did anthony elonis's violent fantasies of murder posted online also signal violent intent, jamie floyd, this is a thing the supreme court justices are sitting there trying to weed through whether this guy meant something when he was posting, can they do it? >> i got to tell you this is an incredibly i think important case. it is really one of the most interesting cases we've seen in a long time because it's really the classic first amendment case but in a 21st century setting. so you take as you pointed out at the top of the show ray you take the law as initially written, back in the day of the founders, and you plop it into sort of a star trek moment and you see whether the constitution crumbles or hold its weight. and i think it will hold because it has with all the technological change, we had the printing press, the television, all of that but the question is how does it work in the internet age and what are we expected to figure out in elonis mind, do you wait until he picks up a gun? he threatened to go to an elementary school for goodness sake and sloot it u shoot it up. do you

jamesy floyd, good to see you -- jamie floyd, good to see you.ell me why the story is so compelling. >> we had the lost of life and what we thought was a sea change the gun control. in fact in some jurisdictions there has been a reactionary result, increased 74th support of guns. it's one thing ogo put flowers and candles and have a vigil every year. it's quite another thing to file a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the weapon that killed your baby. >> this whole idea of keeping the story alive and putting pressure we're we were talking about this on the politicians in washington. there have been some laws passed in connecticut but there hasn't been real national legislation. >> the 24th month is the last one in which they can file this lawsuit. to i think the families might tell you, we waited as long as we could for our national leaders to take national action. and nothing has happened and so this is what we're going to do to try and get the public's attention. and by the way maybe our lawsuit will be successful. they might say to you. >> r

let's get back to jamie floyd. i want you to take on a question, and just because i'm posing the question does not mean that i believe it, but i'm going to pose the question. you got a case like trayvon martin, eric garner, and michael brown in missouri, and others. and others. and our business starts to spin on it 24 hours news cycle, right? and you can be left with the impression the narrative that it's open season on african-americans males. >> mm-hmm. >> put this whole set of events, disturbing events, and deaths, police-involved shootings with african-american males as victims into some kind of context from your background and your legal training, and your life experience on this planet. >> yes, it's not a spin. it's not a narrative. i've been covering these cases for 20 years, and as a lawyer, if you include my law school time, i'll admit to it, almost 30 years, right? and i have ancestry on both sides of the line, black and white. slave holder and picking the cotton. i fully respect both perspecti perspectiv

let's bring in david shuster and jamie floyd. our legal contributor. i've been asking people all day since the decision was announced, are you surprised? are you surprised? no one has been surprised? how about you? >> not surprised. >> why are you not surprised? >> well, as we discussed in the ferguson case. >> there is video this time. >> yes, that's distinctive. >> it shows most of what happened. >> it leads us to think that we know what happened. >> what are we missing? >> well, you know, this case, the one reason i would not have been surprised also had there been an indictment, which is slightly different way of answering your question, so maybe a little bit more surprised than ferguson, but here you have a police officer charged, and there is almost never an indictment in those cases. there are some exceptions. remember the sean bell shooting. that's here in new york. and here we had a trial. >> yes, yes. >> and some conviction. it could have happened here. and i think in the context of ferguson, i thought maybe even though outside influence is n

. >> thank you so much, jamie floyd. >>> all right. new details coming up surrounding the death of an ohio state football player. why he mentioned concussions in the final text to his mother >>> plus, why the cost of generic drugs is skyrocketing. >> sacrifice... >> i order you to die... >> and ultimate betrayal... drawing lines in the sand that would shape the middle east and frame the conflict today >> world war one: through arab eyes only on al jazeera america >>> we are learning more about what may have led to the death of an ohio state university football player. the 22 year old's body was found in a dumpster near campus on friday. what are we learning about what happened before he disappeared? >>reporter: tony, we know that he disappeared early wednesday morning and he never returned home. we know that at some point, he texted his mother saying that he felt that he was an embarrassment and he apologized for that and he also blamed his problems on concussions. just to fill you in a little bit about his background. he spent about t

let's bring in jamie floyd, the first thing that i felt when i saw the story was the fact that it seemedhat two people were mad about what somebody else was doing, they didn't like it, so they were going to sue them. >> go get mama and papa. i love this story because it seems like it makes a lot of sense. your pot coming in to my state, keep it out or i'm going upstairs. and why not? but there is a big why not because often states have conflicting laws. that's the whole reason why they've gone to the supreme court. this is filed in the u.s. supreme court. so it's nebraska, oklahoma saying colorado's law is effecting our law enforcement, their pot is coming across the border, and this--this is, by the way, let's be clear, not medical marijuana, this is recreational marijuana. >> right. >> this is one of those handful of states that have legalized pot for recreational use, and these attorney generals don't like it, they want the supreme court to pass on it, saying that the federal law is supreme over state law. invoking the supremacy clause saying this needs to be enforced. federal law ins

let's talk about this with our legal contributor jami floyd. this really is a very interesting first amendment case. his lawyers say he was heavily influenced by the rapper m&m. i reread the lyrics from his song, fantasizing about killing his ex-wife. why are his facebook postings any different? >> ok, so here's, this is really as you say a classic first amendment case, really significant and important case. it's not just m&m. even the beatles wrote songs about revenges against exgirlfriends. >> johnny cash, jimmy hendrix. >> is it really a true threat, what the supreme court has called a true threat. 45 years ago, they carved out a first amendment exception, if you're making a real threat against someone, that is not protected speech. the posts were linked to m&m, linked to other satirical speech of precise nature and he often linked to the first amendment and referenced it in that the question here is his in tent and also the subjective response of the recipient. he was speaking very specifically about one person, his wife, and also an f.b.i.

we're joined now by our legal contributor jami floyd. thanks for being with us.he mother said she wants to skip the grand jury process, can she? >> she can, and you know, the grand jury process is under very intense scrutiny, not just in this case, but across the country now, right? we've been talking about it in ferguson, about it in new york, but about half the states go to grand jury's in high profile and in regular run of the mill cases. >> is the prosecutor using the grand jury for cover? >> that's the -- >> should he indict the officer? >> the concern is that prosecutors work so closely with the police that when a police officer is the defendant, we need transparency. what i would be asking for if i were attorney benjamin crump who has been called into this case by the family, i'd be asking for a special prosecutor, an independent person to come in and take on this case so it doesn't have -- >> -- prosecutor to bring about charges against the officer one way or the other. in other words, you have a tape, you see a boy. he has a gun, you hear a witness say l

jamie floyd always good to see you. you. >>> it seem hackers has found a new way to make money. they are tricking pharmaceutical and medical companies in to trading personal information. generic drugs account for 85% of all drugs dispersed in the u.s. they used to be a bargain, but now the price of some generics are skyrocketing. up by as much as $1,000. christof putzel reports. >> reporter: this doctor has owned this pharmacy for over a decade, and he is never experienced anything like this before. he serves almost a hundred people a day. predominantly black and hispanics. from low-income households in his metro d.c. neighborhood. and the big drastic change he is talk about is the dramatic rise in the cost of generic drugs. >> the generics are priced so high. >> reporter: sometimes as much as 100%, even a thousand percent spike. this man too is baffled by the price rises. >> payments to the pharmacies are staying the same. and patients are left with the bill and pharmacies are left having to subside big gaps and loses

tonight and jamie floyd is al jazeera america legal contributor in our studio.to start with you, john, for one second. obviously the "rolling stones" sort of in between a rock and a hard place tonight and haven't so far they have not said their story was completely wrong but they have raised questions about it. what's next? >> well, i think full disclosure and admission that they did not follow proper ethical procedures in vetting and publishing the story. >> reporter: what procedures are you talking about? >> first and foremost was the decision to not fully identify a principal party in story. it seemed that they did not recognize the fact that a fundamental ethical directive says identify every person who is principal to a news story. >> reporter: right but most people and most journalist don't name a sexual assault victim in their stories, it's just practice. in fact, in some states it's not allowed. >> well, the first amendment has been tested on this point in the supreme court and the supreme court says you can do that. the first amendment will protect you

. >> let's bring in aljazeera's legal contribute or jami floyd. good morning. let's talk about the charges the grand jury could have indicted this officer on. >> most people think first of murder, but that was never on the table here. the charges they move looked at were assault and there are three different degrees of assault from first to the lightest of assaults, third degree, reckless endangerment, again, three different possible degrees, first, second and third. criminally negligent homicide an option, involuntary manslaughter, manslaughter, options, none of which they took. >> the medical examiner ruled this a homicide. you're a former defense attorney. are you surprised that they couldn't find a single charge? >> it was homicide, tied to the chokehold by the medical examiner, although they did also mention the preexisting condition. >> asthma, right? >> asthma, but once you have a police officer testifying, the grand jury is going to consider his version of events and of course his defenses, which are extraordinary for a police officer. >> we saw thousan