough. Frankie: it is really dark. Judah: Really dark. Frankie: the work that she has done to help not only locally, but she's also gone to DC and done some lobbying there as well. So that's gonna be a really good conversation. Hope you tune in for that. in the meantime, like, share, subscribe, and you can reach out to us at My brain just totally farted. Yes. Judah: Dumb Defense His podcast at gmail dot com. We're You can also reach out to us on our Facebook page, Dumb Defenses Podcast. Frankie's got an Instagram for us. I don't even have an Instagram. Frankie: so yeah, Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky, email us. We're still looking for cookie recipes. Judah: Me specifically, I did so much math for you and I haven't gotten a single cookie recipe. Frankie: Ha Judah: How dare you? Frankie: And we'll see you next week. Judah: See you next week. Frankie: Bye.