The Cocaine
He did not have 25g of cocaine, he is alleged to have 26.67g with packaging. The packaging is listed as four small baggies and one large corner cut baggie. Those could mass more than 1.67 bringing it below 25g.
Sadly I lack baggies and a milligram scale. The best I got is a quart sized freezer ziploc masses about 7g. Could 4 small baggies and a large baggie mass a quarter of that? I wouldn't be surprised either way.
Does any of that legally matter? I have no knowledge of established case law, but I'd expect it would help his lawyer secure a better plea deal (because 25g wouldn't stick). But that's assuming Nick gets a lawyer and accepts a plea.
The Cocaine Part 2
I was curious if 25g is a lot (for an addict). It depends on how much tolerance they have. With some napkin math and some mediocre sources, it seems a naive person would use as much as 200mg a night (~50mg dose with a few reups), while a user with heavy tolerance hits up to 5g a day.
Thus 25g ranges from enough for a naive person for 125 days (ignoring tolerance development), or a heavy tolerance individual for a mere 5 days. That's a huge range.
For the three of them (two of them?) they likely have a significant tolerance and bought a couple of weeks worth. Ultimately it's not that much for a group of addicts, because tolerance is such a strong force.
Robert Barnes
The man is completely biased whenever he's involved in something. That might be useful if he's your lawyer, but it makes him a mediocre information source. I think his other analysis (when he's not involved) can be interesting, but make sure to apply a good dose of critical thinking to anything he says and disregard
any comments if he's involved.
Viva Frei
I think he's a decent guy that has been mind broken by a couple things. Also he has a couple of ongoing bad influences.
- He learned about real conspiracies and other nonsense governments get up to. He over-corrected all the way to "most conspiracy theories are true".
- I don't think he's handling post-truth very well: he saw the journoscum lie, and again over-corrected to "anything they say is the opposite of the truth"
- Superchats. It takes a certain disposition to filter everything for the good feedback. Unfortunately he seems to embrace most praise (even the sycophantic) while rejecting most criticism (even the constructive), and it's warping him.
- Viva trusts Barnes too much.
Government Story
That having been said, Viva isn't wrong when he notes the weakness of "a police officer says a pastor said that a school teacher said she noticed things". It is right to have
some doubt. Nick's also right to note this is "a government story". But...
What both are missing is that we've seen Nick's degeneracy into addiction, and so we have good prior reasons for believing these things. Some caution is still warranted, but so is quite a lot of belief. I can do both: I think the accusations are probably true (but not "proven"), and I will narrow down that certainty as more evidence comes out.
And we did get some more evidence. It's still "government story," but the accounts from the officers are not hearsay, they're direct witness.
As for the law, Viva's being foolish if he thinks the hearsay bit invalidates the totality of evidence for the search warrant.
Viva & Barnes
I'd like a better show. It's nice to have a weekly audio rundown of interesting legal events, and they still have good topic selection. But I'm sick of filtering through the BS and rarely listen anymore.
Sadly I think they are still the best for that specific niche, unless someone has something better?
"Good Lawgic" Joe Nierman
I only know this guy for two reasons: (1) his rant on evolution being a lie and (2) his zealous defense of the holy rite of Metzitza B'peh (where a rabbi sucks the blood off a freshly circumcised baby penis).
Nate The Lawyer
Guy is great when he's in (or close to) his lane. If he's commenting on a criminal case in New York? Dude knows his stuff. Commenting on a criminal case in another state? He's still probably right. Commenting on federal constitutional issues? He might be right, but better to look elsewhere.
This is a criminal matter, so I expect Nate's legal analysis will be on point.
Nick Rekieta
In the good ending, he takes a plea deal and gets off his addictions, all of them. I count four: cocaine, alcohol, sex, and internet praise. I highly doubt Nick takes this path, I've seen no indication that he's learned anything. Worse, I don't think he even has the humility to learn,
yet. Even worse, he might be such a narcissist that the "yet" is a never because he is incapable of it.