Station Selected:
In another invocation of our (occasional special) segment entitled
“Undiscovered Justice,” stories of our times at the intersection of popular
music, intellectual property, and judicial intervention—examining the civil
court action brought by the estate of the late, great song stylist Marvin Gaye
against current popular musician Ed Sheeran, based on allegations that the
latter stole a core series of musical notes from the former in his creative song
writing: This, in exposition of the accessible and important topics with
which our trial courts (positioned jurisdictionally below our Supreme Court)
wrestle on a daily basis—affecting not only the arts but our popular
reactions to them. Also observing the significance (and marginal law-related
aspects of two cultural traditions overseas and here at home—namely, the
coronation in Great Britain of King Charles III and the nearly
contemporaneous “running” of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.)
Necessarily returning to the latest developments in the investigations of the
January 6 insurrection at our nation’s Capitol, the start of the Proud Boys
seditious conspiracy trial; the imposition of the highest sentence to
date—that is, 14 years imprisonment—on one of the on-the-ground, violent
rioters; and the continuing work of a Fulton County prosecutor and Atlanta-
based grand jury determining whether the criminal laws of Georgia were
broken in the attempts by Donald Trump and others to overturn the popular
and thus the electoral votes for the Presidency in the aftermath of the 2020
election.
Turning then to an evidentiary review of the key developments in the
defamation/sexual assault trial based on civil allegations made by E. Jean
Carroll in a federal trial court in Manhattan—including the resurrection of
the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, testimony by friends of the plaintiff
and others similarly assaulted by the (then future) President and other
corroborating support (namely, the defendant’s misidentification of a key
photograph of himself and what he thought was his former spouse). Adding
to the legal woes now faced by Donald Trump, more damning reporting
about his unauthorized and unlawful taking, retention, and perhaps even use
of confidential/classified documents to and at his resort in Mar-a-Lago. All
of that going on while, in that same state of Florida, its Governor, Ron
DeSantis, and the top executives (and former and past members of the Board
of Directors) of the Disney Companies continue to spar over operational
rights through competing civil cases litigated in the federal and state courts.
Finally, in our continuing focus on the United States Supreme Court,
reporting on a much under-reported decision about the imposition of the
death penalty—along with the seemingly never-ending ethics revelations
(most involving Associate Justice Clarence Thomas) that continue to
undermine the integrity and shake the confidence of the American people in
the highest court in the land. (Of course, much more on all of that in the
coming broadcasts, including especially those in late May and throughout
June, as the Supreme Court issues its most significant rulings of this term.)
