Elvis Casley, Jr. joins us on The Legal Lowdown.

Elvis Casely, Jr. stops by as a guest.  He is running for the 35th House Seat in the Georgia House.  Also, discuss 2025 crime statistics for the State of Alabama.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

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And all around good. Go in them. Alright, alright, alright.

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Today is January the 24th. You're listening to The Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram, your Alabama lawyer on WERC 1055 FEM, just off of the UAB campus and Regents Baseball Field, WBHP 102.5 in Huntsville, and WRTR 105.9 in Tuscaloosa. We welcome those in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa to our show. We had a tremendous amount of downloads in the last week. Kudos to Pam Casey. She was a great guest. A lot of people listened to that interview. She handled the interview well. And if you listen to her interview last week, there was a person that was sentenced this week up in Blunt County for a sex case of a child. He got life in prison. So she stuck to her guns. She stuck to what she said she was going to do. If you're listening to our show, you can download the podcast, share it, like it, download it, encourage others to tune in every week to join our broadcast. Starting in February, our show will begin videotaping it. So you can watch it on YouTube, you can watch it on TikTok, all these other social media platforms. You can start watching the show as well as listening to us on the radio. If you have a question, go to the iHeart app on your phone. That's the Spy for Rent Hotline. Spy for Rent Hotline. Jeff Hammock, Corey Fuller are the names to know. You can send us a question or a comment if you have on the Spy for Rent hotline. They are the best investigators in the state, and they are the ones that my firm uses exclusively. So they can help you if you have that need. We had a message off the hotline last week. Just do this real briefly. Her name was Emily. She has been married for 19 years. Her husband is the primary source of income. The home is paid for. Their child is about to go off to college. They have a sizable amount of money in his 401k. All the cars are paid for. He told his wife he's leaving in June. She goes, Joe, what do I do? Where do I start? Well, there's a lot to unpack there. Emily, best advice I can give you right now is talk to your husband, start gathering documents, as I always say. Tax returns, bank statements, W-2s, 401k statements, documents related to the house, evidence of all the incomes, assets, di uh liabilities, things like that, and then go see a divorce lawyer in March or April to prepare for what is coming. Our special guest today is a gentleman named Elvis Casely. He works with the Casely Group out of Miami, Florida. They create great video content for websites. He travels the country. He talks to attorneys. He interviews attorneys all the time. He's going to be our guest today. If you need representation, please call my office 205-825-5297. 205-825-5297. You can speak with an intake specialist and they will get you in for a consultation. My office represents people in divorce cases, people for alimony. We handle prenups, postnups, modification of divorce decrees, things of that nature. We've had a very busy January. We're off to a good start. We've already had 12 new clients for the year, and we look forward to representing those folks in the coming months. We also represent people in criminal cases statewide. We represent people in state court for felonies. We represent people in federal court that are charged with serious felonies. Those type of cases are everything from manslaughter to theft of property, robbery, drugs, drug trafficking, things of that nature. Federal crimes would be convicted felons and charged with having a firearm in their possession. We represent a lot of professionals charged with a licensing board issue, such as doctors, pharmacists, pharmacy techs, nurses, nurse practitioners, dentists, dental assistants, teachers, any licensing board in the state, we provide representation as well. We also represent people in municipal court. Municipal court is what I call money court, folks. I'm sorry, it is what it is. They're misdemeanors. They're either DUIs, domestic violence of uh, or possession of marijuana second. So that's a little bit about us. Uh let's introduce our guest. He just got into the studio. Elvis Caseley is running for the 35th uh House District over in Georgia. Elvis, you're in the house, man.

SPEAKER_04 5:56

Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic. I drove here this morning just to be here.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Elvis, tell the audience a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Well, uh I'm 31-year-old, husband and father to a beautiful wife and a little one-year-old boy. I was uh born and raised in Miami, Florida, but uh Georgia is my home now. And for a time such as that we're living in right now, I believe that Georgians are looking for somebody who actually represents them. Right? I'm not a career politician. I know you you introduced me as a candidate, but I'm not a career politician. I'm not some rich guy with a bunch of money behind me to push me to the top. Uh my team is not a big team, but it's the greatest team. It's my wife, my son, and God. Um and I I joined this race to make a difference and to actually represent the people of District 35 who not to be rude to the woman who's uh in char in the seat right now, but I call her Lisa Do Nothing Campbell because she's literally done nothing.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Well, Elvis, if you're gonna be in politics, you gotta get used to being a little rude. So I've been told. Okay, so let me ask you a question. Lisa Campbell has the seat currently. Yes. Okay, how long has she been in the seat?

SPEAKER_04 7:30

Uh she was elected originally in 22.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

22. All right. So this is her first time to defend the seat in election?

SPEAKER_04 7:39

This will be her second time defend defending the seat.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Okay. All right, very good. So, Elvis, um, as a young man, what what made you decide to put your toe in the water and do this? I mean, you you got a really good career what you're doing. What why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Uh I've always had a desire to get involved in politics and ha share my two cents with society. Um, but I never had a strong enough reason why to do so. Last year when my son was born and I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, man, I complain almost every day about politicians and whatnot, because I have friends and we have political debates all the time. And I'm thinking, if I'm going to Criticize uh a politician or the government or something like that, I should be able to put my money or my mouth where my money where my mouth is, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Right.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Um and my dad raised me and all my siblings to believe that if you're not willing to do something yourself, uh you can't complain about how somebody else does it. So if you're gonna complain, better do it yourself.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah. What is the geographic location for this district you're running for?

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Uh so it's Kennesaw, Ackworth, and like the top part of Marietta.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Okay. And so um how many people are running? Are you running as a Republican or Democrat?

SPEAKER_04 9:18

I'm running as a Republican.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Running as a Republican.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

And as of right now, I'm the only Republican in the race, and Lisa is the only Democrat. There's not another Democrat challenging her. And I would love to argue on her ideologies, but that in this situation, first off, ideology doesn't matter because she hasn't done anything for me to argue against, in the sense that there's no bill that she passed, there's no um thing that she pushed for that I can argue against, because she hasn't done anything for me to argue against. So even if she was a Republican, um, or even if I was a Democrat, I would be either primarying her or still challenging her for her seat, because representation uh isn't just about getting in and just hanging your coat on your uh party coattails, right? You go in there to do something. You go into politics because you have ideas of how to better society. And if you're not actively pushing for something, if you're not finding ways to get things done, then you need to step aside and allow somebody else to do it.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

So let so let me let me ask you this. Um presumably I would think she has a website. Yes. All right. Uh of things that she believes in or things that she claims that she's accomplished in her time in office.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

Yes. So right now, her website, I went to it just a few days ago, and it's a bit misleading because um when you go to her quote unquote record section of her page, it lists this long list of things. However, they're all from this year. So she decided the election year is the year that she's gonna start promoting stuff. And then you look at a lot of these stuff, and most of them aren't even her ideas. And this is what I mean by um hanging on to the coattails of her political of her um Democrat colleagues. Because she's just tagging along with whatever they say. She's not promoting her own ideas, she's just copying or going along with whatever they say. They say vote yes, she votes yes. They say vote no, she votes no.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Yeah. What is the uh makeup over in Georgia in the in the uh body? Uh is it pro is it a majority of Republicans or is it a majority of Democrats right now?

SPEAKER_04 11:53

It's a majority of Republicans.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

It is, yeah. Okay. So um if you were to win the primary, and if you don't have any opposition, then you'll be the Republican candidate. Uh what are some of the things that you feel strongly about, or what are some of the things that you want to to bring to the table to as part of his legislation?

SPEAKER_04 12:15

So for me, I think healthcare is a really big thing over the past year. Uh I've been getting into fitness. I saw a picture of myself playing with my son, and I'm a skinny guy. I've always been skinny. Uh, but I was bending over to pick him up or play with him. Then my wife took the picture and I said, delete that because I saw a gut, right? And then I was realizing I'm getting winded chasing after a six-month-old who can barely run at one mile per hour. And I'm like, if I don't do something now, I'm going to be, he's going to be 18 or older, and I'm going to have serious health conditions. And then I thought, how can I help other people prevent themselves from getting into that situation? Because besides my your health conditions, that comes with health care costs, and healthcare costs go through the roof with things like heart disease, diabetes, and just poor eating. A lot of the things that we deal with on the healthcare side are preventable if we just eat right and exercise. So I want to promote bills that push people and help people make that transition in their life easier. Promoting, uh, for example, one of my ideas was to have gym memberships and other fitness programs be tax deductible, right? Because if you're investing in your own health via going to the gym, eating right, that should come out as an expense because that is healthcare right there.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 13:51

And if we only look at healthcare as what the pharmaceutical company can inject in my veins, we're never going to get to a point where people don't need a pill for every other problem that they have. So one of my main priorities is to help push bills that promote people taking accountability over their own health and helping them make healthier choices easier.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Okay. Is there anything else besides uh health care that's really on the forefront of you running for office?

SPEAKER_04 14:27

The other issue I had, which was resolved uh temporarily by our current president, um, my sister is a uh athlete. She's a taekwondo athlete. I go to tournaments with her. We were in Wales representing the USA, and she took home two gold medals uh in taekwondo. And that was the beginning of years ago, my political shift from the Democratic Party to the Republican. Yes, shocker. Uh mic drop. I was a Democrat before I was a Republican. But um my big thing was making sure that we keep sanity in our sports and in our women's spaces. Regardless of how people choose to identify, it's nothing against them. But for me, on a safety level, it does not make sense to have my little sister go up against somebody even her own age who's a boy. That's I don't I I'm sorry, but I don't care how you identify outside of the realm of sports. That's do you. This is America, the land of the free, home of the brave, you do whatever you want. But when it comes to interacting with other people and their safety gets involved, that's when I feel the government is that's the only time I feel like government can get involved. When one person's liberty is trumped over another's just for a feeling. So that kind of is uh resolved at the moment with an executive order, uh, but I feel it can go a step further by implementing that hard law here in Georgia, which I think we uh in ways already do. Uh, but that was another of my main reasons for getting into uh politics.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah. Um so have you uh been out talking to your your nobers, your your neighbors, your voters, your electorate, the people in your district?

SPEAKER_04 16:30

Yeah, I've uh gone around knocking on doors. I've met a lot of great people. Uh it's a lot of fun uh getting into debates. I've talked to one gentleman, probably like five minutes up the road from my own home, uh, for a good hour in his driveway. Um and while the last thing I was just talking about was a social issue, though I do think it branches off into a safety issue, um, most people don't give a damn about social issues. Uh everybody's worried about cost of living, their home prices, the the taxes, the cost of food, the cost of rent. And I think right now what's getting lost in the sauce when it comes to politics are all the little things that actually make a difference in everybody's life. So I feel like these social issues about pronouns or uh who was wronged in the past versus who's being wrong now, blah, blah, blah. All these things are luxuries of a society that has everything going good as far as uh health care, cost of living, good food. If all those things are great, then we can argue all day long about social issues, but right now those things aren't great. So to argue about social issues is a distraction, and what I've learned from being out on the campaign trail and knocking on people's doors is that most people don't really care about the social issues. It's the economy stupid. Yeah, it's the economy stupid. Um so for me, I should I get elected into the Georgia House, I don't care if you're uh Democrat, Republican, Independent, Green Party, Rainbow Party, I don't care what party you're you're associated with. Uh the whole point of us going there is to represent the people. And to represent the people is to make their lives better with what we put forward. If we waste a month or however long the session is arguing social issues and not passing things just because the other side had the idea first, and we don't want them to look good in the next election because if this passes and people's lives get better, they're gonna thank the Democrats or they're gonna thank the Republicans. And we can't say so all that screws over us on the ground. Uh like I said, I'm not a career politician. Uh I don't have a whole bunch of backing, a bunch of people behind me. Um I'm just I'm just the neighbor.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

So let me ask you, how are you doing campaign-wise as far as dollars? Are have you got funds in your campaign right now?

SPEAKER_04 19:24

We have about$510.

unknown 19:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

At least you're honest. Yeah, because uh I don't le Lisa, she she has backing from out of state. Uh she got a whole bunch of money from pro choice uh organizations out of state. I think right now Planned Parenthood is backing her. Uh so she has everybody and their mother coming out of the woodwork, and I honestly don't understand why. It's we're we're just one district out of 159 of them. Um but I realize Through looking at her record, why they put so much money behind her is because she's just a yes person. Yeah. She's whatever they say, she does. And the day that she goes against them is the day she won't have that seat uh or their backing anymore.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

So do you think she sees you as a threat yet? Or do you do you think you're just gonna sneak up on her here at the last minute?

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Um I don't think she will she see me as a threat right now, and I like it that way. Yeah, I don't need uh her seeing me as a threat. It doesn't make a difference in what I do. That's like looking at the score uh in the middle of the game. So she may or may not see me as a threat. It makes no difference to me.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Have anybody in uh politics over in Atlanta or Georgia come to you and offer you any backing yet for the race?

SPEAKER_04 20:54

Um they haven't offered backing, but they uh because the my candidacy in this race is uh only a few weeks old. Right. Um but I was at a uh young Republicans uh meeting last night and I met with some great people, uh people who work for senators and whatnot. So I will be having meetings with the Republican House caucus and whatnot, and uh trying to get some backing through them, and then everybody else around will follow suit, especially after the primary when I'll be the only Republican in the race. Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Well, good for you. All right, so folks, you're listening to The Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram on WERC 105.5. We're spinning the first segment today with Elvis Casey. He is running for the 35th House district over in Georgia. He just announced he just announced his candidacy a few weeks ago. He's spending some time with us today. And so, Elvis, we're gonna go to break here in about three minutes. Um We'll talk about some of the segments I want to do after the break. Um where do you fall on issues as fall as as far as immigration?

SPEAKER_04 22:09

Uh so as a uh child of immigrant parents, I believe that to be in this country, there's a right way and there's a wrong way. My family went the right way. Uh, they spent years trying to get into the country. My wife's family spent years getting into this country. She still has uh cousins in the Dominican Republic who can't come in yet, and others who were in tears and we celebrated, we threw a whole party after years of trying to get in and they got in. They could have they could have easily flown to Mexico or to Canada and come in illegally and they'd have been done in a couple days. Uh, but they didn't do that. So while I feel for the people who are here uh you illegally, there's a right way and there's a wrong way. And I think right now, regardless of what the media is showing, uh regardless of what the pundits are saying, this is the this uh administration is pretty compassionate with what they're doing because what other country offers you money to leave the country? Like here's like we'll give you uh we'll give you a thousand dollars and a flight to anywhere you want to go. That that's a good deal to me. But if you don't take that and we catch you and we deport you, now it's gonna be a whole lot harder for you to get in. So for me on immigration, do it the right way. It that's it's plain and simple. We cannot have be a country of lawless streets and no borders. Uh no other country does that, and no other country is chastised about it either.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Let me ask you a question real quick. Um, the second half, the second hour, we're gonna talk a lot about crime statistics this this today. What are the crime statistics like in your district?

SPEAKER_04 24:10

Oh, we're we're one of the safest uh uh places in Georgia.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Are you? Yeah. All right. Looks like the music's starting. John's telling me I'm going to break. This is a legal lowdown. We'll be back after the commercial, folks. Hang on. Talk about the Elvis case. Alright, alright, we're back for the second half of the first hour of the legal living. Well, you know, England, you're an Alabama lawyer on 1055 FM W E R C 102.5 up in Huntsville and 105.9 in Tuscaloosa. Welcome back to the broadcast. We are speaking with Elvis Caseley. Elvis Casey, folks. This is a name that you're gonna come to know in decades. He's a bright young man. He is running for the 35 35th Congressional District House over in Georgia, and he has uh been our guest for the first half hour, and he's back with us. Elvis. Uh, question, my man. So what is the issue over in Georgia about state income tax? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_04 26:15

So the state income tax right now, every Republican in the Senate and the House, and every Republican running, we're all working towards getting it down to zero eventually, uh, the percentage of income tax. Um obviously we have to do that responsibly and gradually bring it down over time. Uh, but that's another reason that I'm running. I'm from Florida. The first time I got uh that state income tax from Georgia, I damn near dropped the letter on the ground. I was like, what do you mean,$1,800? So I believe that anybody who is going to be in the House, whether they're Republican or Democrat, they have to be of the mind of finishing that mission. Getting that income tax down to zero. Uh, because all it does is punish people for working more. Uh, you you make more money, you should be able to keep more of your money. You're already getting money taken out of your paycheck from the feds. Uh, that money goes from you to the federal government, and then it goes back to Georgia anyway. So the federal government gives money to Georgia. Uh, so that's your money already. So essentially they're double dipping. I believe any state that has income tax is double dipping on their uh taxes. And if they actually need their citizens' tax double dipped on, then there's some sort of uh overspending going on. And I think a leaner, cleaner government is uh the best route to go. So that's why if elected, I too would help continue the push to ultimately bring that percentage down to zero.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

When when I asked you earlier about who had the majority in the House, you said it was Republicans. Do you do you know? I'm not trying to put you on the spot here. What is the percentage of uh Republicans versus Democrats in the uh uh Georgia legislature?

SPEAKER_04 28:24

I don't know offhand. That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

That's all right. Something you need to go back and work on if you might tell me. Um so um I would think that's something that all people in Georgia would want to get behind is being taxed less, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

Yeah, and that's that's what I that's what I was uh alluding to earlier. That it a lot of the people that I speak to on the campaign trail, they don't care that that I'm a Republican, well at least as a Democrat. They care about the bottom line, uh kitchen table problems. How much are they gonna have to pay in taxes? How much are they gonna have to pay when they go to the grocery store? How much is this gonna cost them to rent or their mortgage or their property taxes? These are the things that people actually care about. And I don't think there's a single person, whether they're Democrat or Republican in Georgia, that wouldn't be happy to pay less taxes.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Right. Before we went to the break, we we touched on it and then got thrown on sidetrack. So let's go back a little bit and talk about the crime statistics where you are. Tell me about where you live. What's is it safe or is there a lot of crime or no?

SPEAKER_04 29:41

So uh I live in Kennesaw. Okay. Um the so Kennesaw Ackworth area is usually ranked in within the top ten safest places in the country, not just in Georgia. Um so as far as safety and whatnot is concerned, there, I give it up to our the mayor of Kennesaw, the police that are always they're not there like inboding on top of you, like, oh, I can't look anywhere without seeing a cop. But they're there and they're present and they make themselves known. And I think that is a great deterrent for crime. Um also we have great school programs and we have beautiful parks, and it's very family-centered and orientated. Um so I think all of that plays into why our area is so safe.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Um you you have a one-year-old child? Yeah. Does your your wife, is she working or is she just She's a stay-at-home mom. Stay-at-home mom. Okay. Um, we talked a little bit about you said that uh there there's an issue over in Georgia that you've been out talking to the electric and the voters about consumer rights. Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Yeah. So one of the big issues right now, uh, not just in Georgia, but across the country, um and in across the world, because these companies are global, is subscriptions, right? They put a subscription on pretty much everything that you buy now. Uh, even things that you would never have thought there would be a subscription on. Uh your refrigerator, your microwave, your your printer. Uh they have printers now that won't print unless you have a subscription. You spend$500 plus dollars on a printer that won't do its basic function unless you pay them for the rest of your life. Uh, you have car manufacturers who lock uh features, and they're not even like luxurious features. They're seat warmers. Like your car already has the equipment in it. It has a seat warmer, it has heated steering wheels, it has an entertainment system in it. But these things that you would buy with the car, right? The car that's already overpriced and very expensive nowadays, all these things you'd buy the car and you'd have it forever. Now, uh companies like BMW and Toyota, uh, they want to put these features behind paywalls that you have to pay them for the rest of your life. So even if you're well off and you went and you saved off, you saved up all your money and you bought the car outright. You owe$0 on the car. BMW, Toyota, Ford, all these companies are like, mm-mm, that's not good enough. Uh we want an additional$8 a month for the heated seats. We want an additional$18 a month for the entertainment system, we want another additional$35 a month if you want to get the full use of the engine. They they limit how well the engine performs if you don't have the subscription program. And I believe that if we don't fight back right now before this becomes uh I for me, it's already overblown. But if we don't fight back now to prevent that here in Georgia, uh this is gonna spread everywhere, and it's gonna be so embedded in everything that we do that when a president or a governor finally decides to do something about it, they're gonna be like, oh, well, you're gonna bankrupt our company if you take this out. This is the whole foundation of our company. Oh, we we we can't do that. You're gonna all these people are gonna lose their jobs, they're gonna hold all of our jobs and whatnot hostage and saying, if you take this away from us, we can't do uh we can't employ these people. Uh so we need to fight back on it now. For example, uh, I'll go further with that on things that you quote unquote buy. For example, if you were to uh buy a movie on YouTube, and it gives you two options. It gives you the option to buy the movie or to rent the movie. Now you don't want to keep renting it because you love this movie, so I'm gonna pay the$18 for the full price of the movie. Ironically, that's the same price as if you were to buy a physical copy. They sell it on YouTube for the same price as a physical copy. Um, but if the makers of that movie, say it's Disney, uh, cancel their license agreement with Google and YouTube, well now that movie is no longer in your library. The movie that you quote unquote bought. So I believe these companies are using deceptive language and hiding behind their terms and conditions to essentially steal from American people. And from if I was elected to Congress, I would make these things uh well elected to the House, I would make these uh practices illegal because everyday people work very hard for their money. All these things are luxuries that they decide, okay, I'm going to get this for a bit of entertainment. I'm gonna get this to make my drive better, I'm gonna get this to make my work better because it's a better printer or the refrigerator, it cools better, but it won't cool or it won't do this if I don't have a subscription. They're double dipping again and taking people's hard-earned money. Uh so I don't think it's right, and I think Georgia can be the uh stronghold where we stand on the hill and we sell these corporations. No. At least here in Georgia, you won't get away with this.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Let me ask you, you're you're much younger than me, and the the people that you're around and talk to, and you're out talking to people running for election. Do you ever talk about or does it ever come up about the topic of artificial intelligence or AI and taking people's jobs? Have you heard that yet?

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Yeah, so when it comes to AI, uh every single person keeps saying, like anybody in power keeps saying, AI is already here, there's nothing we can do about it. We can either go with it or get run over by it. Um for me, it depends on what the AI is being used for. Um I don't see blue-collar jobs ever being uh taken away by AI. You're not gonna have an AI be able to fix your plumbing in the middle of the night. AI is not going to uh come and save you from a flat tire on the side of the road. AI is not gonna build your home, it's not gonna build skyscrapers. So whether AI is able to take jobs or not, I think if we proactively support and promote technical jobs, we can alleviate any future job losses where people get careers and things that an AI can take. So I'm not too worried about AI. I don't think a lot of people uh that I've spoken to at least are that worried about it. Um ChatGPT, I think, just came out uh yesterday um saying that in a few years they might have to change the way they're doing their stuff because they're running out of money. So these these platforms, they're I don't think they're gonna last very long, honestly. I think they're the bubble, the AI bubble is gonna pop. Yeah. Well, Chat GBT is spending billions of dollars and are already um sounding the alarms that they're gonna have to roll back and they're gonna have to put ads in their Chat GBT prompts and stuff just to make ends meet. So but I don't think the AI is the big boogeyman that um everybody thinks it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Well, the reason why I ask is in the last two weeks, Bill Gates was in the news and he said essentially that within five years you're not gonna need as many OBGYNs positions. And uh Elon Musk has been out in the news in the last five years. Of course, he has a a stake in this as well. He's talking about universal basic income that folks may only have to work two or three days a week. Um, some of this may be corporate jobs, some of this may be banking jobs, things like that, right? But and I have a friend, I have a friend that is an anesthesiologist, and he's extremely concerned about AI. And he tells me things like, Well, Joe, you know, even at the hospital, uh, people that we do anesthesiology on, all these equipment, all we do is plug in the numbers, and really the computers are really keeping the people awake or asleep during a procedure, things like that. So I'm I'm just really I'm always curious to see what's going on in different parts of the country, what's getting out there about different different topics. And I know AI has got to be one of the biggest topics in the world right now.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

So yeah, the thing with AI is that AI is fallible because it was made by fallible people. You're we're human. Um, so I don't think that there's ever gonna be a time where we can put somebody in an operation room and have all the robots do whatever they do and turn our back. There's never gonna be a time where we can not monitor what's going on um with AI. So there's always gonna have to be somebody there working the machine. Right. So while AI can take Some jobs like accounting or uh a bank teller or something like that. When the AI doesn't understand what the person's saying and you're like, I need to talk to a person because there's something outside of the algorithm that you're not understanding because you're not a human, there's still gonna be there's still gonna be a need for humans.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Right. Right. Uh just in my own personal background, uh, you know, people have been pushing AI to us to answer our phones. And we experiment a little bit with that, but uh it is my belief, and it's just my belief for at least the next five years or ten years, or however long I continue to practice law, people want to talk to people. People want to call and get a robot. So even though we have, you know, uh people that answer the phones when we're not available, and we have AI uh receptionists as well, people still want to talk to live people when they call a law office. So anyway, just my thought on that.

SPEAKER_04 41:05

Yeah, and go ahead. On on that point, um I think that if we take the position that AI is going to take all the jobs, right? And we accept that, then the responsible thing to do is to promote jobs that AI needs a human to do, right? AI needs a human to code it, right? Uh AI and all these different things, they need coders. They need people who know how to work computers. So in that, it would be irresponsible for us to not um at least put some effort towards teaching these things to kids. We used to have hundreds of people uh working the lines at a call at a call place. You'd call in and he's like, connect me to Joe Ingram, okay, one second, and they'd have to pull a wire and do all this stuff. Now we have people who code and that's those jobs don't exist anymore. But if they had taught these people, hey, learn how to work the system that's going to replace you, then they can easily transition. Or if we teach we to we start teaching kids now, hey, put this AI program or this coding program in schools the way they used to teach us how to type in computer class growing up. Uh elevate that to teaching kids how to code. Uh give kids more options other than uh a degree in social studies or something like that. It give them practical means to be prepared for the future. Um and I think that's uh a big issue right now when it comes to uh student loans. There we're the government is giving out loans for all kinds of jobs that or or um studies that they know there's no jobs in. There's no way for them to ever get a job in that field in order to pay back that loan, and they're still like, yeah, here, here's a hundred thousand dollars to a 17-year-old kid who doesn't know what to do with it. Um in Georgia, we have a uh our dual um, it's like a dual enrollment type program where you can get a technical degree uh while in high school and whatnot. And we've ex we that was extended, I believe, last year. Um, and it's a great program. And to bring it back to the uh obvious at hand, I'm running against Lisa Campbell, she voted against something like that. She voted no to extend a program that allows kids to get technical degrees while getting their high school diploma.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

So that's what I mean by we need people who and I don't know, I've never met this woman. Uh, I don't presume her to be dumb or illiterate. Uh if she's in if she's where she's at right now, she has to have some level of cognitive ability. So I would assume that she would understand the benefits of that bill. So if I am to assume that she's smart enough to know the benefits of the bill and still vote no against it, now I have to question who told you to vote no. Or did you vote no simply because a Republican said, hey, this is a good idea. And if either either way you go with that is a bad situation to be because we elected her in our district to be our representative. So if somebody's telling her how to vote, that's a problem. And if she, on the other hand, if she's voting against something simply because she doesn't like the person who promoted the bill or sponsored the bill, that's another problem. Because now you're shooting us in the foot. Uh the bill passed ultimately without her vote, but still, she could have been a hindrance on passing something that is good for the Georgian people simply because A, somebody told her to vote that way, or B, she just voted no because she saw an R next to the person's name. And both are scary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

So are you of the opinion that even though you if you win the election, you have an R behind your name, you're a Republican. If you read the bill, you don't like it, you're not gonna toe the party line, you're gonna vote your conscience, or what your constituents that put you in election for?

SPEAKER_04 45:33

I I would vote my conscience every time. Uh for me, it's not about uh though I repres though I call myself a Republican, it's not about um me being a Republican or them being a Democrat or independent or libertarian. Uh it's representing the people who put me there. And if I think that something is good for society in our district, I'll vote yes on it. If I think it's bad, I'll vote no on it. It doesn't who whoever promoted it is irrelevant to me. Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

What do you think about term limits in uh having elections?

SPEAKER_04 46:09

I think term limits should have I I I'm surprised that the Founding Fathers didn't put that in to begin with, because all these issues where people uh are voting based on party lines would be eliminated if we had term limits because they'd people would have nothing to lose. Because a lot of these people, their decision is based on the next election or how close the next election is. If they didn't have another election to run for, they would vote their conscience because it doesn't make a difference politically to them. Look at every president in their final term, does a whole bunch of stuff that they would have never done in their first term because they didn't have a re-election to go for. Um not Nancy Pelosi. Uh Elizabeth Warren uh took a call from President Trump and they were discussing uh policy, and she didn't praise him, but there seemed to be almost a understanding that they they'd work together. And I'm not sure if she's running again. I I may be wrong on this, don't quote me, but I believe she's uh not running again. So these are the type of things that happen when there's a term limit or somebody's not running for office anymore. They are more willing to do something that aligns with their conscience rather than it aligning with their party.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Right. Or benefits the country as a whole or benefits the state as a whole.

SPEAKER_04 47:37

Exactly. Yeah. And for me, if if it doesn't benefit Georgia, I won't vote for it. That that's for the same way somebody at the U.S. House would say America first, I'm Georgia first. Uh if we're outsourcing all our jobs to Florida or Alabama or North Carolina or something, that would that would not be good for the state of Georgia. Georgia is a hub for for work. People moved to Georgia for work. A lot of them last night at the meeting I was at were asked how many people moved here because of a job. And damn near the entire audience raised their hand that they're either they were they were born in Georgia and stayed in Georgia because of their job, or they came from another state to Georgia because of a job.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Hey, yeah, hey, Elvis, we got about two minutes left. So tell the audience out there how can they reach out to Elvis Case Lee if they want to support you, back you find out more about you for the the race over in Georgia.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

If you want to find out more about me or talk directly to me, you can go to Elvis4ga.com. Um all the emails come directly to me. Like I said, my team is me, my wife, my son, and God. So if you call me, you text me, you email me, you get me. Um that's all I can say.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Okay. Well, folks, we have spent the first hour with Elvis Casey. Elvis Casey. Folks, remember that name. He is a bright young man. You're gonna hear more from him over the years to come. I have no doubt about it. Uh, I have all the faith in the world in him. Elvis, I wish you well in your election uh and in your primary this year. Uh I hope you success in whatever you do in life. Elvis is a fine young man. He drove from Georgia here today. Uh he said, Joe, the weather's bad. I said, dude, man, uh I said, you gotta be tougher than that. And I'm always right, Elvis. The weather station, they're in cahoots with with the grocery stores. It's a scam. So there's nothing that's gonna happen. But um, folks, Elvis Casey, uh, check him out. Uh, you can find him on YouTube. And uh we wish him well in his next uh journey of his life. And maybe if you win, you'll come back and be on the show again.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Absolutely. Elvisforgeorgia.com. Well, elvis for G A.com.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Elvis for G A dot com. Okay, that's fantastic. All right, folks, you're listening to the Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram on 1055 W E R C 102.5 up in Huntsville and 105.9 in Tuscaloosa. We spent the first hour with Elvis Caseley, who is running for the 35th house over in Georgia. And um we'll be back for the second hour. We're going to talk a lot about criminal statistics, and uh, we'll be back after break. Thanks. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Thanks for tuning in to the legal lowdown with your lawyer, Joe Ingram. Joe Ingram Law. Don't forget to follow Joe's Legal Lowdown Podcast. If you need a private legal consultation, reach out to Joe on his website, JoeIngram Law.com. Tune in again next Saturday for the legal lowdown with Joe Ingram. No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by any other lawyer. He's a comment to be fighting a lawyer with the highest ratings for honesty and integrity. He's here to answer your legal questions and get you the help you need. You're listening to a legal lowdown with your lawyer. Go Ingram. Go Ingram Law. Go Ingram has more than 20 years' experience fighting for his clients here in the state of Alabama. Go to focus in criminal defense and family law. You don't have to face your legal issue of law. You've got Go Ingram on your side. In case of specs of legal matters, you can always win after reference to go.com and a link of private consultation.

SPEAKER_00 52:05

Going.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

Alright, alright, alright. You're back with the legal lowdown. Saturday, January 24th, second hour. Spent the first hour with Elvis Casey. We're going to talk about legal news this week nationally, and then we'll talk about some state news. Didn't find much to talk about this week, folks. I think the big story nationally has to be Davos. It's where all the world leaders, policymakers come, talk. It's kind of like the Kentucky Derby of policymakers and uh people that make the world move for us every day. Uh back in the day, uh before King Charles became king when he was Prince Charles, he would go every year. He was he was a staple. Uh Prince William, I don't think, was there. Uh King Charles was ahead of his time. Uh he was a true intellectual. He had uh great ideas on maintaining green spaces, foods, food sources, things like that. Uh he was really ahead of his time. Anyway, uh uh California governor Newsom was there. He wasn't invited to the party, he just showed up to harass Trump. Uh he couldn't get in to a lot of the uh chats. Uh he really wasn't wanted there. Uh we have a rule in this country. When the president of the United States goes across the pond for foreign business, you don't attack our president uh when he's doing business on behalf of the country. It's just an unwritten rule. Uh Newsom shouldn't have been there. Anyway, uh former vice president Al Gore was there. You know, the guy that always talked about the sky falling and the oceans would rise and uh New York would be underwater. Uh this is the same guy that told us that we didn't need to eat meat. We didn't need to use electricity. Uh this is the same gentleman that has a private airplane where he flew to Davos. And when he got off the plane, he got on a in a private car and he he he has a private villa over in Davos. And uh Gore still telling everybody how to live their lives. If you live up in Kentucky, I mean Tennessee, he has a mansion on a hill. Guess what? Do you remember the movie of uh Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold, where he where he takes the two electrical cords and he pushes them together and all the power goes down in the city? That's kind of like where Al Gore lives. His house is lit up like a Christmas tree 24-7. He's never there. But he tells you to conserve your power. That falls under the category of rules for thee.forme, as always. Uh Jamie Diamond was there. He is the head of JP Morgan Bank. Love Jamie Dimon. He is the uh man of Wall Street. Wherever he goes, he answers questions, he gives real answers. Because he's not in politics. He's a banker. He wants to bank with everybody. And they bank with 30 countries, by the way. Uh I love Jamie Dimon. You'll never see him run for Federal Uh Reserve Chair, governor, or you'll never see him try to be a treasury secretary. I just don't see that in his makeup. He's all about making money. And I love Jamie Dimon. President Trump was there in Davos. He planted the flag about Greenland and left in the night. Uh for everybody out there in the world that is freaking out about Trump and Greenland being a dictator. Let me give you some statistics historically. 1867, Andrew Johnson. He explored buying Greenland and Iceland right after we acquired Alaska. 1970 time was the last time the USA acquired a purchase of land. After World War II, FDR, uh, U.S. took over Greenland's defense while Denmark was occupied. 1946, Truman offered to buy Greenland for a hundred million dollars in gold. During the Cold War, Eisenhower, Kennedy, both nonstop negotiations for bases, radar, missiles. We had the Bay of Pigs going on down in Cuba. Post-Cold War era. Clinton, Bush, Obama. That's two Democrats and a Republican, all wanted to expand the Arctic security and missile defense. So there you go. And Trump brought it up in his first administration in 2019. It probably would have happened then, but he got just a little bit as sidetracked with something called COVID. So that's how we got where we are today. And this is an election year in 26, and President Trump knows he has nine months to do whatever he's going to do legislatively in the country because he's a lame duck after the election. So he's doing everything he can internationally. So he's going all out 24-7. That's how we got to where we are today. Another story of interest out of California, Kiefer Sutherland. Kiefer Sutherland. He's an actor. His father was Donald Sutherland. Great actor, loved him. Anyway, Kiefer uh has had issues in the past with alcohol, from what I'm told in the news. He was in an Uber car. Have you heard this story? He uh he assaulted the Uber driver and tried to choke him, and he got arrested for it. Now, there's two line of thoughts here. Uh one, they say alcohol was in place. Or two, it's just possible out in California that the Uber driver was an illegal alien. No, he wasn't a migrant. He was an illegal alien. Maybe maybe Kiefer couldn't understand him, so he tried to choke him to get out of the car. That would be my defense if I was his defense attorney. So we're gonna we're gonna go on the lather. Anyway, uh another story out of California. Do you remember the TV show of the 90s? Beverly Hills 90210. Shannon Doherty. Shannon passed away uh about a year ago with brain cancer. Anyway, she filed for divorce in July of 24, filed her divorce settlement. Well, her ex-husband has come out of uh the woodworks in the last week and filed some motion saying that Shannon still owes some money to him from the divorce decree. Now, if I were judge, and I'll never be judge, but if I could be judge just for a day, I would say go away. She she's deceased, she's needs to rest, and it's over. Whatever happened, happened. And I don't know the law in California, but let's just presume for a moment that if there's any money left, I guess it would be in her residual estate. I guess you could take it up with filing a claim against her estate. But if I'm the divorce judge, I bounce this out of court and say, denied, it's over. Or go on TMZ, tell your story, whatever you want to do, write a book. But you're not going to collect any money here. She she's gone. Another national story this week. Uh we've had two weeks of really good oral. Arguments before the United States Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court this week had oral arguments related to when President Trump fired one of the Federal Reserve governors. And they had oral arguments. And uh the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, was there in support. And all of the living former Fed chair governors filed an amicus brief in support of her. And for those of you out there saying, Joe, what is that? What's an amicus brief? Well, amicus is just a fancy word for saying a friend of the court. Meaning you have groups, you have uh committees, you have corporations, you have whatever entity. Uh anytime there's a big case, someone may write an amicus brief in support or opposition of a side of the case. And they all signed it. Greenspan, Bernanke, Janet Yellen, they all signed in support of her, saying it was illegal for President Trump to fire her. Something that I found really curious out of this case, Sonia Sotomayor came out during oral arguments and said, Why are you here? This case is working its way through the system. This case isn't ripe yet. Why are you here? You're you're you're cutting the line. Found that interesting from her. Um, but the justices seemed to tip their hand that they didn't think Trump had the right to fire the person. So we'll see how that case turns out in a few months. The Supreme Court is going on hiatus until about February the 20th, I think. Do you remember last week when I talked about Monica Lewinsky, how she had become really media savvy, hit President Trump at the right time? Yep. Guess what, folks? Congress took my advice. They voted this week. They have sent a referral of contempt of a congressional subpoena to the DOJ for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, bleach bit, take a hammer to the hard drive, Clinton, that stands out there today, this last week, on Twitter talking about a little child and an ice and the rule law. Hillary, follow the rule law. Okay? You don't get to pick and choose which laws you follow. Hillary and Bill Clinton, that couple, honest to goodness, they are like Bonnie and Clyde of history. They will gamble every chance legally with the law. They are a true pair in life. Ride or die. They ride or die together in every decision that they make. But they do have a referral to the Department of Justice for failure to show up for a congressional subpoena. So there you go. I was right again last week. This next story is just a little funny, guys. Now, just bear with me. Just hang on with me for just a minute. There is a young lady in Texas. Her name is Miss Martinez. She's 24 years old. She likes to work out. She's what we call a gym rat. She was at a local gym. And she's in a relationship with a significant other. Anyway, her partner is in a relationship with somebody else. A paramour. The paramore comes into the gym. Guess what Miss Martinez allegedly does? She takes up a 25-pound dumbbell and throws it at the paramore. Now, this is what I call a bad girl. These are the kind of people I like to represent. I like her. I know you're in Texas. If you have the money, I'll come out there and represent you. I like bad girls. Now think about this for just a second. You know, with all the camera technology we have today, you know there were cameras in in the gym, right? You know there's photo evidence. Allegedly, they say alcohol may be involved. Maybe she was drunk. Girl came in at night and she threw a dumbbell plate at her head. I don't know. My bet is is to put her on the Olympic team for throwing uh barbells. Or um what is that sport where you they uh no where they throw the little ball down the down the ice. What's that called?

unknown 1:05:00

Curling.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Curling. Maybe she'd be good at that. Curling. Yeah. Thank you, John. Anyway, uh, I like bad girls, and this is somebody I'd like to represent. I know y'all think I'm sadistic out there. I just thought it was a cool story. Uh state legal news this week. Not much going on. I am being told that everybody down in Montgomery wants to do whatever they're gonna do, and they want to get out as fast as they can so they can't get home and campaign for the uh primaries in May. So they're gonna try to get out, get it, get some things done that they can run on and get out as fast as they can. Something that has come up recently um there is an attorney named Harry Steele down in Bay Manette, which is Baldwin County. He approached a councilman, Matt Franklin, back in September. Anyway, the two got into a scuffle. So um, some legislation was presented by Chris Elliott uh about making it a felony to attack a person that is an elected official. Make it a Class C felony punishable up to 10 years in prison. Uh there's a lot of commentary on this, and there's some people for it, and there's some people against it. Those that are against it look at it this way. Uh Senator Greg Albatron of Atmore feels like that we are creating classes of people. Why should if I hit a politician it be more severe than if I hit a regular person on the street? I get that. However, I think our politicians, whatever they're elected to, whatever office it is, they need to be protected. Because if they have fear or retribution to vote a certain way that they're going to be tacked when they walk out of the building, then they're not going to vote their conscience. Or we hope they vote their conscience. So I'm okay with this legislation. I really am. If you're a legislature and you are attacked or assaulted, it should be a felony. And here is how you write the legislation. If you can prove the intent of the underlying crime was related to a political motivation, then it's a felony. There you go. It's in the wording of the language, of the law. So that is my thought on that legislation that is being bantered around the House. We are going to spend the majority of this next segment talking about some criminal statistics. Last week we talked about divorce statistics in the state. So now we're going to talk about some criminal statistics related to Alabama. First, we're going to talk about Birmingham. According to some statistics out, now these aren't definitive because they're preliminary in nature. We just finished 25. Presumably, though, Birmingham had a major decrease in crimes in 25 from 24. Um the report is Birmingham had 88 homicides as opposed to 152 in 24. That's a good decrease. That's that's really good for all of us. Um that's a fall of about 17% property crimes. Uh property crimes are down 9.1%. Um in Jefferson County, they had a 28% drop in crimes. Uh uh but they had an increase in crimes related to rape and aggravated assault. Uh as far as convictions go, the number of people convicted of felonies continues to rise. Uh 4,000 in the last two years have been convicted of felonies, according to the Alabama Sentencing Commission. I don't know what that is, other than maybe we're playing catch up still from COVID. I know here in Jefferson County we are working on 2,023 cases. So maybe that is the increase of felony convictions. And just because someone's convicted of a felony doesn't mean they're actually going to prison. Just means it's a conviction. Executions. Uh Alabama ranks second in the nation for executions in 25. I'm all for that. If you are convicted of the ultimate crime and you're given the death penalty, cook them, fry them, bullet in the head, whatever you got to do, carry out justice. Prison population remains pretty much the same. We are building a huge prison down there near Montgomery right now that someday they're going to finish. Uh other factors out there. Let's see what else we got. Some of the things that may be causing less property crimes, think about it, folks. We have cameras everywhere. We have iPhone technology. We're we're easy to find people. Um most most people, most people probably have either a ring doorbell camera, or they have a security system, or there's a camera somewhere in the neighborhood. It's just it's just really hard to commit property crimes in this day and time, like robberies, assaults, things like that. So that's something to think about as far as crime rates coming down. Um there's always going to be petty theft crimes, and those fall into the category of people shoplifting, people taking food from the grocery store, people stealing from CVS right aid, things like that, petty theft. Uh but by and large, uh burglary into homes, I think, is down, and that's a good thing, and it's related to all the technology we have across the board. So there you go. Technology catches up with the population. Um the police will tell you it's because of their hard work. Well, I don't know how they prevent murders. If someone's gonna commit the the most heinous crime, I don't know how you stop that. I don't know how you stop somebody from committing a rape or a robbery because you're out fighting crime. Um if people are gonna do something, they're gonna they're gonna do it. So I I don't know how they take take credit for that. I think it's technology out there. That's what I think it is. That's just my opinion. Uh Sheriff Mark Petaway uh takes credit for the crime rates being down uh due to more people out on the street, more people patrolling, more people being active. Well, that's that's good to see more people out in the neighborhoods. Uh he also gives credit to the technology that we all have now to fight crime. So that is the sheriff's take on that. Uh we're gonna go to break here in a few minutes. We're gonna talk about statistics up in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, crime statistics. Um but the good news is it looks like crime is coming down uh in a big way in the state of Alabama, which is really good because uh crime was really bad for a number of years, and Bessemer, I hate to say it, folks, Bessemer is the most dangerous city, probably in Alabama, for whatever reason. But uh we're gonna talk about after the break federal uh we're gonna talk about crime statistics up in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. You're listening to The Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram. The first hour we had Elvis Casey, he's running for the House District over in Georgia. Uh if you need to call my office, you can call us 205-825-5297, 205-825-5297. You can look us up on the web, joeingramlaw.com. If you have a question or a comment, go to your little red app on your phone. That's the Spy for Rent Hotline. SPY for Rent Hotline. Jeff Hammock, Corey Fuller, the names to know for investigation in the state of Alabama. They can serve papers, they can investigate your spouse, they can investigate the paramour, they can do forensic searches on cell phones, they can do bug sweeps and homes, and yes, they do those for some of my clients. Uh they can do all this, and they are the best in the business, and they are the exclusive partner of my firm. Uh Jeff and Corey will take good care of you if you need them supply for rent. So that is the first uh segment of the second hour. Uh most of you are probably at home today being scared by the weather. Guess what? They got it wrong again, folks. Nothing happened. Uh, but have a good cup of coffee. We got one more segment to go. There's a lot of good things to talk about. Um we got some I got some teases coming for the next couple weeks. You're going to be really shocked. If you listen to our broadcast last week, Pam Casey was a great guest. We hope that we're going to have other people that are running for the AG's office in the next coming weeks, and we're about to announce those. We also have some people running for other offices. Maybe governor, maybe senator. Uh, got some teases coming up, folks. I'm really excited about some things in the work, and uh, I think you're really going to enjoy those interviews that we get to bring you. Uh, it gives you a long format, gets you, it gives you a chance to listen to them, uh, see what they're about, and I think you'll enjoy it. Uh, you're listening to the Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram 1055. We'll be back after the break. Okay? See ya.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

If you need a five legal consultation, you will go to go in the line. Now welcome back to the legal low down.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:30

Go ingram. All right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:33

We listed the legal low down with Joe Ingram. 1055 WERC 1025 up in Huntsville. 105.9 in Tuscaloosa. We list the legal lowdown with Joe Ingram. If you need me, you can call my office 205-825-5297. 205-825-5297. You can look us up on the web, joeingramlaw.com. We had Elvis Casey. First hour. We are talking about criminal statistics this week. Last week we did some divorce statistics. We just talked about Birmingham. Now we're going to talk a little bit about the Tuscaloosa area. Um, this is the latest statistics I could find. Through the end of July, homicides are down 38%. There you go. That's pretty good. Uh attempted murders have dropped in half. Felony assaults with a firearm are down 15%. These are considered crimes of violence, so that's good. Uh people shooting into occupied dwelling or vehicles are down 34%. That's pretty good. That's pretty good numbers. Property crimes are trending down in 25 as well. Robbery, carjacking cases down 32%. Unlawful breaking and entering of a vehicle, but the most common property crime is down about 18%. Uh these statistics are coming from the Tuscaloosa Police Department. Um but we take them at their value, we take them at their word. So uh these are good statistics overall. Um here again, they attribute the downward spiral to uh more people out on the street, better technology, and probably when people get convicted, if they're actually getting sentenced in the state of Alabama, as opposed to being in a uh coastal leader state where they just walk out of the jail, they know that there's going to be real retribution if they commit a crime of violence in the state of Alabama. So there you go. Um also Tuscaloosa has uh an their own in-house forensics lab that a lot of cities do not have. So their cases move along a little bit faster. They take credit for that. So that helps with drug cases as well in the Tuscaloosa area. Up in Huntsville, Huntsville, Huntsville's the growing area. Leaps and bounds, they've added all kinds of acres, they've added all kinds of businesses. Uh they have acquired all kinds of land here in the last couple of months. Eli Lilly, all the bases up there on the Redstone Arsenal. Um with all the people coming up there, what are you gonna face criminally statistics? Is it safe? Well, the preliminary numbers for twenty five, according to the Huntsville Police Department. They are reporting significant decreases of major crime down 26%. Violent crimes are down 39% from 2019 to 2024. So that's during the COVID area. And they say all this is despite a 20% population boom or increase. In other words, 20% more people are coming in, but the crime rates are going down 39%. So if you're moving up there, you've got to feel pretty good about moving in. They accredit uh community involvement. And again, technology for the drop. Cell phone technology, the ring doorbell cameras, security cameras. Cameras are on all the street corners. It is just really, really hard, folks, to commit a property crime today and not be seen or caught or find a tag number or search you in some way. It's just really hard today to commit those kind of crimes. Specific data up in Huntsville from 24 to 25. There were 18 homicides, 124 rapes, 127 robberies, 823 aggravated assaults. Drug crimes up there, fentanyl and meth. Those are the big crimes now. We have we still have the marijuana cases, but the big cases are the fentanyl and the meth cases. Don't know why. Huntsville is considered safer than many areas. It's ranked highly in safety studies nationally compared to other areas of Alabama. In uh 2025, they are reporting a 26% decrease in homicides. Um their overall crime rate, they say is down three percent. Okay. Three percent's not bad. Um so the statistics seem to be similar across the board. Whether you are in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, or Huntsville, crime is going down. I have to give a little bit of credit to nationally to President Trump because we're also tightening down on the borders. Many people aren't coming in. We're keeping people out. I think that has to have an effect as well. So that are some statistics out there related to crimes. According to the Alabama Criminal Justice Department, uh, they put out their own statistics. Uh incidence of property crimes decreased almost in half between 2013 and 2023. Uh that is 3,000 per 100,000 residents. So there you go. That's a pretty good number. Uh their latest statistic is uh in 2023 there were 11 percent lower than the national average. So I guess according to the Alabama criminal justice uh study, we are 11% lower than the national average. Not sure if I buy that number, but that's what they're put what they're reporting. The number of crimes involving larceny decreased 45%. Burglary is down 71%, motor vehicle theft is down six percent. So there you go. Everybody's reporting that crime is down across the board. I'll tell you this: we didn't have as many uh criminal cases last year as we did as divorce cases. So maybe there's a trend there as well. I don't know. I just report what they give us out. There are some bills that I'd like to talk about in the Alabama legislature that enhances penalties for undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes. Uh if they are charged with a Class D felony and it is determined that the person is an illegal immigrant, it would automatically make the crime a Class C felony. So if they're charged with a Class D felony and it turns out that they're illegal, it bumps it to a Class C felony. That gives an enhancement and an incentive to keep illegals out of here if they know that they're going to get increased penalties for being charged with a crime. Um there is a bill that was put forth by Representative Chris England out of Tuscaloosa would make a Class A misdemeanor punishable up to one year in jail and a fine of$6,000 if a person in possession of a firearm does not disclose the fact to the law enforcement officer during a stop. Not disclosing a firearm possession to an officer is already illegal. Thus, the bill would increase the penalty. There is nothing more dangerous for a police officer when they stop someone than to know whether or not they are armed or not armed. You need to know that. It changes how they may look at you when they stop you. So I think that is a bill that may pass. The thing about the Alabama House legislature and Senate, just about all bills that pass, KIV is going to sign. So there you go. There is something else uh brewing in the Alabama legislature. The Alabama state legislature has pushed for criminal justice that start back in 25. And you can see that in the sentences and crimes, just as in the case of the cannabis and hemp laws that were put under the authority of the ABC Board as of May of 25. We talked briefly about this last week with Pam Casey, the DA of Blunt County. Used to, you could go into a lot of convenience stores or what we call C stores, and you could buy different types of hemp products or cannabis products and drink them or take them or use them or vapes or whatever. And for all intents and purposes, if you hot test them, they test positive for marijuana. It is. Her husband is the primary breadwinner. She's been a stay-at-home mom. She's raised their child. The child's about to go off to college. The husband, for all intents and purposes, has told Emily, you know, I'm going to leave you in May or June when the child graduates high school. Get ready. Their home is paid for, good. Their cars are paid for, good. He uh makes a good income, and they have a sizable amount in his 401k plan. And she left a message and says, Joe, where do I start? Well, this is the same conversation we have in every consultation. We ask you to bring in income tax returns, roughly two to five years. Or if they own a company and uh they're a professional or they're in a partnership, maybe 10 years of tax returns. If they file a 1120 tax return and they get a K1, all these terms would matter to the accountant for you out there. And we say bring in pay stubs, bring in bake statements, uh, see if you can go get a 401k statement that is recent. Uh go get us information as to your home. Do you have a mortgage? Who holds the mortgage? How much do you owe on your home? How much equity do you have at your home? What is a fair market value if we have to sell the home and split the proceeds? Those are the kind of documents we ask you to go find out and do some work for us. And so then we can sit down and have a healthy conversation about what you're looking at. And by the way, if your husband tells you he's out the door in a few months, let me ask you some other questions that are really hard to ask, but they they matter. Are the two of you still living in the same marital bedroom? Or have you decided to start sleeping separately? If you're not living together as husband and wife, you might want to think about an investigator. Do they do they have a significant other? Do they have a paramour? Uh have you checked their social media accounts lately? Have they reconnected with someone on Facebook or Instagram or on TikTok? Um these are questions that you have to ask. And so from there we can advise you of how to proceed. The best course of action is always if you can sit down and reasonably resolve your case with your spouse or your significant other. Have a healthy debate on how you're going to resolve the case. If you can't do that, then you make a consultation and you go see a divorce lawyer, Emily. Presumably in early March or early April before he's out the door. He might already be moving money. He might be not putting as much money in his 401k plan right now because he knows he may have to give you some. He may be moving money offshore to another account that you don't know about. These are all the kind of conversations to have and to be thinking about. Do some prep work to get ahead of the game. All this is relevant, all this matters. We do this all the time. So those are the kind of things that you need to go do, Emily, in your situation. And by the way, thank you for leaving us uh a message on the SPY for rent hotline last week. So, folks, this is the last segment of the week. You're listening to the legal lowdown with Joe Ingram. If you need to call my office for a consult, phone number is 205-825-5297, 205-825-5297. You can look us up on the well, Joe Ingramlaw.com. If you have a criminal case, you can call my office as well. We represent people in state court that are charged with felonies. We represent people in federal court that are charged with felonies, and we represent people in municipal court that are charged with misdemeanors. Joe, what is the difference? Well, a felony is classified as either A, B, C, or D. A felony is the worst, which is 10 to life. Class B felony is two years to 20 years. Class C felony is one year and a day to ten years. That's the difference. Misdemeanors are classified as well. A, B, C. Class A misdemeanor carries a penalty up to a year in the city jail or the county jail. That's the difference. So if you're charged with a misdemeanor, the most you're going to get is either a year in the city jail or the county jail. And it's not likely you're going to get a year unless it's something really serious. And every case is unique, so I'm not giving out legal advice over the red, over the airwaves. So if you need representation, be sure to call my office, 205-825-5297. If you're home this morning listening to the show, you're enjoying looking out at the weather, you're seeing the people on the TV stations telling you how they just missed it. How if this had done this and this had done that, we would have had two inches of ice. None of it happened. Have a cup of coffee, join the show, like us, download, listen to us, tune in, become a part of the broadcast. So I want to tease a couple things we got coming for the next couple weeks. We hope to have uh Catherine Robertson. Joe, who is Catherine Robertson? Well, she works for the Attorney General's office. She's running for the AG's office. We anticipate having her coming up in a few weeks. Um we are looking at having a couple other folks that are running for the AG's office. We are trying to bring to you some people that may be running for uh the Senate. We are trying to have a conversation with somebody running for governor. Um we reach out to them, we tell them, we give them a platform, they get to come have a long-form interview with you. It's up to them. So we're trying to do that. Uh in a couple weeks, folks, not only will you get to listen to the broadcast, you'll get to watch the broadcast. We are going to start bringing it to you live via stream on my YouTube channel. That's going to be coming in February. We're very excited about that. We're looking forward to it. I don't have the voice for radio and I sure don't have the face for TV, but you're going to get both. So there you go. Uh, can't help it, but you got to put it out there. Uh last week we had tremendous, tremendous, tremendous downloads from our interview with Pam Casey. We had about a 200% increase in downloads. Uh, I credited that to her and people that wanted to hear what she had to say, and um it was a good interview. And by the way, uh just to follow up again from the first hour, uh, she referenced somebody that was sentenced this week up in Blunt County for a sex crime of a child. And yes, she did argue for the person to get life in prison, and the judge did give the person life in prison. So there you go. We are headed down the road in the state of Alabama if you commit a sex crime of a child to try to probably make it legislation to give them the death penalty. There are other states that are doing that, and we are headed in that direction. It's coming. I'm not arguing for it or against it. I'm just telling you where we're headed. We are definitely headed in that way. Pam stuck to her guns, she argued it, and she stuck to her word. So there you go. Kudos to Pam Casey in that uh position there. So this has been a great show today. I've enjoyed it. We had Elvis Casey. Um this is legal lowdown with Joe Ingram on 1055 W E R C. You're listening to us up in Huntsville uh 102.5 and in Tuscaloosa, WRTR 105.9. We enjoy having both of you become a part of our show this year. Uh we've been getting some feedback and we're glad to be there, and we hope you continue to give us some feedback of things you want to hear. Uh the things that we're really interested in for the next couple of months before the primary is to get the folks in that you're going to vote for in elections so that you get to hear what they have to say in a loan format. I'm not here to make a judgment one way or another. I just give them a platform so they get to talk to you and you get to hear what that person has to say on the issues that matter to this state and to us as a nation. So that is the goal for the people that are running for office while we're trying to have those people on this show. As always, we thank you for being a part of our show. You can always call my office, 205-825-5297. 205-825-5297. If you need an investigator, spy for rent, Jeff Hammond, Corey Fuller are the names to know. Those are the people that are the investigators of Alabama. They're the best in the business. They're the only ones I use, and they can do whatever you need them to do for you. They're the best at what they do. That's what I say. So, parting thought today before we get out of here. Um Do y'all know who David Goggin is? He's a former U.S. SEAL. I like him because he's a runner. If you're like me and you're in your 50s, the goal should be to escape from a body that looks and feels 15 years younger. To cultivate a mind that is calm, clear, and still driven with purpose to love and protect your small circle. To wake up ready to go to work for your dream, not someone else's dream. Don't work, go work for the man. And to leave behind the person who chased comfort and distractions. 50 isn't the end of anything, it's the beginning of everything. That is my philosophy of the 50s, folks. And if you're in my age bracket, I hope you feel the same way. And for those of you that are still following your New Year's resolutions, God love you. Most people have quit. I can see it. People in the gyms, people on the roads, a lot of people have already cashed in. If you if you held on for dry January, well, you got just uh about an Other week, and then you can go hit the bottle again if if that was your goal for for the month of January, dry January. The good news coming up for us next week. We get through January. Uh we get into February. The days get longer and longer. The nights get shorter and shorter. We're making it, folks. We're in Alabama. We don't like cold weather. So this week has been a little bit of an inconvenience. Next week is gonna be really cold for us. I'm told it's gonna be really tough doing some runs and not looking forward to next week out running in the streets. Uh-uh. It's gonna be done in the teens next week. That's gonna be brutal. So thank you for listening to our broadcast as always. You're listening to the legal lowdown with Joe Ingram, 205-825-5297, 205-825-5297. You can look us up on the web, joeingramlaw.com. You can speak to my intake specialist, they can get you in for a consult. Folks, we got some great guests coming in the next few weeks. Catherine Robertson's gonna be on. We've got some other people running for the AG's office. We got people that are running for governor that we're trying to get to come in. We got some people that are gonna be running for senator that we're talking to. If you've listened to some of the news in the last week, this is a little tease. Some people may come talk to us because they want a chance to get back in the race. Just teasing it up a little bit. All right, guys, we'll see you next week. Gotta go. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:43

Thanks for tuning in to the Legal Lowdown with your lawyer, Joe Ingram of Joe Ingram Law. Don't forget to follow Joe's Legal Lowdown Podcast. iHeart. If you need a private legal consultation, reach out to Joe on his website, Joe IngramLaw.com. Tune in again next Saturday for the Legal Lowdown with Joe Ingram. No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by any other lawyer.