07/02/2026 Ask the Lawyer with Harvey and Tom Peyton

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Once again this morning, there's no reason to fight the law. You can put the law at one year side this morning. We have in studio with us this morning. It is the Pathan Law Firm. And for, I think, the second time on our history, we have Harvey and Tom in studio with us this this morning. Harvey, good morning. Welcome back. Well, it's good to be back, Coup. Actually, I have been on a little bit of a leave. I didn't say much about it before I left, but like three weeks ago yesterday, I was up at the Cleveland Clinic for a... I had a scan and found out that I had an aortic aneurysm on the root of the aorta right above my heart, and the valve was a little out of whack. So I spent last Wednesday, under the night, or Wednesday three weeks ago, under the knife up in Cleveland, and everything went well. I mean, I've got a new scar. But other than that, and gaining back a little strength, I don't think I've lost any... any vigor ready to get back in the saddle. So I told Tom yesterday, well, let's just ride up together and then I can go back to the office and check the emails and be back in gear. Not fully in gear because it takes a while to get your strength back. You have to be under anesthesia for hours for this procedure. And that just saps you a bit. But here we are. But the good thing about it is within the hospital, you're just away from the new cycle. and every outside influence because all you do is sleep so that nurses can wake you up every two hours around the clock to ask you if you're okay and then tell you to get some sleep. So, but then it's good to be back and, of course, following the... You know, following the happenings, particularly with the United States Supreme Court, and Tom and I talk about that and follow that pretty closely to see. There are some cases that are meaningful. There was a search case. geo fence case, right, Tom? Yeah. Thomas here too. Welcome, welcome back, Tom. Hey, no problem. It's kind of a chauffeur today, I think. Lots of, like your guys are talking about, lots of things going on. Of course, you can put the power of Peyton on your side this morning. Tom and Harvey will have some things that they're going to talk about, but you can control the conversation as well. If you want to call in this morning, 304, 345-58-38, 3458-58. Remember, it is an auto-cue situation. So just give me a call, and you'll be put right in the hold, and we'll get your name when you go on the air. So just give us a call. 304, 345-58-58. You can also text 304-935-508 for the text line number. I'll fire that up here in just a minute to see if we have any questions on there. You can find out more information online. Payton-Lawfirm.com, P-E-Y-T-O-N-Lawfirm.com. We'll give you more information as the morning goes along here this morning. Yeah, hopefully we get some calls or text. We'd like to take questions. But if you've got an issue that you don't want to lay out on the radio, then you can... As you said, you can go to our website and send us an email or you can call us at the office, and our office number is pretty easy to remember, 304.

755-5-5-5-6. Of course, you can stop by the office anytime, and we're not always available to come out and talk to you, but our staff is always there between 8 and 5 any time during the day at 2801 1st Avenue, which is, I just had some other day saying they didn't know where that was, but 1st Avenue is the main drag-through nitrope, so streets are all numbered, so you just drive until you get to the corner of 28th Street, and we're right there. But... Glad to be back today. There's been a whole lot on a, well, kind of a local level, dovetails into the U.S. Supreme Court since the state of West Virginia had a case there. But you just get these, there's always kind of a, I wouldn't see a flood, but a flurry of decisions towards the end of the term in the spring for the U.S. Supreme Court. And one thing you can say about the, I think. The Trump administration is they've pushed the limit on some provisions under the law that, you know, you kind of think are well established, push the envelope, I guess you would say. So we got a flood of decisions now in the last week or two that are pretty significant, I think. The one that, of course, connects back to West Virginia, which is the, you know, we passed the... was it three or four years ago past the, I forget what it's called, Keep Girls' Sports Safe Act or something like that, which in essence removed from the SSAC discretion about boys and girls' sports and whether a transgender person could play on the girls' team. And the SSAC had a rule that was kind of like... per-case analysis about competitiveness and that kind of thing. But then the legislature passed a law saying, in essence, it's based on biological sex and you can't let a biological sex boy play in girls' sports. And that was then challenged here locally in the U.S. District Court, I think Judge Goodwin had it, who actually granted a preliminary injunction, which... normally indicates it's a good it's a good clue a strong clue on how the ultimate case will turn out because he granted an injunction letting this letting the transgender girl go ahead and compete in sports but then when it came for a final decision he He changed his ruling or made a final ruling that was opposite and said the statute that our legislature passed was constitutional, passed constitutional muster and didn't violate Title IX. That was then appealed to the Fourth Circuit that reversed Judge Goodwin and said, no, that law is unconstitutional. I think they also said it violated Title IX statute. And, of course, it got appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. I believe in an opinion written by Brett Kavanaugh. last week said no that that statute is constitutional so now that's the law in west virginia and and these types of statutes are are legal and so the i guess the the ramification if i don't think there's much of a ramification i think mostly this was a legislation that was pushed for political reasons i mean i'm only aware of one

transgender person where there was any controversy as far as girls and boys sports in West Virginia. And I thought the SSAC's rule was pretty good because in a state as small as ours where there's, I don't know, it could be one to three students this would ever apply to. You actually could do a case by case analysis. But in the grand scheme of things, essentially the majority at the U.S. Supreme Court said, well, that's not realistic on a kind of a global level. So it's black and white. type statute is constitutional and so that's that's the law going forward I don't I know that the the girl that was named as a party in that case I think just won she won the shot put at the state event I think I don't she didn't win in any other events that she was competing in so that will stand now or what will happen with that, probably just leave it alone. But that statute that was overturned by the Fourth Circuit is now back in place. And so we follow the standards set by the legislature going forward, which should be pretty black and white. I mean, you have some by a lot complicated. you know, anatomy issues with some folks, a very small majority about how determining whether somebody, what sex they are at birth, there's medical conditions there that can, or at least anatomical conditions that can make a difference. But beyond that, I think it probably will be fairly black and white going forward. My question about this, and there may not be an answer that you guys have on this because it's going to be how it's implemented on the other end. But some of the things that I've seen and have seen in response to this would be, for example, what triggers? a investigation and can it be used like a weapon, you know, you have somebody, are you sure that's a little girl? We better get a test. I mean, what's the, what's the barrier to keep that from happening to virtually anyone? You lose a tournament and then you go in and you start saying, well, I think that that team was full of transgender girls. We better investigate all the little kids. Right. Those are the things that I worry about because of. I guess we'll see what happens with this, but it doesn't seem that measured minds usually are the ones that instigate these things. And I'm just a little concerned about what's going to happen to just regular kids that compete well, maybe minorities that people weren't used to, something along those lines. There's been some, like you look at the Olympic level where they do these types of things that's used weaponized. You know, they take... what's obviously biological women who were born that way, and they're in controversy in other states just because of how they present themselves. So that's the thing that I think we have to be aware of here in this day. That's my opinion anyway. Right. Yeah, and we'll see how it plays out, but I think it'll be, you know, normally, you know, check of a birth certificate will resolve the issue. We hope. I think it should. But you're right in that, you know, not to. diminish either high school or middle school sports or that kind of thing or somebody that has gender dysphoria and you know diagnosed legitimate medical condition the percentage of folks that are affected by this at least the participants that are transgender is so small

What Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent in which Jackson and Elena Kagan concurred was, well, wait a minute, we dissent because we think this case should go back to the district court. And while Brett Kavanaugh says, you know, we can't reduce this to individual concern. If it involves a fundamental constitutional right, we probably can, but we don't have any evidence. Why don't we send it back to the district court and let the district court take testimony about the science involved, the biology involved, the maturity involved, the treatments that are involved, how we would distinguish this and see what the evidence is, then revisit the case, period. I mean, it wasn't, I hate to see the court disparaged so much about... the split between the justices when in this case they're really I mean the divergence was the ability of the six more conservative justices to say well look this is a bright line test but that happens all the time when you discriminate all the time and making bright line tests as opposed to the three other justices who said well This may well be a denial of equal protection, but we don't have enough evidence to rule on that. So that's my take on. It's almost like the, well, it's not like the citizenship case. The citizenship case, birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship, you know, interpreting the first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there were two votes, Samuel Alito and John Roberts, that you just simply counted upon. They just... blindly, in my estimation, I read it all. Well, there are just times have changed and we're flooded with birth tourists. I think there's no evidence of that, that it's any significant degree. Brett Kavanaugh said, well, I think it's, you know, birthright citizenship is insured, but it could be changed by Congress. as they did in the Immigration Act of 1951, adopting the four member class that the Supreme Court held in the 1890s case for the person from China, while the other five justices said, well, you know, when it says no, all persons born or naturalized within the United States and subject to the jurisdiction area of our citizens. That's pretty plain. And that's what Robert said and the other Amy James Comey Amy Coney Barrett. It seems plain on its face. And that's the law of the land now. I mean, the president then immediately came out and said, well, Congress will fix this. Well, they won't. If you're worried about, if you're really worried about birthright tourism, then amend the statutes regarding. immigration and citizenship or the regulation so that you can screen people who want to enter the country for a state of gestation. If you're within 90 days of delivery, you can't come in. That's the extent of a visitor's visa, and that addresses that problem. That's not really, which tells you that's not really the underlying reason.

for the desire to abolish birthright citizenship. The underlying reason is, to my mind, a nefarious reason, persons who are children who are innocently born in this country about people who had come here seeking a better life but got here without formal process. My mother, Ann Thompson, Peyton, became a citizen in the United States at her birth. in Raleigh in a coal camp in West Virginia. That's how she became a citizen. Her mother and father were subjects of the British crown at the time. They came here from Scotland in 1921. A grandmother never attained citizenship. She simply was a legal resident. A grandfather did. But, you know, birthright citizenship is an important part of the American dream and the American ideal. And so I think the decision is good. People say, well, it was too close for comfort. It is. It's a five to four. If I can give you some credit for that, I remember a show that we did. in 2025, I think, when this first started coming up, we knew it was going to go to the Supreme Court. You took a show where you walked through how the argument was going to be made against birthright citizenship. And you even predicted you wouldn't be surprised to see a 5-4 decision on it and that it wasn't as tight as you thought it would be. I thought at the time that you did a really great job of walking through that. And I've seen a lot of lawfare types comment on this at the same time and be outraged. Like, there's just no way that they could get here. And this is just, which it may well be. But you were able to kind of suss out like, look, I may not agree with this path, but this is what they're going to say, and this is how they're going to arrive to that conclusion. And that's basically what happened. I mean, that was very instructive when you did that last year, and I have always had that in my pocket. So when that decision came down, I was like, man, Harvey kind of talked about this. Yeah, I mean, it was. To me, it was playing on its face, but the argument would be a contra to a strict interpretation of the 14th Amendment because it says subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Well, when that arose for the Supreme Court to decide in the 1890s, who's not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, American Indians? It wasn't until 1921 with the Indian Citizenship Act that members of the Indian Nations were made citizens of the United States by Congress. And they were actually when the 14th Amendment was enacted in 1868, many of the nations in the West, Indian nations, were at war with the United States. Witness, this is also the anniversary of the Battle of Greasy Grass or the Little Bighorn. People on ships within the jurisdiction of the United States, but they're foreign flagged ships who were... foreign individuals, their children born aboard, even though they're in the United States, but they're in New York Harbor, the people who were children born to people who were citizens of countries or with the United States or in states that were in insurrection against the United States or diplomatic children. People who are here as diplomats who are not subject to.

The Russian ambassador, we can't arrest the Russian ambassador and convict him of spying. I mean, you could catch him handing money to a CIA agent in exchange for a packet of documents, but he can't be convicted of an offense within the United States. He can be expelled, but he's not subject to the jurisdiction in the United States. I mean, you've got... diplomats in Washington, D.C., walk around with hundreds of thousands of dollars in parking tickets because you can't prosecute them. So, I mean, I thought that, and could that change to say that someone who crosses the border, enters the United States, not an asylum seeker, not someone who's here on an expired visitor's visa, but who simply crosses the waters of the Rio Grande surreptitiously at night is not subject to the jurisdiction. Although. You could say that. That's not true. We arrest them. If they get past a certain distance from the border, they're not subject to immediate expulsion. So it was pretty plain to me what the arguments were going to be, but I had confidence in, I think, John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and the other three that we were going to have at bare minimum 5'4 to sustain the birthright citizenship, and that's what we had. Actually, six to three. Brett Kavanaugh did not say, or Gorsets did not say it was based on the 14th Amendment. It was based upon an act of Congress that did not include the children of folks illegally in the country within that closed class of people who are, quote, not subject to the jurisdiction. There we go. I'm glad you remembered that, Coupe. I forgot about it. Yeah, I remember. I've always kind of carried that one around with me. We're kind of just, Tom and Harvey are here this morning from the Payton Law Firm. You're welcome to call in with your questions as well. Not only about the topics that we're touching on on a national basis, but of course we have tons of stuff legally, or maybe in your own home. Maybe you're looking to put the power of Peyton on your side. You have some questions this morning. Give us a call. We still have 15 minutes left on the air. We'll go ahead and take our break right now when we come back. Plenty of time for your phone calls and also your text messages. 304-935008. That is the text line. 304-935808. Our phone number, as always, 304-345-58-58. We'll take a break and be back right after this. You're listening to Ask the Lawyer with Harvey and Tom Peyton from the Payton Law firm. 1 580WCHS, the voice of Charleston. Why do so many West Virginians choose the Peyton law firm after an injury? Because Tom and Harvey Payton are from here, and they fight for their neighbors every day. When you're dealing with an injury claim, you need experience, straight answers, and results you can trust. Don't let insurance companies or out-of-state firms push you around. Call 755-556 or visit Peytonlawfirm.com. The attorneys referenced in this ad are lifelong residents and our license to practice law in the state of West Virginia. Before it was a national chain, it was a drive-in on the west side of Charleston. Alex Schoenbaum opened the parquet in 1947, which grew into the Shoney's Empire. The Big Boy Burger became an American staple.

It proves that a small family business in West Virginia can grow to feed an entire country. West Virginia, home of the big boy. Poca Valley is proud to be a part of America's 250th birthday, proudly serving our customers since 1908. Poca Valley, where relationships matter. Member FDIC. It's about 14 minutes at the top of the hour. You're listening to Ask the Lawyer with the Payton Law Firm right here on 580WCHS, The Voice of Charleston. Your phone calls at 304-34-5-58-108. Text over any questions you have to 304-935-508. Online, Patentlawfirm.com. That's with an E-P-E-Y-T-O-N-Lawfirm.com. Hey, we heard country roads there, and we heard it last night. That was, we keep getting good publicity from Country Works. I know, right. Did you watch the World Cup game last night? I watched the highlights of the game. I watched it. So at the end. A silly red card. Yeah, well, I don't know. Problem with a red card. That's one of our top goal scores is our red card, which is equivalent to an ejection and a basketball game. Set out the next game, which is really too bad. And then we had to play 36 minutes when you get kicked out in soccer on a red card. you don't get to replace the player. So we played a man down. You know, imagine playing basketball, four verse five. But we went to two-nill, and then, you know, there's some milling around for a few minutes after the final whistle blows and the players are shaking hands and whatnot, or the opposing team was kind of crying since they lost. But then the announcers on the... they're in person. They said, let's turn it back over to the studio. Here's Hannah. And right about the time they did that, they started playing country roads in the background. And Hannah got on. And so, wait a minute. They just started playing country roads in the stadium. And it's just gotten so popular. So they just kind of like the Mountaineer basketball game, they just, instead of going back to the studio, they didn't go back to the studio. They said, wait. And so then they played the whole, of course, the players, U.S. men's national team, they, you know, they don't. do what the Mountaineers do and put their arms around each other and sing the song. Some of them were singing the song, but the whole stadium was, and they just sat there without any commentary and played the whole song from the beginning to the end. And it's just really good publicity for us. I think it's going to help. help our uh promote our w and our state and the general somehow gaining status is like a patriotic song you know more than more so than anything else it's kind of gaining status that way it's got a lot of international appeal and so a lot of people know it that aren't from the u.s but they the u.s. men's national team has just adopted it as their victory song and uh What's up they keep winning? I think I've mentioned on the air before, but one of the most surreal experiences in my life is I'm on a nearly deserted western beach in Ecuador where there's hardly anybody around. And I'm staying in a hostel when I wake up in the morning. It's sweltering hot. There's a group of people outside just playing on the beach. And what do I hear strumming? But.

country roads. And I go up to the people, make good friends with the locals. There are locals that are there that are singing. The only two songs that they knew in English was country roads and dust in the wind from Kansas. And they just played them over and over and over again. But they love the country roads. Yeah. And I know, you know, soccer is not as popular here as it is in, or not as popular as football and our traditional sports. But worldwide, it's significantly more popular than any other sport. And I don't know what the viewership was, but. It was great publicity. Hey, we've got a call coming in. We have a call that's coming in here towards the end of the show. I'll go ahead. What's your first name? Bob. Hey, Bob, what's going on this morning? You're talking about country roads. So it reminded me of a story. My son works in AI, and he travels worldwide, and he spends a lot of time in Dublin, Ireland. And about three months ago, he finished in Dublin and he was catching a flight to Vienna, Austria. And the cab driver picked him up, take him to the airport. He got in the cab, and the guy turned out to be a Polish fellow. who had left Poland 50 years earlier to escape communism. So he asked my son if he cared if he played country music. My son said, no, he turned the radio on. They played a couple of songs, and country roads came on the radio. And the guy reached down and turned the volume up. And he said, that is my favorite song in all the world. Because it's about yearning to go home. And he said even after 50 years, he yearned to go home to Poland. And Country Roads was his favorite song in all the world. My son then informed him that he was from West Virginia. So when he informed the guy, he was from West Virginia, he said the guy just about went bonkers over riding with someone from West Virginia playing country roads. Just thought I'd throw that out. Thank you. Thanks, well. I appreciate that. That's a great story. It's everywhere. Yeah. You know, most of us that travel, some have stories like that. You know, it's just one of those. Yeah, and a lot of the U.S. soccer players are, I mean, one of our best players. He's born and raised in Germany. Yeah, yeah. Thought it was a service. Dual citizen, I think. Yes. And so, but once you play for a real game for the senior. the main team for your country, you can't switch. You're always, you can pick if you're dual citizenship, but you're always on the team that you start playing for. That kind of codifies what we do here in West Virginia, which is if you drive through the state, we claim you. You're ours, man. Right. But it was back to the Supreme Court. One of the one of the things that was, or a case that had some interest maybe.

If you care about privacy was a case about geo fencing. Yeah. So what had happened in that case, somebody had robbed a credit union or a bank, something like that. And so the government, law enforcement, like issues warrants, and they serve them on, I think it was Google in this case. They may have served them on Apple or something as well. But, you know, when you use your phone. I know because I've had cases where there's been data downloads and location pings and things. You have a lot of programs running in your background on your phone or other electronic device. And if almost everybody has a Google account, a Gmail, I don't use it for my primary email, but I have to have it for all the different things that I do, calendar and otherwise. Maps. Maps, yes. And so they serve a search warrant on Google. Basically do a geofence, meaning, you know, certain geographic area. They want all the data as far as location and use and that kind of thing. And... Obviously, that brings in, and then once they get that data, they try and, you know, find a suspect process of elimination. They actually, in this case, kept issuing, I think, subsequent warrants for more and more detailed information. Naturally, that encompasses a lot of individuals information that have nothing to do with a robbery at a credit union. In this case, actually, they used it, I believe. I'm not sure if it was the lynchpin that found, but they located. the person, a suspect, and went to the house and, oh, there he is and had so much U.S. currency that it matched what was stolen from the credit union. But that was challenged under the Fourth Amendment as an unreasonable search and seizure. And the Supreme Court found that... citizens do have an expectation of privacy for information that Google has. That was one of the issues like, well, government argues, well, when you subscribe to Google, you waive these type of privacy rights. And the Supreme Court said, no, that's not true. And I think found it was just overly broad. You've got to have a more particularized probable cause to get a search warrant. So they... Anyway, they found that that type of search was unconstitutional. So, you know, the government will not be geo-fencing and, or that they can, but it'll be illegal and they won't better use any of the information they gather from it to prosecute someone. So no more geo-fencing and just bulk warrant requests for all data from Google, other third-party electronic providers. Now, they can still. You know, if it was, if they had a suspect and had some particular facts that are aimed at that person, I think the warrant will be good. I mean, they could subpoena or serve a warrant on Google about person A and get their data. But yeah, you can, nowadays, you know, the state police lab has a whole, you know, multiple employees just for downloading.

it off a phone i've had a few cases where that's been involved you'd be surprised hardly anything's ever really permanently deleted from your phone the government can purchase data too right from the data brokers that collect this stuff i think they can probably do that and that's not it's not that's how they circumvent it's not compelled yeah so it's it's one way to maybe circumvent that but i think google would market safeguarding that, not selling off data. But yeah, there's whole, as you know, I mean, there's whole firms that basically serve the media and marketing industry that sell, what are in essence leads. in a very complicated computer-based scenario. Facebook just announced that on top of all the data they collect on you, that they're also now purchasing that same third-party data that, like, other entities can buy, and they're including that into your account digital fingerprint so they can surface you more relevant ads is what they say. But imagine now what that storehouse of information that Facebook has is they have their information and the information they're purchasing, and then they get subpoenaed. Right. I don't know. Yeah, the whole, I mean, AI and that. There's privacy issues. Government should have seen this coming, and we should have a whole massive regulatory scheme to govern all this going forward, and government's reactionary generally. So we'll see how that plays out in the future. But, yeah, I mean, AI is, it's tough to decipher and figure out what's real and what's not, and it's not really regulated in any reasonable way. Yet it will be because somebody will be harmed significantly, probably somebody politically connected, then there'll be some act that passes and hopefully get some regulations on it. Interesting stuff. Wrapping up a conversation with Tom and Harvey Pathan this morning on the Pathan Law Firm. More information online. It's Pathanlawfirm.com. Pathanlawfirm.com. That's B-E-Y-T-O-N. You can find the Pathan Law Firm. Also, their phone number 304-755-55-56. If you go to the website, you can contact the Pathan Law Firm, leave an email message. I know Harvey and Tom make a point to respond to those whenever they can. And it's a good way to get a hold of the Pathan Law Firm. It is indeed. And, you know, before we leave the air today, I would like to, you know, as I mentioned when we started the show, I had a fairly significant medical event. I had an open heart surgery. I mean, you know, they put you to sleep and they open your chest and stop your heart. And, you know, I came through this really, really well. But, you know, when I check my Facebook account, I see that. Any number of people like my 1967 St. Albans High School classmates, former clients, people who listen on the radio, express thoughts and prayers, which really lifted me up while I was in the hospital. And I appreciate it. And thank you all for it very much. And I've got to, if I can last through this neck surgery, I've got more fixing to be done. I'll be 50 years in Nitro next May. And I'm going to make that. We're going to have a 50-year celebration.

to the Peyton Law Firm in Nitro, West Virginia. We'll be one of the oldest businesses in town. The half-century celebration. The half-century celebration. It's good stuff. Hot dog. Might have free hot dogs. You never have. Got to have West Virginia dogs, right? Yeah. That's Harvey and Tom Payton, from the Pathan Law Firm in Nitro, West Virginia. Pathanlawfirm.com. Pathanlawfirm.com. 304, 755.556. Harvey, glad to see you back here. Thanks for coming in. Good to be back. And Tom, good to see you as well. Yep. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today, Dave Allen Show is up next. I'll be back this afternoon at 306 with Dave Weekly on Metro News Hotline. Have a great day, everyone, listening to Your Voice of Charleston. We are 580. WCHS. WCHS-A-L-W-243 DRFM Charleston and W283AQ Cross Lanes, a WVRC media station. We're proud to live here too. Today in your city, someone is walking their dog. Someone is crossing the street to their car. Someone's kid is riding a bike home. And they're counting on you to drive the speed limit. Speeding accounts for nearly 30% of traffic fatalities. And most of those crashes don't happen on the interstate. They happen on the streets where people live. Slow down. It's an act of care for the people around you. So remember, speeding catches up with you. Know the road. and respect its limits. Presented by NHTSA, now back to your news podcast.