Speaker 1: The Justice Department is appealing a Texas federal judge's decision
Speaker 1: to invalidate the Affordable Care Act requirement that private health
Speaker 1: insurers fully cover preventive health screenings at no cost to patience.
Speaker 1: This comes four years after the same judge, Rit O'Connor
Speaker 1: of the Northern District of Texas, tried to toss the
Speaker 1: entire ACA as unconstitutional. Of course, the Supreme Court reverse
Speaker 1: that ruling. O'Connor's latest decision kicks off a case that
Speaker 1: could also wind up at the Supreme Court and has
Speaker 1: financial implications for some one hundred fifty million Americans on
Speaker 1: employer sponsored health plans. Here's White House Press Secretary Karine
Speaker 1: Jean Pierre, it's yet another attack on the ability of
Speaker 1: Americans to make their own healthcare choices. Efforts to undermine
Speaker 1: us requirement are wrong, and they take us backwards, not forwards.
Speaker 1: Joining me, as Lawrence Gostin, Faculty director of the O'Neill
Speaker 1: Institute for a New National and Global Health Law at
Speaker 1: Georgetown University, tell us about this decision, what kinds of
Speaker 1: services it affects. It affects a whole host of highly
Speaker 1: effective prevention services. These include things like cancer screening, pregnancy care,
Speaker 1: they involve HIV medications, datons, hypertension screening. Basically, anything that
Speaker 1: a patient would go to the hospital for what to
Speaker 1: their doctor for to prevent disease that has very high
Speaker 1: cost benefit ratio would be on the chopping block. So
Speaker 1: this is really serious. Of all of the attempts to
Speaker 1: dismantle the Affordable Care Act, and basically it's had eight
Speaker 1: trips to the United States Supreme Court, which is unprecedented,
Speaker 1: almost one hundred attempts to repeal it. And now this
Speaker 1: Wou've got the most important part of the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: which is prevention. And it's important to mention that prevention
Speaker 1: is mentioned more than two hundred times in the Affordable
Speaker 1: Care Act. That's the heart and soul of this law.
Speaker 1: And here we've got a very conservative judge, known hostile
Speaker 1: to the AA, who's in the past struck the whole
Speaker 1: law down, only to be overturned, issuing a nationwide injunction
Speaker 1: against preventive care services. So does this potentially affect not
Speaker 1: just people who get insurance through Obamacare but all Americans
Speaker 1: with private healthcare coverage. Yes, it includes most people with
Speaker 1: private health insurance, and that private health insurance. Now, I
Speaker 1: don't anticipate that insurers will stop covering these, but I
Speaker 1: do anticipate that many of them, not at all, will
Speaker 1: charge a hefty co pay or deductible. And that may
Speaker 1: not affect the richest people, but we know that for
Speaker 1: low and working class Americans, they will stay away from
Speaker 1: their doctor if they have to pay for these prevention services.
Speaker 1: Was this legal challenge brought on religious grounds, because I
Speaker 1: don't see what all these preventive care services have to
Speaker 1: do with religion. They were brought on two grounds. One
Speaker 1: was that the United States Preventative Services Task Force was
Speaker 1: not duly authorized, appointed by the President, ratified by the Senate,
Speaker 1: and doesn't have enough oversight by the Secretary for the
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services. And the judge role
Speaker 1: that the United States Preventative Service, this task Force, which
Speaker 1: recommends these cost free prevention services, that have violated the
Speaker 1: Constitution's appointments clause. And then there was a separate claim
Speaker 1: saying that pre exposure prophylaxis known as PREP that actually
Speaker 1: reduces the risk of HIV from sexual transmission by nearly
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent and from indirection jug used by at
Speaker 1: least seventy four percent, But that violates religious freedom because
Speaker 1: somehow they would be complicit in encouraging behaviors like homosexual
Speaker 1: behavior or drug injunction behavior that they don't agree with, which,
Speaker 1: of course is as a horrible slippery slope if applied
Speaker 1: to all healthcare services. Judge O'Connor's reasoning in other opinions
Speaker 1: has been ridiculed. I mean, what is he basing this on.
Speaker 1: Do you think that this has any staying power? I
Speaker 1: think it's a very weakly reason opinion, And ordinarily I
Speaker 1: would just say, well, don't worry about it. It'll be
Speaker 1: overturned on appeal. But that's far from certain that this
Speaker 1: will happen, because it's going to a very conservative court
Speaker 1: of appeal, the Fifth Circuit, and it's also going to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, possibly maybe likely, And both the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuit and the Supreme Court has been increasingly sympathetic to
Speaker 1: religious freedom claims, and they've also been quite aggressive in
Speaker 1: attempts to clawback public health and safety authorities and the
Speaker 1: administrative state. And so while perhaps the appointment's clause would
Speaker 1: not fare well with the Supreme Court, it could be
Speaker 1: widened to the non delegation doctrine, where there's considerable support
Speaker 1: in the Court saying that, you know, Congress didn't delegate
Speaker 1: sufficient criteria for the task force to make its decisions,
Speaker 1: But in view, it did because it basically told this
Speaker 1: task course to use science and the best available evidence.
Speaker 1: And after all, what more would the American public or
Speaker 1: Congress expect to make decisions about which services to provide
Speaker 1: no cost, but how effective they are and what the
Speaker 1: evidence is for them. So this seems to me something
Speaker 1: that I'm worried about for in its appeal. It could
Speaker 1: be devastating for the Affordable Care Act and for the
Speaker 1: help of the American population. But I'm not one hundred
Speaker 1: percent certain that a very conservative judiciary is going to
Speaker 1: be sympathetic to the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has grappled with the Affordable Care Act before and refuse
Speaker 1: to strike it down. Do you think the composition of
Speaker 1: the current court is so different that is concerned. Yes,
Speaker 1: the composition of the Court is very different. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're remember, in the most consequential, the very first attempt
Speaker 1: to overturn the ACA, it was saved by the Chief Justice.
Speaker 1: But the Chief Justice is no longer in the majority
Speaker 1: of the Court, and there are at least five justices
Speaker 1: that seem to be emboldened and don't really have the
Speaker 1: same level of respect for the institution of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court as as Chief Justice Roberts has. So they've spent
Speaker 1: the last term and the current possibly decisions coming up
Speaker 1: that really dismantle the administrative state, from public health and
Speaker 1: safety in COVID rules through to the environment. And so
Speaker 1: I think we should not take for granted that the
Speaker 1: ACA is saved and will be saved. And particularly it
Speaker 1: would be a great tragedy if, of all of the
Speaker 1: various attempts to dismantle and weaken the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: if the heart of the Act, which is prevention, were
Speaker 1: to suffer this kind of blow. And remember, prevention is
Speaker 1: really cost effective. It's cheap, it prevents just for example,
Speaker 1: it's splashed cervical cancer rates by something like seventy five.
Speaker 1: It's prevented tens of thousands of HIV infections. It's help
Speaker 1: people survive from high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems, women
Speaker 1: with cervical cancer or breast cancer. These are really fundamental
Speaker 1: services that Americans rely on. Wouldn't insurance companies want to
Speaker 1: keep those services to prevent higher costs down the road.
Speaker 1: You would think so, and that's why I think it's
Speaker 1: very possible that insurance companies will continue to cover for them.
Speaker 1: But they may very well, many of them is not.
Speaker 1: Most of them charge large co pays and deductibles, which
Speaker 1: will persuade particularly poor and working class Americans from seeking
Speaker 1: these kinds of cost effective preventive services. You know, being
Speaker 1: an insurer in the United States today is that as
Speaker 1: a risky game because people keep changing their insurance and so, yes,
Speaker 1: it may be that if somebody was going to stay
Speaker 1: with an insurance company for their whole life, that it
Speaker 1: would be better to do prevention. But if an insurer
Speaker 1: pace for prevention and then somebody goes to another insurance
Speaker 1: company and they benefit, the math doesn't figure for those
Speaker 1: insurance companies. Before the ACA, all I can say is
Speaker 1: that there were many insurers that did not cover these
Speaker 1: preventive cares, these preventive screenings, and most them charge significant
Speaker 1: copes and deductibles. We may see a return of that,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's possible that you know, tomorrow or
Speaker 1: next week or next month, a woman will go for
Speaker 1: a PAP snear or breast cancer screening, or a man
Speaker 1: will go for a prostate cancer screening enough fun that
Speaker 1: it's not covered. So what I find a little bit
Speaker 1: confusing is that, you know, the Republicans were out to
Speaker 1: get Obamacare right for lack of a better word, and
Speaker 1: it proved to be so popular across the nation. So
Speaker 1: why are they still attacking it? I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: a really popular program. It is. There is a total
Speaker 1: disconnect in your question is absolutely well taken. You would
Speaker 1: think after all of twelve years of the Affordable Care Act,
Speaker 1: it's almost unfashionable to think that it's still being attacked.
Speaker 1: It is widely popular, but there are still you know,
Speaker 1: deeply conservative pockets of opinion, their minorities, deeply religious opinion
Speaker 1: again their minorities. But it only takes you know, one person,
Speaker 1: one business to bring a lawsuit, and it only takes
Speaker 1: one judged issue a nationwide injunction, and then the rest
Speaker 1: of it is a lottery. We don't know what the
Speaker 1: appellate courts are going to do or what the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court is going to do. And we've seen in just
Speaker 1: this last term some real significant inroads into the administrative state.
Speaker 1: This is not the same Supreme Court that we you know,
Speaker 1: saw in the heyday of the Roberts Court, where there
Speaker 1: was a certain balance where there was caring about the
Speaker 1: institution itself and not straying too far off of its lane.
Speaker 1: We're not seeing that now, and that's why I think
Speaker 1: every American needs to be concerned. The Biden administration has
Speaker 1: said it's going to appeal this, and I take it
Speaker 1: a lask for the injunction issued by this judge O'Connor
Speaker 1: to be stayed. Is the Fifth Circuit likely to grant that?
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that the Fifth Circuit would grant it.
Speaker 1: If it didn't it, I think it would be a
Speaker 1: huge overreach, because you know, given the fact that you've
Speaker 1: got a law that's been in place for twelve years,
Speaker 1: that these services are so widely embraced by the American public,
Speaker 1: that they're so cost effective, that you would think that
Speaker 1: until it could be a thorough review of the merits,
Speaker 1: that they would stay it. So I think it's possible
Speaker 1: that that will happen. I'm just not convinced about what
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circule will do when it decides on the merits.
Speaker 1: This opinion. Whether it's because of the day it came
Speaker 1: out in the midst of all the Trump news, but
Speaker 1: it didn't get that much attention. And I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: it's because people have become inured to these attacks on
Speaker 1: Obamacare and they just think, oh, another attack, it'll be fine.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it, you know. But you know,
Speaker 1: I can tell you that I had an op ed
Speaker 1: due to run in a very major news outlet, and
Speaker 1: they told it because like it or not, former President
Speaker 1: Trump seems to suck all of the air out of
Speaker 1: the room. That was part of it. I think part
Speaker 1: of it is just fatigue with the attacks on the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act and just assumption that everything will be
Speaker 1: all right. But also there was this huge bombshell for
Speaker 1: American democracy that seemed to have crowded out a lot
Speaker 1: of the discussion. We assume it it's going to go
Speaker 1: up to the Supreme Court. How long will it take?
Speaker 1: It depends on how long was this circuit takes and
Speaker 1: whether there's been expedited appeal. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: possible that it could happen within months up to the court,
Speaker 1: especially if you have at stake something so consequential to
Speaker 1: the health and safety of the American population. We're not
Speaker 1: talking about something trivial. Here we're talking about something that
Speaker 1: will cost lives, and it could cost a lot of lives.
Speaker 1: And again, this is from one judge in Texas. We've
Speaker 1: seen this time and again. How one judge in Texas
Speaker 1: issues a nationwide injunction. Yeah, that affects us all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's remarkable. I mean, one judge in Texas. Another
Speaker 1: example is that you know, the CDC issued a mask
Speaker 1: mandate for airplane travel, and one judge in the middle
Speaker 1: of Florida issues a nationwide injunction and pull the whole
Speaker 1: plug on it, and we still haven't had an appeal
Speaker 1: on it, decision on appeal. So yeah, this, you know,
Speaker 1: we really shouldn't have a single conservative or liberal judge
Speaker 1: be making national policy that has such consequence for the
Speaker 1: American population. It's just simply wrong. And I think the
Speaker 1: American public should really recall, recoil in horror at the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, one conservative lay judge in the
Speaker 1: middle of the country can take down in the entire
Speaker 1: edifice of preventive healthcare in America. And we're waiting for
Speaker 1: a judge in Amarillo, Texas, Matthew Kesmark, to see whether
Speaker 1: or not he's going to issue a nationwide injunction against
Speaker 1: the abortion pill and basically overrule what the FDA he
Speaker 1: decided decades ago. Absolutely, I'm keeping a closed eye on that.
Speaker 1: And you've got a you know, an FDA approved medication
Speaker 1: more than fifty percent of all abortions or through that
Speaker 1: abortion medication. There's another example of or a single federal
Speaker 1: judge with the health of American women hang in the
Speaker 1: balance because of one judge. It just it defies common sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've gone from forum shopping to judge shopping, looking for
Speaker 1: specific judges to bring these cases too. Thanks so much, Lawrence.
Speaker 1: That's Lawrence Gosten, Faculty director of the O'Neill Institute for
Speaker 1: National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. Prepaid call
Speaker 1: from odd Non. Sayed's case became famous and suspect because
Speaker 1: of the twenty fourteen podcast serial. Then last September, Sayed
Speaker 1: walked out of prison to serving twenty three years for
Speaker 1: the murder of his former high school girlfriend. It seemed
Speaker 1: like the case was over in October when prosecutors dropped
Speaker 1: the charges against him, saying DNA evidence had excluded him.
Speaker 1: But then last week, the Appellate Court of Maryland reinstated
Speaker 1: Sayed's conviction. The reason the victim's family hadn't received enough
Speaker 1: notice of the September hearing where Sayed won his release,
Speaker 1: said has said, the appeal just increases the suffering for
Speaker 1: both families. We definitely understand that Hayes family has suffered
Speaker 1: so much and they continue to suffer, and I just
Speaker 1: it's just that we suffered too, and we just hope
Speaker 1: that the court today just takes notice of that they
Speaker 1: were a family that suffers. Also joining me is Appellet
Speaker 1: attorney Stephen Klepper, a principle with Craymon and Graham. Why
Speaker 1: was Sayed's murder conviction reinstated last week by the Appellate
Speaker 1: of Maryland. What happened was that the Appellate Court of
Speaker 1: Maryland decided that the victim representative, mister Lee, who is
Speaker 1: the brother of the victim, Hayman Lee, that he received
Speaker 1: inadequate notice. It was one business day before the hearing,
Speaker 1: it was a Friday before a Monday hearing, and the
Speaker 1: infringement on his rights under the Maryland Victim's laws was
Speaker 1: that he was only able to attend by zoom rather
Speaker 1: than in person. Because he desired to attend in person
Speaker 1: and everyone else was able to attend in person. As
Speaker 1: I understand it, the judge allowed him to address the court,
Speaker 1: which the law doesn't expressly give victims the right to
Speaker 1: speak at these kinds of hearings. So it seems like
Speaker 1: a technicality, a procedure. He did attend by zoom. So
Speaker 1: this whole thing is about him not being able to
Speaker 1: be there in person. Yes, that is actually it. And
Speaker 1: for so many years we've talked about criminal justice rights
Speaker 1: as in the Fourth Amendment, and the exclusionary rule is
Speaker 1: a technicality. What happened here was that the majority held
Speaker 1: in great detail that mister Lee did not have the
Speaker 1: right to address the court. He did not have the
Speaker 1: right to cross examine any witnesses, He did not have
Speaker 1: the right to present or attack any evidence. That was
Speaker 1: what he was arguing that he, as the victim representative,
Speaker 1: had that right, and all three judges rejected those arguments
Speaker 1: for what he said he was entitled to do at
Speaker 1: the hearing, and instead what the majority held was that, well,
Speaker 1: he has a right to dignity under the Marilyn Constitution,
Speaker 1: and that right of dignity was violated by the fact
Speaker 1: that he had to attend by zoom, when everyone who
Speaker 1: lived locally or had the means to fly in was
Speaker 1: able to attend in person. It's stunning to me because
Speaker 1: defendants appear for hearings by zoom, don't they They do,
Speaker 1: they did very much through the pandemic, and the court
Speaker 1: acknowledges that for the pandemic, many defendants who wanted to
Speaker 1: attend in person did not have that opportunity when their
Speaker 1: most precious rights protected by due presses of the law
Speaker 1: were at stake. And the court said yes, but the
Speaker 1: court was open and people were able to attend, And
Speaker 1: because mister Lee didn't have the required notice, it was
Speaker 1: an affront to his dignity as the victim representative. So
Speaker 1: it is fairly hard to wrap one's mind around. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I find very interesting here is
Speaker 1: that what mister Lee was arguing he had a right
Speaker 1: to do was to have the opportunity to prepare for
Speaker 1: the hearing, that he could present his best statement that
Speaker 1: he could, so that he could cross examine any witnesses,
Speaker 1: so they could put on any evidence of guilt or
Speaker 1: attack the evidence being put forward of actual innocence. And
Speaker 1: if that was the claim, which it was, well, then notice,
Speaker 1: so short may well have been prejudicial error. Prejudicial error
Speaker 1: means error that is not harmless. And much of the
Speaker 1: time what defendants do is they say, well, this right
Speaker 1: was violated, and the courts say, well, yes, your right
Speaker 1: was violated, but it is harmless error. And on the
Speaker 1: civil side all the time, there are many cases here
Speaker 1: in Maryland that say, well, yes, there was a right
Speaker 1: to have a hearing on this motion for summary judgment
Speaker 1: or motion to dismiss, But even though the court violated
Speaker 1: that right, you can't identify anything that would have happened
Speaker 1: differently had the hearing occurred, And so it is harmless error.
Speaker 1: And so the court has essentially done in rejecting mister
Speaker 1: Lee's contentions about what he had the right to do,
Speaker 1: and yet still reversing means that this is akin to
Speaker 1: what's called structural error. A structural error means it's impossible
Speaker 1: to have harmless error. This is structural and that just
Speaker 1: seems like a very strong ruling to me. So his
Speaker 1: lawyer says, they're going to challenge the part of the
Speaker 1: appellate ruling where Lee asked to be able to, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, actively challenge in court. The prosecutor's evidence that
Speaker 1: the case should be dismissed. But it seems like you're
Speaker 1: getting into a whole different thing if you start allowing
Speaker 1: victims to interfere with the actual merits of a case.
Speaker 1: I'm going to stick to the Maryland Constitution because of
Speaker 1: the Maryland Constitution does is that it gives the state's
Speaker 1: attorney the exclusive right to be the prosecutor in the
Speaker 1: trial courts, except when the General Assembly says otherwise. And
Speaker 1: what all three judges did was they look through and said,
Speaker 1: here are some parts where let's say a victim has
Speaker 1: a right to be heard, a right to present an
Speaker 1: impacts team, And they said, not even that is here.
Speaker 1: And so in this context, it seems quite a stretch
Speaker 1: to say that there was an affirmative right not merely
Speaker 1: to attend and to present an impact statement, but to
Speaker 1: act as a prosecutor when the state's attorney would not.
Speaker 1: And they're already are circumstances where the General Assembly has said, yes,
Speaker 1: we will have the Attorney General be the prosecutor. It
Speaker 1: will be someone other than the state's attorneyho will prosecute
Speaker 1: this case. But there has been no provision in this
Speaker 1: law for anyone to be the one to make arguments
Speaker 1: of guilt when the prosecution isn't. And that's a pretty
Speaker 1: conspicuous omission, because this statutory provision was created for situations
Speaker 1: in which the state's attorney believes that that the defendant
Speaker 1: has a right to a new trial or a right
Speaker 1: to acquittal, and so everyone understood that this would be
Speaker 1: something that would not be a traditional adversarial proceeding. And
Speaker 1: so the absence of something that would say this third
Speaker 1: party has the right to act as prosecutor, that's something
Speaker 1: that's just not there in the statue. The court's order
Speaker 1: to reinstate his conviction and sentence doesn't go into effect
Speaker 1: for sixty days, so during that time a new hearing
Speaker 1: will be scheduled. So if you look at this, the
Speaker 1: only thing that would be different in the new hearing
Speaker 1: is that young Lee would be given notice to attend
Speaker 1: in person, would be there in person. But there's a
Speaker 1: new States attorney in Baltimore. Could he have a different
Speaker 1: position on the case. It is possible, and I do
Speaker 1: not believe that mister Bates, our states attorney, has taken
Speaker 1: a public position on what his intent is. He previously,
Speaker 1: in the case of Keith Davis, junior, who had undergone
Speaker 1: five trials. He dropped those charges rather than doing a
Speaker 1: sixth trial, which was controversial in some quarters. And so
Speaker 1: what I don't know is whether he is going to
Speaker 1: do essentially the same thing with mister Sayed's case. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are sitting waiting, watching,
Speaker 1: and I believe reading the opinion that there would be
Speaker 1: jurisdiction to hold a new hearing during this sixty day period.
Speaker 1: And during this sixty day period, what could happen would be, yes,
Speaker 1: that the vacator would then be redone the same ruling.
Speaker 1: But even in that circumstance, mister Bates would then have
Speaker 1: the ability to decide, well, I'm going to retry rather
Speaker 1: than dismiss the charges because the Appellate Court of Maryland
Speaker 1: held that the prior dismissal was a nullity. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of times where prosecutors accept plea
Speaker 1: deals and the victim's family doesn't agree with the plea deal.
Speaker 1: So if you start allowing victims families to be the prosecutors,
Speaker 1: that opens up a Pandora's box. Well, from my perspective,
Speaker 1: yes it would. And at the same time, we have
Speaker 1: this constitutional right for victims to be treating, to be
Speaker 1: treated with dignity. And what the Pellet Court of Maryland
Speaker 1: held here was that yes, this was a particular affront,
Speaker 1: and it contained language that this was unique. Normally, the
Speaker 1: state's attorney has unfettered discretion to enter a Noah pross
Speaker 1: a dismissal of charges. But under these unique circumstances, it
Speaker 1: was a nullity. And in so many ways this case
Speaker 1: has created unusual legal questions. And what I certainly find
Speaker 1: frustrating here and that I've written about in Bloomberg Law,
Speaker 1: is that said keeps losing by one vote margins on
Speaker 1: matters that weren't really what the state or in this case,
Speaker 1: the victim were arguing. And so what I would have
Speaker 1: liked would have been many years ago. Many years ago
Speaker 1: I've wrote, right after Judge Welch had entered the new
Speaker 1: trial order, I've wrote an op ed in the Baltimore
Speaker 1: Sun saying, here are the reasons just to have a
Speaker 1: new trial. Don't appeal this, But they appealed it. And
Speaker 1: if we had had a new trial many years ago,
Speaker 1: instead of all of these people who very much believes
Speaker 1: guilty and people very much believes innocent, instead of them
Speaker 1: having to have that hypothetical argument, you could actually have
Speaker 1: had a trial in front of a jury, and now
Speaker 1: strange things just keep happening. What I would say is
Speaker 1: that reading the majority opinion, what they very clearly feel
Speaker 1: is that the state's attorney engaged in behavior that was
Speaker 1: designed to thwart a pellet refuel and that was very
Speaker 1: concerning for them, and a pellet courts do not like
Speaker 1: having their review thwarted. And at the same time, what
Speaker 1: Judge Berger kept saying at the oral argument and essentially
Speaker 1: in his opinion is the criminal defendants have rights too.
Speaker 1: Due process is there for the criminal defendants. That is
Speaker 1: what has always been written in the US Constitution and
Speaker 1: in the State Constitution. And so having this very strange
Speaker 1: finding here that mister Lee had no right other than
Speaker 1: to simply be present, and that it harms his substantial
Speaker 1: rights in a way to render a nullity what happened
Speaker 1: before because he had to attend by zoom rather than
Speaker 1: in person. It's just odd and it is very hard
Speaker 1: for me to imagine any other case that would have
Speaker 1: generated such an odd opinion. And for so long I
Speaker 1: have heard people say, well, you know, as mister sayed,
Speaker 1: who is trying to exploit that that this case has
Speaker 1: received an unusual amount of attention and so wants special treatment. Now,
Speaker 1: my response to that usually is is that, yes, mister
Speaker 1: Said's case received an unusual amount of attention, and it
Speaker 1: resulted in finding evidence that really draws into question the
Speaker 1: predicate for his conviction, and even the state recognized in
Speaker 1: the prior appeal that yes, they would have had to
Speaker 1: prove a different time when Heymn Lee died, a completely
Speaker 1: different timeline. And my response in all of this is
Speaker 1: is that, well, maybe this means that there are more
Speaker 1: people in prison who are innocent than we want to admit,
Speaker 1: and that mister Said should not be penalized for the
Speaker 1: fact that this has drawn so much publicity. Maybe what
Speaker 1: this should do is is to cause us to say,
Speaker 1: are there too many barriers for people to prove their innocence,
Speaker 1: particularly when they are serving a life sentence. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being on the Bloomberg Law Show. That's Stephen Klepper of
Speaker 1: cra and Graham and that's it for this edition of
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the
Speaker 1: latest legal news by listening to our Bloomberg Law podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at
Speaker 1: www dot bloomberg dot com, slash Podcasts, slash Law. I'm
Speaker 1: June Grass. When you're listening to Bloomberg