The World and Everything in It — October 28, 2019

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! 

The Sixth Amendment guarantees a jury trial in criminal prosecutions. But does that require a unanimous jury to convict?

GORSUCH: …should we forever ensconce an incorrect view of the United States Constitution for perpetuity, for all states and all people, denying them a right that we believe was originally given to them…

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also on the Monday Moneybeat, trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. How is that happening in a growing economy?

Plus the WORLD Radio History Book.

And sounds from our 2019 WORLD retreat.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, October 28th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: U.S. military operation kills ISIS leader in Syria » The world’s most wanted man is dead. A U.S. military raid in Syria targeted the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. President Trump made the announcement on Sunday. 

TRUMP: U.S. special operations forces executed a dangerous and daring nighttime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style. 

As U.S. forces bore down on al-Baghdadi, he fled into a “dead-end” tunnel with three of his children. He then detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and his children. Troops conducted a DNA test onsite, confirming his identity.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the terrorist leader’s death is a major milestone in the effort to completely destroy ISIS. 

ESPER: Al-Baghdadi was the founder of ISIS. He formed the caliphate. He was an inspirational leader in addition to being a thug and a murderer. So when you take out a leader like that it’s going to have, I think, a major impact on the organization.

The Pentagon began planning the operation two weeks ago, after gaining intelligence on al-Baghdadi’s location. Eight military helicopters flew over territory controlled by Russian and Syrian forces before landing at a secret ISIS compound under gunfire. More than 50 U.S. troops reportedly took part in the operation. None suffered serious injuries. 

Fighting continues in northern Syria » Meantime, Turkey’s military reported Sunday that one of its soldiers died and five others were wounded in a Kurdish mortar attack. 

The Turkish government maintains that it is only firing in self-defense and is upholding what it called a permanent ceasefire.

But reports from inside northern Syria indicate that Turkey has not halted its assault. 

AUDIO: [Sound of fighting in Syria]

David Eubank is a citizen journalist with the humanitarian group Free Burma Rangers. He recorded his escape from the town of Sodah amid a Turkish attack over the weekend.   

AUDIO: Get in the car! Get in the car, get in the car! 

Eubank also posted footage to social media of wounded Kurds—victims, he said, of Turkish drone strikes. 

Turkey invaded northern Syria on October 9th to clear the border of Kurdish fighters after U.S. troops pulled out of the area. Turkey considers the Kurds a security threat because of links to a long-running Kurdish insurgency in Turkey. 

U.K. authorities working to identify victims found in truck » Authorities in the UK are still working to identify each of the 39 migrants found dead last week—after freezing to death inside a refrigerated truck. Investigators originally believed the migrants to be Chinese nationals. But the focus is now shifting to Vietnam. 

Police in central Vietnam say they’ve taken forensic samples from residents, who believe their family members may be among the victims. Up to 24 Vietnamese families had reported missing family members as of Sunday.

Essex Police charged the driver of the truck, 25-year-old Maurice Robinson of Northern Ireland, with 39 counts of manslaughter and other crimes. Police also arrested and questioned several other suspects in connection with the tragedy.

California declares emergency amid wildfires » California’s governor has declared a statewide emergency with nearly 200,000 people ordered to flee their homes because of wildfires.

About 90 percent of the evacuations are in Sonoma County. Sheriff Mark Essick urged people to obey emergency officials and get out of harm’s way. 

ESSICK: Although I’ve heard some people express concerns that we’re evacuating too many people, I think those concerns are not valid at this point. 

Fire officials are worried that strong winds could carry embers across a major highway. That drove them to expand evacuation orders that covered parts of Santa Rosa—a city of about 175,000 that was devastated by a wildfire just two years ago.

The latest evacuation orders came after Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to 2.3 million people across 36 counties starting Saturday night to try and prevent more fires. 

Thousands rally against Catalan separatist movement » Tens of thousands of people marched in Barcelona on Sunday to protest the separatist movement in Catalonia.

AUDIO: [Sound of Catalan protests]

Barcelona’s urban police originally said 80,000 people rallied. But local police put the crowd estimate at 350,000. Many of the demonstrators waved Spanish and Catalan flags. One poster read in English: “We are Catalonians too, stop this madness!!”

The pro-Spanish unity rally came after several days of protests by Catalan separatists. Those demonstrators voiced anger over a Supreme Court ruling that gave nine separatist leaders long prison sentences. Some of those rallies spiraled into violent clashes with police.

Former Rep. John Conyers dies » One of the longest-serving members in the history of the U.S. Congress died Sunday.  

Former Congressman John Conyers won his first election in 1964 and served more than 50 years in Washington. 

The Michigan Democrat was known as a strong voice in the civil rights movement. It was Conyers who first proposed making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. He’s heard here in a 2015 interview with The Washington Post.

CONYERS: King, to me, is the outstanding international leader of the 20th century, without ever holding office. 

He also helped found the Congressional Black Caucus. 

Conyers remained popular in his district, regularly winning elections with more than 80 percent of the vote, even after his wife went to prison for taking a bribe. But he ultimately resigned amid scandal in 2017. The congressman was facing an ethics probe following multiple sexual harassment allegations. 

Conyers died at his home in Detroit of natural causes. He was 90 years old. 

Rep. Katie Hill resigning amid House ethics probe » On Sunday another House member announced her resignation amid a scandal of her own.

Freshman California Congresswoman Katie Hill had been a rising star in the Democratic Party. 

The 32-year-old delivered the party’s weekly address back in December, right after arriving in Washington. 

HILL: We’ve done a lot of talking this week about we go from here, now that we officially have a House majority. 

But the House recently launched an ethics probe into whether Hill had an improper relationship with an aide in her congressional office. That is prohibited under House rules.

Hill has admitted to a separate relationship with someone on her campaign staff, which she called inappropriate. And she said political operatives and her husband are “weaponizing” compromising photos of her.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead on Legal Docket: Mary Reichard covers more Supreme Court arguments. Plus, a recap of our staff retreat from last week. This is The World and Everything in It.

BUMPER MUSIC: Gene Autry Back In The Saddle Again

NICK EICHER: It’s Monday morning and we’re back in the saddle for The World and Everything in It after last week’s WORLD staff retreat. 

Today is the 28th of October, 2019. Good morning to you, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Good morning to you!

And I just have to say something about last week. WORLD staff met together in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. We are a far-flung workforce, which means we don’t often get to see our colleagues in person. 

While we were together, we renewed our commitment to sound journalism grounded in facts and biblical truth. And it was rejuvenating to me to be with others who share a vision for this kind of journalism.

EICHER: Toward the end of our time today, we’ll share a little more about it. Just one thought I wanted to interject here is that we created our entire Friday program in front of a live audience in Asheville. These were some of our local friends who support WORLD, as well as the WORLD board of directors who’d gathered for our official annual meeting, as well as our staff. 

It was a slight variation on The World and Everything in It Live and our next one is in Nashville—so from Asheville to Nashville—music city—November 21st, a Thursday night.

I am told we are two-thirds full. So the positive way to put that is we’re one-third empty and it’s positive because that means there’s a seat for you. But you’ve got to go online to claim it.

Visit worldandeverything.org, look at the top of the page, hover over the “engage” tab, and then click on live events. Just follow the directions. I expect we will fill the venue completely, but you do still have time to claim your free tickets. Just not a lot of time.

REICHARD: Looking forward to seeing all-y’all there November 21st.

Well, on to today’s Legal Docket, and we begin with the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. 

During the early years of the United States, the Bill of Rights was understood to apply only to the federal government, as a limit of its power over the individual. 

The states were free to experiment and allow for nuance suited to their regional populations.

EICHER: But Supreme Court opinions since then have altered that understanding. Using a legal doctrine called “incorporation,” the justices applied some of the rights to the states via the 14th Amendment. That’s the one that prohibits the government from depriving you of life, liberty, or property without due process, or a fair procedure to sort it all out. 

Just last year, for example, the high court decided for the first time that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines applies to the states. 

So you might expect someone will come along to ask for more.

REICHARD: And that someone is a man in Louisiana (Ramos v Louisiana). 

Back in 2016 a jury found Evangelisto Ramos guilty of killing a woman in New Orleans. For that, Ramos received life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

At the time, Louisiana allowed conviction with less than a unanimous jury. 

Ramos wants the Supreme Court to say that Louisiana’s law was unconstitutional because it allowed just 10 out of 12 jurors to convict.

EICHER: The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the accused certain rights in criminal prosecutions. One of them is a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. It says nothing about whether the jury must be unanimous in its decision, though.

But Ramos’ lawyer argued unanimity was assumed by the founders.

The only thing in the way of that assumption is Supreme Court precedent. Decisions of the court permit a non-unanimous jury verdict in criminal cases. So Ramos’ lawyer argued to throw out that Supreme Court precedent.

REICHARD: But neither is jury size mentioned in the Sixth Amendment. 

That omission brought Justice Samuel Alito to ask if that makes a difference.  Many states permit as few as six jurors to decide a defendant’s fate. 

Listen to this exchange with Ramos’ lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher.

ALITO: So if you hypothesize a jury pool with a certain percentage of jurors who were inclined to acquit, and you ask: is there a greater likelihood of acquittal with a 6-0 verdict than a 10-2 verdict or an 11-1 verdict? Or if the state decides to have a jury that’s bigger than 12, a 15-person injury, 14-1, 19-1, when we get to the point where the chance of acquittal is in favor of the non-unanimous rule, would that be unconstitutional?

FISHER: My rule is that any time the state deviates from unanimity, it is unconstitutional.  So even if a state were to go beyond the number of 12, and I think the reason why is because it’s a different phenomenon when 
somebody disagrees in the jury room.

Defending Louisiana was its solicitor general, Elizabeth Murrill. She noted that last year voters in her state changed the law to require unanimous decisions in most felony trials—going forward from January 1 of this year.  That put it in alignment with every state except Oregon.

But prior to that, her state relied on Supreme Court precedent for half a century that allowed for non-unanimous verdicts.

Murrill argued that to retroactively apply the new law would wreak havoc. 

MURRILL: We do have 50 years of reliance, which is why I emphasize that we have 32,000 people who are incarcerated right now at hard labor for serious crimes. And every one of them would be able to file an appeal. 


Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed to history revealing Louisiana’s prior law had racist roots, aimed at disempowering minorities who might differ from majority whites sitting on a jury. 

Perhaps that informed Justice Neil Gorsuch’s question to Murrill, again for Louisiana.

GORSUCH: You say we should worry about the 32,000 people imprisoned. One might wonder whether we should worry about their interests under the Sixth Amendment, as well. And then I — I can’t help but wonder, well, should we forever ensconce an incorrect view of the United States Constitution for perpetuity, for all states and all people, denying them a right that we believe was originally given to them —because of 32,000 criminal convictions in Louisiana? 


MURRILL: No, Justice Gorsuch. 
But we don’t believe that it was a right that was given to them in the Sixth Amendment. 


Some justices got a pointed rebuke from Justice Alito over the matter of stare decisis. That’s a legal doctrine that says courts must follow earlier rulings in similar matters. He mentions Apodaca. That’s the decision Ramos wants the court to overturn.

ALITO: You are asking us to overrule Apodaca, so we do have to think about stare decisis. And last term, the majority was lectured pretty sternly in a couple of dissents about the importance of stare decisis and about the impropriety of overruling established rules.

Justice Alito was referring to the four liberal-leaning justices there. But in this case, conservative Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh also sounded skeptical of Louisiana’s argument.

If so, the numbers favor a win for Ramos, at least in some part.

OK, this next case (Rotkiske v Klemm)? I’m going to move quickly through it. 

You’ll understand why in these comments from the lawyer for the petitioner and two justices:

GANT: I must candidly acknowledge that the complaint here was not a paragon of clarity. It could have been done better.

SOTOMAYOR: It is terribly confusing because of the confusion of the use of terms.

KAVANAUGH: ‘Cause clarity. We do need clarity. (Lawyer: I will do my best.)

This case asks the question: when is it too late to sue for a past-due debt under the federal law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?

When the collector sued the debtor in this case, the wrong person accepted service for the lawsuit. The case proceeded to a default judgment against the real debtor, who didn’t find out about it until he applied for a mortgage years later. 

He sued, arguing the law on debt collections doesn’t allow for serving the wrong person lawsuit papers.

But the governing law states only one year in which to sue over debt matters.

I’m thinking with all the confusion over what had happened or even what the legal question actually is, this case might even end up as a DIG, or “dismissed as improvidently granted.” 

And that is this week’s Legal Docket.

BUMPER MUSIC: The Money Shuffle / BBCPM005: Retro Electro – Paddy Kingsland [PRS]

MARY REICHARD: Coming next on The World and Everything in It, the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER: Next time you lament partisan politics in Congress, consider this: the 2018 bipartisan budget act set federal spending to increase at twice the rate that federal revenue increased. 

Why does that matter? 

Because last week, the government reported the federal deficit hit its highest level in seven years: $984.4 billion for Fiscal Year 2019. That’s a 26 percent increase year on year, and the deficit’s on track to hit $1 trillion next year and stay there until something changes.

Almost every news story on this subject last week and this weekend blamed the 2017 tax cut for lost revenue, but it’s at best misleading. Revenues have grown ever since the rate cut and we have a growing economy to thank for that. In simple terms, lower tax rate, bigger tax base. It’s possible government might’ve collected more revenue with higher tax rates, but there’s no guarantee the economy would’ve grown as it did without the stimulus of the rate cut. 

That’s why people disagree about economics.

What’s not in dispute is that spending has exploded the deficit, and mandatory entitlements are the biggest drivers. Another is service on the national debt, one of the fastest-growing line items in the federal budget. Interest costs rose 16 percent and accounted for more than a third of the deficit.

This is a large deficit, historically speaking, almost 4 percent of gross domestic product. The average since World War II has been to run a deficit equal to a little over 2 percent of GDP. The worst period followed the great recession of 2008: for three years, the deficit as a fraction of GDP exceeded 8 percent. 

What’s worrying about this 4 percent deficit is it comes in the 11th year of a record-long period of economic expansion.

REICHARD: Another winning week on Wall Street and we have two factors to thank for that: One is that almost half of the Standard & Poor’s 500 companies have reported earnings and most of them are better than expected. The other factor is progress on ending the trade war with China. The S&P 500 stock index enjoyed its third-straight winning week, picking up 1.2 percent, and so now it’s one-tenth from its record high set back in July when the weather was hot and so was the market.

EICHER: Rounding out the other major indexes, all positive: The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose seven-tenths, the Nasdaq added 1.2 percent, and the Russell 2000 small-company index gained 1.5. And that is today’s Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A small oversight cost a former world champion snooker player big time!

Snooker, if you’re not familiar, is a game played on a pool table. It has its own set of rules.

One of them is that you have to show up in order to win.

Everything unraveled for Neil Robertson when he decided he’d drive to the Barnsley Metrodome for the World Open qualifier instead of stay nearby.

So the day came, he was in a hurry, and inadvertently typed the wrong Barnsley into his GPS.

As Robertson explained on Twitter, “When I realized there was a second Barnsley, it was too late to get to the other one.”

Needless to say, he had to forfeit and so he missed his shot at another title.

Now, something like this happened to him back in July, too. He missed a tournament after a flight cancellation left him stranded at an airport. Snookered again.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER: Today is Monday, October 28th. So glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up on The World and Everything in It: the WORLD Radio History Book. 

Today, a gunman fires on the White House trying to assassinate President Bill Clinton. 

Plus, the 45th anniversary of “The Rumble in the Jungle.”

EICHER: But first, construction comes to a close for one of America’s most recognizable monuments. Here’s Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: We begin today in the Black Hills of South Dakota on October 31st, 1941. After 14 years of surveying, blasting, and rock carving, sculptors complete their work on Mount Rushmore.

The exposed granite mountain face features George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The monument honors each for their role in creating, expanding, protecting, or unifying the United States.

In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the project when workers unveiled the second completed figure—that of Thomas Jefferson:

FDR: And when we get through there will be something for the American people that will last through, not just generations, but thousands and thousands of years…

Over more than a decade, some 400 workers used drills, dynamite and jack hammers to excavate 450,000 tons of rock. 

The original design of sculptor Gutzon Borglum included Thomas Jefferson to Washington’s right, but unstable rock there forced him to move the third president to the other side. 

Before funding dried up, Borglum’s plan also included torsos of each of the presidents. 

Despite the relative difficulty in getting to Mount Rushmore, it consistently scores as one of the most visited monuments in America. Last year, more than 2 million people made the trip to gaze upon the “Shrine of Democracy.”

ANNOUNCER: Round 1, Ali bouncing around…

Next, “The Rumble In The Jungle” in Zaire, Africa.

ALI: It’s befitting that I go out of boxing like I came in. Meeting a big, strong bully that knocks everybody out…

A confident Muhammed Ali from a BBC interview the night before his October 30th, 1974, fight with George Foreman. 

ALI: The matador beats the bull. The bull hits the hardest, but the matador is the smartest. 

Promoted as the last fight of his career, the 32-year old Ali is a 4-to-1 underdog. 

ANNOUNCER: Round 1, Ali bouncing around…

Foreman is the reigning heavyweight champion with one of the sport’s highest knockout percentages. 

Ali, on the other hand, has been officially out of the ring for seven years due to his suspension over refusing the draft.

The fight began at 4 a.m. local time so it could be broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S.

SOUND OF FIGHT: Foreman’s idea is to back him off into the corner and when they get tight to wail away…

Muhammed Ali employed a “rope-a-dope” strategy against his younger opponent. Ali landed a number of hard blows in the early rounds, but purposely left himself open to unscored body shots from Foreman. Ali tangled with him when he could—pressing and leaning against him at every turn. He figured he could simply wear him out. The harder Foreman hit, the more Ali scoffed. 

SOUND OF FIGHT: Foreman throwing more punches now, maybe this could be the tactic of Ali…

The strategy worked. In the eighth round, Foreman was worn down and Ali landed a five-punch combination. It ended with a hard right straight to the face that sent Foreman to the canvas—for the first time in his professional boxing career. 

SOUND OF FIGHT: Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight…

Foreman claimed later that the referee counted too fast and called the bout before the agreed-upon eight seconds.

CLIP: Well now I’m hoping with all my might that I’ll get a chance to fight the man again…

Foreman sought a rematch, but Ali refused. A couple of  years later, Foreman announced he had become a Christian after a near-death experience in another fight. He became an ordained minister. Soon after, the two bitter opponents became life-long friends. 

Sports Illustrated ranks “The Rumble in the Jungle” at number 14 on its Top 100 Greatest Moments in Sports History. 

SONG: IN ZAIRE | JOHNNY WAKELIN 

And finally, October 29th, 1994—25 years ago this week:

CLIP: At 3 p.m. today a white male, age 26, opened fire at the White House from outside the north fence…

The man is Francisco Martin Duran from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dressed in an overcoat, he fires nearly 30 shots at the White House—hoping to assassinate the President. While attempting to change magazines, a tourist jumps him and wrestles him to the ground. Clinton is unharmed.

CLINTON: I was upstairs listening to a football game and the shots were sort of intermittent with the cheers…

During his trial, Duran pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Prosecutors called more than 50 witnesses that successfully convinced the jury he was faking mental illness. The judge sentenced Duran to 40 years in prison without parole. Today he is serving out his sentence in a Federal Prison in Colorado.

That’s this week’s WORLD Radio History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD: Today is Monday, October 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. 

Still grateful for our editorial retreat last week. We came from far-flung places for meetings, training, and a day of events with our donors on Thursday. You heard part of that on Friday’s program.

REICHARD: Yeah, and we even made time for some team-building fun! I was part of a group that went hiking on the Craggy Pinnacle Trail. Another group went to throw axes at the Axeville Throwing Club. 

And not to be outdone, a dozen or so of our colleagues visited Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard—where they shot apple cannons.

EICHER: Let’s listen to third-generation apple farmer Danielle Stepp McCall explains how that works.

MCCALL: So these are our apple cannons. They were developed at a farm out in Michigan, and we learned about them at a trade show and they are so much fun. Customers buy a bucket of apples and they get to shoot at metal targets. It runs off a huge air compressor, makes a great sound when it hits. It’s very satisfying, obviously.

Our own Susan Olasky was the first to try it, and she nailed the target on her first try. 

And big thanks to Danielle and Rex McCall. They’re avid WORLD readers and listeners who gave us a wonderful time.

REICHARD: We’re going to end today’s program with a bit of sound from the retreat. During one afternoon session we gathered both editorial and office staff for a company update. And we closed that session by singing.

MUSIC: [This Is My Father’s World]

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow, an update on that tragic story involving a Texas boy whose parents are battling over his mother’s insistence that he’s a girl.

And, Albert Mohler on abuse in the church.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

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The Bible tells us: rejoice insofar as you share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice and be glad.

Go now in grace and peace.

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