Today on Better Call Saul, it is non-stop. We got lemon pound cake, we like pretty girls, we got just we got all of this and more. It's a full docket. Stick around, but before we begin, remember to like, subscribe, hit that notification bell. You are not going to miss this one even if you got high. Let's get after it.
All right, Jim. Sometimes the content gods shine upon you and a story just drops into your lap that is perfect for your show and Afroman's legal case is that. I mean, I was going to follow it, but then I got high. You know what I mean?
No, that's I mean this is gold. It's gold. I mean even as someone I was on trial for the week and I you know, you get out of court, you'd be like, man, the last thing you want to do is more legal drama and I was just watching every minute of this. I mean it was just It had every element you'd need. The costumes, the testimony, the jaded ex-wife testimony of the cop, the evasive cross-examination, the lawyer. I mean that lawyer looks like he's like Grizzly Adams Sons of Anarchy casting, but like then threw a suit on him. I I don't even know where to start. I don't even the lemon pound cake.
Lemon pound cake. Lemon sign me up. I would be eyeing that lemon pound cake. Liquor low Lisa and Randy Walters is a son of a Unbelievable.
Randy Walters, I got to tell you that, man. Talk about who's having a bad week. He is having a bad week out there. That is just People are going to know that name now, you know?
So, if you don't know the story, a couple years ago police raided the music artist Afroman's house on uh uh suspicions of of like human trafficking.
Human trafficking, drug dealing, kidnapping, drug dealing, weapons possession. Yeah, they had a whole kit on that search warrant.
But that's the part of the story Was that that was a tip or was that police uh you know, uh corruption? Or how did they start?
But they did have a warrant and they were searching under the warrant.
They they seize 4,000 bucks but when it gets returned it's $400 short. He goes through the security footage in his house and finds them you know trying to eat his food and going through his stuff and then makes songs about the police department for three straight years.
And gets sued for defamation, is on trial in a American flag costume looking like Don King.
Even his deposition testimony was brilliant. His testimony on the stand was brilliant. It was well done. It was clearly I mean aside from the fact you can tell he's an intelligent guy and his ability to sort of answer questions the right way. He was also well prepared. I think his lawyer did an excellent job. I have to tell you like you look at his lawyer and you look at that guy and you go like all right this guy doesn't look like I I wear the lawyer costume. I look like a lawyer. If you put the sleeves down and you don't see the tattoos I look like I'm right out of inherit the wind.
Yeah. But I'm telling you there are lawyers out there like don't sleep on them. Like do not judge a book by its cover. Like there is a lawyer who will remain nameless that practices here in New York with me who just looks like a bag of smashed Like this guy looks like they just rolled him out from under the bar literally. Yeah.
He's wildly overweight. He's just always looks like he hasn't showered in three or four days. His suits are just terribly ill-fitting. And his even his car is like the most beat up car and when he gets out of it like cigarette packs and food falls out and it's it's literally like it's just something out of central casting of of like okay this is the like worst assigned attorney you'll ever see. The guy is an incredible trial lawyer.
Incredible. Like it was like I have watched him just light somebody up on cross-examination. He knows evidence like the back of his hand. He'll quote the civil procedure law and rules like off the top of his head. Like 3101D. Like and you just go What? What you What happened? And meanwhile, there are some lawyers that they look the part and they go in and they're just like boom, you know, they just do not have the special sauce. So, I got to tell you this lawyer to me was an example of someone that I'm like, I can't wait to see what this guy's got and then he's just conducting a masterful examination. His cross, he set up all the traps where he basically got the person to commit to the fact that they knew that this was a joke or parody that they don't actually believe this stuff. But, I mean some of the testimony is just you cannot believe it's in a court of Well, let's let's prove a clip of the a song monster and says there's a monster.
In that song. Comedian. He exaggerates for the sake of entertainment. The same thing I knew when I was watching Johnny Carson, the late night show, and SNL, Saturday Night Live, with my grandfather when I was a kid. That's all entertainment. Him saying like, who would take this man seriously, your honor, about his own client is an awesome move.
Well, and you know what I'll tell you is he did a really good job even with the costuming of making himself intentionally clownish. Like if he'd gone into court the way some people go into court, which is with this very formal demeanor, it would create the air that what he has to say is said with gravitas. And I think the fact that he went in with this deliberately clownish way, that is not an original concept. I mean, if you study like The People vs. Larry Flynt, there was an excellent film made about that many years ago with Woody Harrelson in it and Ed Norton, where, you know, it it covered the People vs. Larry Flynt, which was a criminal trial against Larry Flynt, who was the publisher of Hustler magazine, and he was being sued for defamation by Jerry Falwell because he had made a an ad, a pretend ad that implied that Jerry Falwell had engaged in incest with his mother in an outhouse, and it was clearly parody, but he was sued for it. And there was also he was also charged criminally for obscenity and some other things. So, it was an amazing trial because Larry Flynt intentionally went in with like crazy clownish antics. You know, he wore a T-shirt one day to trial that said I wish I were black. He did like he did crazy things in the courtroom. He wore an Uncle Sam outfit one day, and it was with the intention it was setting precedent for something like this to essentially drive home that yeah, I'm I'm I am deliberately a provocateur. It's kind of the same thing Milo Yiannopoulos has done, right? Which is to say like yeah, I say outrageous things cuz that's what I do. That's my thing. I'm a troll. Well, this is a way of sort of using that trollishness as a defense to say no one would take me seriously.
As much as we were all rooting for Afro-Man, right? Nobody wants to be on the police's side. But I did think to myself, they executed a warrant. Right? Like they didn't It wasn't illegal. Yeah. Um you know, he felt wronged and then says you you know, you're cheating on your wife and all these things like that kind of did feel like defamation to me, you know?
Yeah, I mean you have a right to express your opinions. Like I have a right to get up like you have a right to get up and say I think Jim Sexton is an You have a right to that opinion.
Opinions vary widely, I have to tell you. Probably even in the comments section. Go ahead and read it. I'm certainly not going to. But yeah, I mean look, you're allowed to express that you know, you are allowed to say to a police officer, hey, I think you're an and I think you're a pig or whatever awful things you want to say to a police officer. I wouldn't encourage it, but you're allowed to say that. We live in a society where you know, we have that level of free speech. Now, you know, did he have a right to be as offended as he was by the behavior that they engaged in? Look, if they had a good faith basis to get a warrant and then to execute that warrant and the things they did to like break down doors and stuff like that, if they were doing that for a legitimate law enforcement safety purpose, then you know, is holding them up to public disrepute uh you know, is something justified? Again, morally? I don't know. Legally, it's absolutely justified. Legally, he's allowed to do what he did. Morally, should he do what he did? I don't know the answer to that. That's a very personal subjective assessment. I mean, I I don't know if they had, after this occurred, apologized for it and said, "Look, we had bad information and we handled this poorly. We're going to repair the door. We're going to, you know, give you some compensation because this isn't your fault." Then that would be probably handled differently. The bottom line is this wouldn't have caught fire the way it did if they hadn't sued him.
Like they sued him for defamation.
The bear poked a real bear with with him because I think when they sued him for defamation, it's clear that his response to that is "Wait a minute. I have no recourse against you, but you're going to sue me for the harm you felt when I did something to you after you did something unjustified to me? Like people have a right to feel the way they're going to feel about that." Um look, do do I think everyone in this situation probably wishes it didn't happen? I would imagine cuz I even Afroman who's enjoying sort of a renaissance as a function of this and who the hell was talking about Afroman before this on a regular basis, but he's on everyone's lips now. Um Would he wish that this hadn't happened? I imagine. I mean, his children were home. He he testified in his deposition to the fact that this was incredibly upsetting for his family and um I can imagine it must be terrifying and invasive to have law enforcement break down your door and you didn't actually do anything wrong that would merit it. That must be. But again, I I also don't want to vilify law enforcement for doing the things that they do. If there's a reasonable suspicion that was high enough that they were able to get a warrant, and they're just there to execute the warrant, you know, don't shoot the messenger, literally. Like they're they're there to execute a warrant. They're not the ones who issued the warrant. One of the best pieces of this case before we move on is the ex-wife.
