DUI Stop Rights in Pennsylvania + Celebrity DUI Breakdown

00:00:18:28 – 00:00:37:10

Welcome back, everybody, to now we defend podcasts. This week we’re actually going to be doing a rerecord of a podcast we already recorded. But for some technical reason it didn’t actually record. So we’re going to get a second bite at the same apple. And hopefully we do it better the second time for you guys, but you’ll never know if it’s better.

00:00:37:13 – 00:00:58:12

But in any event, the topic this week is we’re going to be unpacking some cases that we find interesting. A lot of these have happened to celebrities. They’ve been in the news. There’s video, there is dash cams. There is body worn camera. And then also the Lindsay Clancy case that has been so prevalent recently in the news media.

00:00:58:13 – 00:01:22:24

Up in Massachusetts, there’s a lot of really interesting parts of that case that are rather complex, which we’re going to try to simplify or at least inform you about as it relates to law here in Pennsylvania. Keeping in mind, of course, at the case itself is in Massachusetts. So we’re going to start with just a fun video. This is one where I’ll let Justin kind of set it up, but it’s basically a video of a fellow on a DUI stop.

00:01:22:26 – 00:01:39:28

So, Justin, you want to just kind of set this up and tell us kind of how this all began, and then we’ll have Levi play it for everybody. Absolutely. So this when preparing this week’s podcast or last week’s, I should say, I found this video on Instagram of a traffic stop. And I actually just watched it a little while before we came down to record this episode.

00:01:39:28 – 00:01:56:24

And I can’t tell if it’s fake or not. It might be fake. Oh yeah, but like, the guys eyes are just ridiculous. They’re looking separate directions. The officer’s asking them some questions. He’s like, oh, have you been drinking today? And the guy’s response is no worse. And he’s like, wait, what? And he goes, no worse.

00:01:56:27 – 00:02:25:25

Have you been drinking alcohol today? No. Worse. Is. What’s that? No. Worse. Okay. Have you drank any alcohol today? No. Sure. No. What about this morning? No. Okay. Because there’s an empty case of beer right there. And there’s a bottle underneath your seat. Oh. That was for some friends, sir. Okay. All right. Do you have your ID with you today?

00:02:25:28 – 00:02:41:10

You can put down the phone. I just need to get your identification. Oh. Yes, sir. Sorry, I am.

00:02:41:12 – 00:02:45:12

Don’t worry about your phone right now. Okay. Just grab your identification for me, please.

00:02:45:16 – 00:02:52:18

So there’s I think a few funny aspects to that video and what you probably shouldn’t do on a DUI traffic stop.

00:02:52:19 – 00:03:10:10

Yeah, absolutely. And whether it’s fake or not, the setup at least that we were able to kind of garner from it was that this was like a welfare check, I believe, where the guy was, I guess, passed out, slumped over the wheel. Somebody called it in, and the police just kind of responded on what we’ve described before as a kind of a mirror encounter.

00:03:10:11 – 00:03:27:22

Yep. To check on somebody and make sure that they’re okay. And then of course, the video unfolds and it’s a it’s a good laugh, but at the same time it’s pretty obvious, I would say example of what not to do. And if you ever find yourself in that state, stay off the road. Yeah, absolutely.

00:03:27:24 – 00:03:51:27

The next big one that I kind of want to jump into has a lot more substance. Here is the recent DUI stop of Tony Romo quarterback, former quarterback for the Cowboys. So I’m sure some of you who watch our podcast have seen this video. It’s a rather long video. If you actually watch the entirety of the stop, and then the field sobriety testing and the interactions with police.

00:03:51:28 – 00:04:13:27

But there was a lot of things that that happened in this video, which are good examples of or things that we should at least be able to kind of call out for you. So you can you ever find yourself in that situation, maybe learn from I want to go to you guys, both of you. And I kind of want to get a sense of how you would grade how Tony did on his DUI stop, maybe from A to F, we’ll kick it over.

00:04:13:27 – 00:04:30:29

What do you think, Justin? Yeah, well, I think in the initial recording I said, f I think I was. You guys weren’t far, far off of that. But, watching the videos again, I think I would agree. I think both of you guys had like a D minus. Yeah. I don’t know that he actually gets all the way to an F the first guy.

00:04:31:00 – 00:04:45:01

We’ll say that first video that was an f o the first guy that was an F. So he definitely did better than that. But Tony did a few things right, but by and large didn’t do a very good job. You know how he handled himself? I mean, he was nice and I think polite and everything. We’re not talking about that.

00:04:45:01 – 00:05:04:00

We’re talking about protecting himself from possibly being charged or how to handle his defense. I think that’s why we we agreed to give him more than an F was because of the fact that he was polite in all aspects of the encounter. He didn’t get belligerent. He also we talked about this in the initial recording, but he didn’t like name flash.

00:05:04:01 – 00:05:27:24

You know, he wasn’t like, don’t you know who I am? And it’s Tony, I’m Tony Romo, you know, he didn’t do any of that. And that I think speaks well of him because he wasn’t trying to be a jerk. And we talked about the fact too, that in the the body cam, there’s actually a point where he could have said like, don’t you know, I’m an NFL former quarterback or whatever.

00:05:27:25 – 00:05:56:21

Like, he could have said all that because she asked him about like injuries and concussions during the fields. Right. And and I want to touch on that real quick because it was. And Levi, I do want you to play this part because as Tim is saying, as as I’ve said and Justin, we’ve talked about this like, if you are somebody who is either a public figure, even locally, where you live, or you may be somebody who knows the police or is somewhat involved in politics or what have you, and you’re ever stopped.

00:05:56:24 – 00:06:18:20

Please never use your position to try to influence the decisions that law enforcement make. That would be inappropriate. And it’s never a good look, and it’s always creates a quite an awkward situation. And I got to tell you, you know, you got to remember people are going to look at that video after the fact. And if that’s the type of person you are, that’s the type of thing you’re doing.

00:06:18:20 – 00:08:50:28

It’s going to be seen later. And I think what you’re going to end up doing is embarrassing yourself. I know here I’m not going to mention any names, but we have represented some public figures in the past and some have handled it very well and others others not so well. And I always try to have that conversation with with people who are in positions of power, authority that might run into the police because it’s a very important thing to remember.

00:08:51:00 – 00:09:12:26

But yeah, I mean, you were you were absolutely right on that. But yeah. What do you think initially let’s go to like when he first gets pulled over and, you know, looking at that video, which I want our viewers to see that part of the video as well. And the police kind of come up to his window and, you know, Tony turns and I said to you guys, like, he reminded me of, like a cartoon character.

00:09:12:28 – 00:09:29:18

Like how kind of silly he looked. Part of me was thinking after the fact. I was like, is that just because I kind of know what he looks like in, like, normal circumstances? And then I saw him there and I was like, he looks goofy. Is that what made me feel like he was a cartoon character, or was what?

00:09:29:18 – 00:09:50:28

I think that if I didn’t know who he was, you know, I mean, I think there are some things that you can see from watching the video, even assuming you didn’t know what he looked like, that jump out to you. And they don’t necessarily automatically point to intoxication. But I mean, you can see that he’s he’s very you know, he’s got a very red face when he turns to the police, his eyes are pretty glassy.

00:09:50:29 – 00:10:07:18

He does have a kind of a general disheveled appearance to him. He keeps flicking his hair back. Yeah, he’s smiling, kind of goofy and that, you know, that kind of stuff could also be explained by the fact that he’s just coming from a golf course where he was outside in the heat, you know what I mean? Like that probably all day.

00:10:07:18 – 00:10:30:08

He might be sunburned. So so that kind of stuff could be explained. But remember, when we’re talking about reasonable suspicion, it doesn’t matter whether there are possible other explanations for what the officer is seeing. What matters is do the things taken at face value? Are they evidence of impairment? And that doesn’t mean are they definitively evidence of impairment.

00:10:30:08 – 00:10:56:10

But can it be true that a person with that appearance is impaired? And that’s what gives the officer the end to conduct further investigation, to determine, is this just somebody who’s been outside all day, or is this somebody who’s impaired? Right. It raises what we’ve called before, you know, reasonable suspicion. Right. And the officers are when they’re coming up to your vehicle, they’re looking at the totality of those circumstances, how you appear, how you speak, what you smell like.

00:10:56:11 – 00:11:15:15

Do they smell of alcohol or drugs coming from your vehicle? Those types of things. I mean, that’s all very totality as it relates to what they’re looking for. And I just again, with with looking at the video of Tony, like I think the officer kind of had all of it, you know, they walked up to the car, they smelled what they smelled.

00:11:15:17 – 00:11:47:12

He’s looking the way he looks. He’s kind of acting a little goofy. And did you catch? I’m sure you both did. But did you guys notice, like when they’re conversing, he keeps, like, repeating what she’s saying. And I think some of that was like a product of the road just being loud. Yeah, we talked about that last time, about the fact that there was a lot of noise and then the fact that, I mean, in his description of his movements leading up to the stop, there was some stumbling and some, you know, it was kind of weird because I think we talked about the fact that it almost looked like or sounded like he was

00:11:47:12 – 00:12:08:20

saying initially that he was coming from his grandmother’s house. Right. Right. That’s a good point. Yeah, that she asked, actually, where are you coming from? And he said, grandma’s house. Right. But then he changes that later. And there again, people get it. People get frustrated about this kind of stuff because they say, well, like there’s a there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I maybe misspoke or something, but that doesn’t matter.

00:12:08:20 – 00:12:39:21

It doesn’t really matter whether or not there is some other plausible explanation during the investigation. What matters is just taking the facts as they’re presented to the officer. Is that able to to be sufficient for a basis to suspect that something is going on? Whether or not something is actually going on is not the question. But the question is when you see what you see and smell what you smell and hear what you hear, does that cause a reasonable person to think there is evidence of of impairment, and I need to investigate further.

00:12:39:21 – 00:12:57:23

That’s essentially what we’re talking about. And so, you know, his his explanation for where he came from or the discrepancy between what he initially said and what he later changed it to, could be explained by the fact that there is confusion, there’s a breakdown in communication, the roadways allowed, the traffic’s loud. Maybe he’s not hearing the question. Maybe she’s not hearing the answer.

00:12:57:23 – 00:13:16:08

Although we’re hearing the answer on on body cam. But those things don’t really matter. It’s, you know, we got a guy who looks the way he looks. We’re smelling alcohol. We got inconsistent answers coming out. Now that is stuff that it’s really starting to build. Kind of part and parcel with a DUI. Yeah. And what do we say all the time, Tim.

00:13:16:09 – 00:13:34:11

Like when you’re stopped for DUI and the officer starts engaging you in conversation. Do you have to answer those questions? No. And and that’s where I think Tony Romo score here goes down a lot. Right. Like he could have just said I’m not answering questions. Yeah I’m not going to answer questions I mean provide your documents and that’s it.

00:13:34:12 – 00:13:53:02

Right. But instead he chooses to smile and engage and kind of have this whole dialog that really just develops into him looking really impaired. Yeah, absolutely. So that’s where I think, you know, his like I said, his score just starts dropping pretty quickly. I also think wasn’t there. Maybe I’m confusing this with another one of the videos we were we were covering.

00:13:53:02 – 00:14:10:11

But isn’t there a point in the video to where he is kind of like fumbling around with documents? Or isn’t there something that that, like he’s not able to produce right away? Maybe I’m wrong about that. But there was also like him, you know, kind of fiddling with his phone a little bit, too. I mean, these are all things that you look at.

00:14:10:18 – 00:14:28:26

The phone thing came up when they asked him to step out and feel. So that’s when he starts. And I do want to talk about this too. He wants to call his lawyer now. Okay. So let’s talk about that. I mean, would you guys advise a client of yours to if you’re on the side of the road and there’s a cops asks you to step out of the car to immediately say, I’m going to call my lawyer.

00:14:28:27 – 00:14:45:09

No, I would not say to do that. That would not be a good idea. One, because they’re probably not going to let you to begin with. You don’t have a right to do that. What you should do is just not do fields, you know, say, I’m not going to do fields.

00:14:45:12 – 00:14:49:25

I’m sorry.

00:14:49:27 – 00:15:08:23

You’re denying the step out of the vehicle pending field. I’m just gonna. Come on. Okay. Step out of the vehicle. Nope. Step out of the vehicle. Step out of the vehicle. You’re gonna take the field sobriety test.

00:15:08:25 – 00:15:18:29

You’re not. Step out of the vehicle.

00:15:19:02 – 00:15:29:19

Yeah. And I think that like, just his whole demeanor from where we see the video begin to when they ask him to step out, he, like you said, like he really didn’t do himself any favors.

00:15:29:21 – 00:15:47:20

It’s loud. At one point, they both meaning he and the officer both say, you know, the traffic side, I can’t hear. So then she kind of leans in and gets very close to him, and he leans in closer to her. So, yeah, alcohol and his breath, his smelling it. And now it’s even more intense because he’s getting closer.

00:15:47:22 – 00:16:04:01

I think at one point he said he was after the whole grandma debacle, he said that he was golfing in a golf tournament that day. So, you know, we all know what people do when they golf to drink of, you know, Justin, that’s a great point. And I do want to hammer that home. And I know we’ve all talked about this.

00:16:04:03 – 00:16:26:23

If the cop asks you where are you coming from, first of all, again, killing it here. But you don’t need to answer that question. Yeah, but if you are going to answer that question, there are I would say, you know, what would you say the top three places are that the cops, if you’re going to answer that question, where you’re coming from is a pretty big billboard for I’ve been drinking golf dinner bar.

00:16:26:25 – 00:16:46:10

Yeah. Dinner slash barbecue. You know, whether, you know, because there’s always family reunions. Yeah. Any type of like party or social gathering. Right. You classify that as a dinner, a barbecue, a family reunion, whatever you want to call it. But you’re right. Like, yeah, those types of gatherings, a bar, obviously, or golf, you know, golf work event. Yeah.

00:16:46:10 – 00:17:06:19

But that would be I would classify that under like a social activity. Yeah. Yeah. Which is probably at a bar. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So but yeah he did that. And then again I just think as he continues on in that conversation, he’s just like you said, he’s being kind of goofy smile and he’s playing with his hair. And then they asked him to step out and he’s trying to call his lawyer.

00:17:06:19 – 00:17:20:25

She tells him you can’t do that. He continues to try to do it, and all of a sudden you just see him do like the the like sneaky. He’s just like, he starts recording. As soon as I saw that, I’m like, is he really recording right now? You know, like that I think was one of his biggest missteps.

00:17:20:26 – 00:17:39:14

Yeah, I just I don’t like that personally. I don’t, you know, there’s always a time to play. Yeah. I just think that was very unnecessary. And at that point, again, I think it almost kind of lends towards this guy thinks he’s intoxicated, right. You know. Right. Yeah. He wants to if he can’t call his lawyer, he’s going to record it so he can give it to his lawyer.

00:17:39:14 – 00:17:55:19

But at the end, we’ve talked about this in our prior episodes where we talked about recording the Police and why you can do that in a public arena like that on a vehicle. Stop. It’s a judgment call. Like, does it make sense? Or now does it look like more evidence of impairment that you’re looking a little bit shady?

00:17:55:19 – 00:18:17:02

And why would you do that? Because they have body worn cameras. And you know, and if any of you have questions about recording the police, we again, in one of our prior episodes, we did a full segment on that, and I think it was pretty thorough. So I would suggest going back and watching that. But, the common counter is always like something along the lines of, well, everybody should record it.

00:18:17:03 – 00:18:37:07

Everybody should record it for both sides, you know? Good. Bring up Tim, because we did get a lot of comments on that. Some people were like angry at us that we were even suggesting, like not to record the police. You should always do that. They’re going to violate your rights. And the other thing but the obvious, you know, kill to that is guys, it’s going to be on their camera anyway right?

00:18:37:07 – 00:18:58:15

Yeah. Every almost every department now that I’m aware of has body worn camera and dash camera that is made available to us all the time. And discovery we get that the lawyer gets it. So you recording the traffic stop doesn’t really change anything because of us. It’s superfluous. We’re going to get it anyway, and all it does is just ratchet up the the behavior of the cop potentially.

00:18:58:15 – 00:19:18:13

And you know, you commenting on there on our podcast saying why would you not record the police? It’s kind of silly. Thanks, but no thanks. If you want to record the police, feel free. Be my guest. But yeah, it was make your own bed. You make your own bed with it, right? Exactly. And I was going to say kind of along with what you’re saying.

00:19:18:14 – 00:19:43:22

You know, there’s a point in the video where where he’s trying to set the phone up like he talked about at the back of the car. And, you know, this the point I think that needs to be said is that people think that just by virtue of recording it, they’re they’re protecting themselves, but they’re not considering the fact that everything that goes into you setting up that recording, there’s a million ways for that to go wrong.

00:19:43:23 – 00:20:00:19

Right? You know, I mean, if he sets the phone up and it falls off the car and then he has to bend over to pick it up, and now he’s he’s trying to trip and fall, picking this phone up, you know, the effort to record to protect yourself, resulting in you giving more evidence that’s going to be introduced to show that you were impaired.

00:20:00:25 – 00:20:25:03

Looking more, more, more stumbling like, you know, being a stumble monkey physically. And at a certain point, it’s just easier to keep it simple. Your movements should be simple. Your responses should be simple. Everything that you’re doing should all be very minimal. And when you start adding more variables into what your body is trying to do, especially in an impaired state, that’s the whole point of SFS.

00:20:25:05 – 00:20:40:25

It’s divided attention. You’re listening to the cop, but you’re trying to also fiddle with your phone and set up a recording, and then you’re you’re standing by the vehicle making sure that you’re not standing in traffic and you’re not falling over the guardrail, and you’re trying to set the vehicle up and stand up straight and not fall over.

00:20:40:26 – 00:21:07:25

You’re doing the STS, you know what I mean? You’re doing almost like your your own SSTs for the cop and these watching you and and they’re also recording all of that instead of just standing still, being quiet and and absorbing one thing at a time. What are you going to do, play that video in court and it’s going to look like you’re you’re a stumble monkey because you’re dropping it and you’re fiddling with it and you’re shifting it around, and it’s going to look probably worse than their video of you, which isn’t going to help your case.

00:21:07:25 – 00:21:29:03

You’re actually creating more evidence against your against yourself really is what you’re doing. So again, guide yourself accordingly. If you want to make your own bed that way. Be my guest. But it doesn’t really help. In fact, I can’t think of a single case I’ve ever had where somebody recorded them that either helped at that. Oh, they didn’t already have that recording, you know.

00:21:29:04 – 00:21:53:11

So yeah. And you guys, I mean, no, I don’t know. We talked about that. Well, I think when we did the comment response episode about the fact that I’ve had clients that insist that their video will disprove whatever the allegation is, preach, man. Yeah. Like and then and then we sit down and we watch their footage and there’s always that moment where they’re just kind of like, well, I guess my footage doesn’t really show what I thought it showed.

00:21:53:13 – 00:22:16:02

I don’t remember it. That or I guess, you know, maybe it did happen, maybe what he’s saying is right or whatever. And it’s like, well, then what was the point? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Have you guys had situations where people come into you in client meetings, even outside of DUIs, and say, hey, I recorded my spouse during this and she didn’t know, and I want to play that for you, and let’s use it as evidence.

00:22:16:02 – 00:22:37:18

Or I recorded this other person. And I think what pretty much nobody realizes until they have that kind of come to Jesus moment in your office where you tell them you just broke the law and committed a felony. Yeah, that’s considered felony wiretapping, recording, at least in Pennsylvania, recording, recording somebody without their consent. It’s a two party consent state, right?

00:22:37:20 – 00:23:01:09

That’s. Yeah. And I would say to that the risk that you run with recording and relying on that recording is one most of these people never watched the footage again until they present it to an attorney. So, you know, they record something when they’re intoxicated and they think that that recording confirms their, their intoxicated memory of whatever it was that happened.

00:23:01:15 – 00:23:19:14

And then they don’t bother to even look at it before a sitting down with somebody and showing it to them. And. Well, yeah, the footage doesn’t show what you said. It shows because you, you were intoxicated and you didn’t remember what happened. You don’t remember it the right. And I’ll say kind of as like a for non intoxicated cases.

00:23:19:21 – 00:23:58:14

The other risk that very often happens for attorneys that we as defense attorneys have to be mindful of is while we generally don’t don’t disbelieve our clients unless we have a reason to to really kind of push something to to be like, okay, you got to be honest with me about this, right? Very often with recordings, even when I watch the recording, I am led to the inescapable conclusion that they have misrepresented the nature of the video to me, because that’s the other thing that happens very often is they say, oh, there’s this video that exists and it shows this behavior and this person yelling at somebody you’re getting in their face or whatever, and

00:23:58:14 – 00:24:14:25

then you watch the video and you’re like, well, but that’s not your overselling this thing to me. Maybe it does show something we can use, but you’re still kind of overstating what’s in the video. And so it’s not as good as you think it is. Yeah. And Tim, that’s an important point. I want to kind of drive that home to our viewers.

00:24:14:27 – 00:24:56:17

The relationship that you have with your attorney, whoever that may be, should be one of communication, trust, thoroughness. Those virtues are pretty important when dealing with your attorney, and it does not help you at all. Or your attorney. If you come into the office in the very first meeting and lie or not, tell us the truth. Because what you always need to remember is that as soon as that attorney client relationship begins, which starts at the very first meeting, initial consultation, you know, engagement with the attorney that is protected and you trying to sell a bill of goods to the attorney makes zero sense, because it’s not going to help.

00:24:56:17 – 00:25:26:17

In your defense, I find myself frequently having conversations with people and I say, hey, listen, I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years. I have a pretty good sense of when I’m not being told the truth, or someone is trying to sell me a bill of goods or what have you. And I think it’s far more important that you tell me the truth, so I can help you and help you either develop a defense that makes sense and will work, because what I don’t want to happen, and what will really hurt you is if at the end of the day, we buy into what you’re telling me, it ends up not being the truth, and

00:25:26:17 – 00:25:44:26

I get kind of back doored in a trial, or let some point in the case when it’s really detrimental to you, and I’m not able to effectively represent you as a result of that, because we got caught up in essentially lying and not knowing what was going on, and we look like idiots. So that is not effective. Please don’t do that.

00:25:44:26 – 00:26:07:28

And I think good attorneys and you guys are good at this. If that’s happening, kill that out of the gate and have that honest discussion and don’t have to be rude or mean or anything like that with your client. It’s more of a let’s build the trust discussion that you have to have, you know, and the clients have to they have to get over the fact that our job as their, their advisor is not to tell them what they want to hear.

00:26:07:29 – 00:26:28:03

Yes. We’re not their friends. We’re, we’re we have a very uncomfortable position where when you ask a question, I have to give you an honest answer about what the law says and the merits of what you’re saying. And a lot of people I found don’t like that. You know, the really good clients, they take it, they they can internalize it.

00:26:28:03 – 00:26:45:20

They can they can understand it, rationalize it, and then we’re all on the same page. But the the difficult clients are the ones that turn it into an argument with you. Yeah. And want to want to make your assessments not right. Kind of tell you guys how I handle that consulate. And I want to ask how you guys do it too, because it is a dance.

00:26:45:20 – 00:27:07:23

It is a challenging dance because it’s awkward. It’s socially awkward. It feels uncomfortable when when that’s happening. But you have to, as a lawyer, have that conversation. So the way I usually do it is I say, listen, my job is like you just said, Justin is while I’m kind and I’m I want to listen to you and hear you out.

00:27:07:25 – 00:27:27:07

I’m not here to be your friend or to puppet and kind of mirror back to you. What you’re telling me. My my job is to unpack this, to logically think through this, to think ten moves ahead as it relates to how we’re going to use this. And if I don’t know what’s going on exactly, then I cannot be most effective in doing that.

00:27:27:07 – 00:27:46:02

And I’m not here to judge you, but I frankly, just that story that you just told me is not believable. And I do not think that 12 reasonable jurors sitting in a jury box are going to believe that. And I want to kind of warn you about that now. So we don’t find ourselves in a scenario where we are getting kind of screwed over because we just went down a random path.

00:27:46:07 – 00:28:19:17

Now again, and I don’t usually say this part, I kind of leave it at that. And then we just get into like, listen, I let’s kind of go back over that. And again, if you didn’t tell me everything, I’m not going to judge you for that. But I also I do know that there are a lot of lawyers that, again, the ethics on this are kind of like, I don’t know, gray, I guess a little bit where they will create that type of relationship to get retained by the lawyer or the, by the client, and then after the fact, it all falls apart.

00:28:19:22 – 00:28:36:14

And as we’ve said in prior episodes, at that point, you’ve paid the guy to essentially mirror what you’re saying and puppet you and smile at you and make you feel good. And they’re laughing all the way to the bank when you’re sitting in prison, so that that’s why you have to have that conversation. Yeah, because then the client’s the one who’s been sold the false bill of goods there.

00:28:36:15 – 00:28:57:11

Yeah, but kind of duped by his own making. Right. And the lawyer just played into it because they wanted to make a fee. I think that in my experience, I have never I haven’t had a lot of those experiences during the consultation, which is what really and, you know, this is the part that I’ve struggled with because during the consultation, usually a lot of the initial concerns are addressed and it’s all good.

00:28:57:13 – 00:29:17:28

We have what appears to be a really good relationship, and then the relationship changed somewhere along the way. And now they want that kind of a relationship and they don’t like if you respond critically to something and you say, look, that’s not going to work, or hey, the law is this. It allows for them to do this x, y, z.

00:29:18:01 – 00:29:41:28

And that’s when they almost perceive like you’re selling them down the river. But I’m doing exactly what I told you I was going to do. I’m going to go through the merits of the case with you, and I’m going to advise you about what’s the best way to navigate all this. And so I’ve had a lot of, of, of difficulty throughout the course of my career in managing those expectations after the initial expectations are set.

00:29:41:29 – 00:30:04:21

I think some of that, though, is best managed by being really upfront in the in the beginning, because one, you can kind of as the client and the attorney, you kind of weed each other out if you’re not going to work together, right? If it’s just not going to work. But two, I found what happens is if you don’t engage in those types of conversations early and you’re not being your client, maybe isn’t being truthful with you.

00:30:04:21 – 00:30:27:29

And we don’t always know that. Like, I think we’re pretty good judges of that, but you never know for sure, right? But then what happens is you get the evidence later, and then it turns out like now I have to have that hard discussion. And it’s a tougher discussion then, which, like you said to him, I think sometimes leads to that relationship changing when that evidence comes out later and it turns out not to be what they told you, right.

00:30:28:02 – 00:31:02:17

You know, and that that’s why I think managing upfront is really, really, really important to keeping that relationship positive the whole way. Right? Because then there’s no you’re not hitting potholes, you’re not hitting things you’re not expecting. Right? Yeah. We’ve talked about this before too. I mean, some of it is the fact that, you know, people will pay an attorney for advice and guidance, but all the while they’re, you know, they’re running searches on Google with AI and they’re doing ChatGPT lawyer stuff, and they’re talking to their friends who really know nothing about the law, and then they’re coming back, or they’re talking to inmates at the prison.

00:31:02:23 – 00:31:19:03

They’re coming back to us for ten years. And then, you know, those are the people that clients talk to. Like, I had a buddy that was in jail for ten years. He said, none of this is this can’t be prosecuted. It’s like, so that means he’s a lawyer now. Like, yeah. And like he was in jail for ten years, so obviously he.

00:31:19:07 – 00:31:39:14

Why are you listening? Why are you listening to him? Yeah. How do you handle those discussions? Just. And when you see him come up, I definitely feel like I’m pretty good at weeding those out in the beginning. And I tell people quite often, actually, you know, they come in and they’ll tell me something. And that’s kind of how I started a console, like, tell me what’s happening, whether it’s a phone call or in person.

00:31:39:14 – 00:31:55:16

Tell me what’s happening. And again, I think for the most part I’m a pretty good tell as to is this person BS in me or are they telling me the truth, or are they telling me some of the truth? And maybe, you know, keeping some things on the back end? The way I handle it is if I think they’re lying to me, I just tell them that, yeah.

00:31:55:17 – 00:32:18:22

Like, yeah, I’m just like, I think you’re lying to me. And then, you know, you go on your spiel about how that’s not helpful whatsoever. I had a client, my first round of defense that was charged with assault up in Dauphin County for a fight at, like, I wouldn’t call it a club. It was like somebody had, like, rented out, like a space or a fire hall or something like that type of building for like a birthday party.

00:32:18:22 – 00:32:38:11

And this girl went there and then fight breaks out. She got accused of stabbing another girl with, I can’t remember if it was car keys. It was something like that, something smaller. And she came to me, did a console with her. She tells me the story. She brought her friend with her, reiterated the story. So it was corroborated and it sounded believable.

00:32:38:13 – 00:32:53:07

She’s like, it wasn’t me. I think it was like this other girl. So we go to the prelim and we have like a pretty contentious, like hearing, and the DA’s like, we got like 3 or 4 witnesses say it’s your girl just at the other. And I was like, she said it wasn’t her. Like, you know, that’s where we’re at.

00:32:53:07 – 00:33:14:04

So we go through this whole hearing. It ends up getting bound over. And I was just starting to get discovery when she actually called me and was like, hey, I need to come talk to you. This is right. As I was on my way out of the first job I had before I went to the DA’s office. So I actually was like, well, this is perfect because I need to talk to you too, because I’m not going to be able to be your attorney.

00:33:14:07 – 00:33:31:09

And she basically came in and she’s like, yeah, I lied to you. It was me. And I was like, wonderful, right? You know, it’s kind of a good learning kind of experience that you had as a younger lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And I know, Justin, you’ve had some situations kind of recently with clients I think that have been a little difficult.

00:33:31:11 – 00:33:56:04

You’ve had to have those discussions. I mean, I know we’ve talked about them. Yeah. I do think you handle it pretty well. Very well actually in managing your clients, Tim. You do too. But again, I just think that is something that comes with practice and doing this job a period of time. Yeah. You know, and and finding yourself in situations like that where you get duped and kind of having those early young lawyer experiences, you know.

00:33:56:05 – 00:34:14:23

Yeah. Yeah. So I think recently, like you said, like there’s definitely been a little bit of a I’d say the last month or so, there’s been a couple of not difficult situations, but just situations where I think could have been avoided if I had just done a little bit more, or if I had weeded a little bit of this out a little bit earlier.

00:34:14:26 – 00:34:35:10

But I definitely think in managing all those that have come up, pretty much all of them have worked out. Yeah, and I agree. And I think a part of being a criminal defense attorney especially is like no matter what. Like you could have a thousand great clients and then you get one problem, one that just, you know, sticks around for a little while and it’s like, no matter what you do, some people just aren’t happy.

00:34:35:11 – 00:34:51:08

Yeah. Like you can talk to them five times a week. Yeah. And we say it all the time, like communication is one of the biggest kind of virtues of having a good attorney client relationship, I think. And it’s not a one way street. Like we’re not just saying to our client, you need to communicate with me. You need to tell me everything.

00:34:51:09 – 00:35:16:11

Tell me the truth, I think, and you guys do this very well. The communication to your client sometimes rules the day, especially for client sanity and then feeling like, okay, they are a part of this. We’re partners in this together. To me, having that that open dialog and that frequent, consistent communication is something that actually helps maintain that right and maintain that trust.

00:35:16:13 – 00:35:47:15

So okay, one other thing I want to talk about with Tony Romo’s case before we move on to another matter, is when they are doing the discussion with him about blood testing. Yes. Okay. That part. Yeah. So you remember that. And it seemed this happened in Wisconsin, but it seemed that there are laws over there are fairly similar in the sense that if you do refuse a chemical test of either breath or blood, that you get your license suspended.

00:35:47:17 – 00:36:10:19

And that’s automatic regardless of what actually happens with the UI. And just to give you an example of this, I, I defended a case a few years ago where a guy refused a blood test in a DUI crash and got his license suspended for it was it was multi offenses. So it was 18 months at that time and we went to trial and we won.

00:36:10:19 – 00:36:30:28

He was found not guilty at trial of the DUI and he was acquitted. And he still had to serve the license suspension for refusing the blood test on the DUI stop. And that is an important distinction that I don’t think a lot of people realize. They think, okay, well, I’m going to refuse it, and then I will beat the DUI, and then I won’t have to deal with that suspension.

00:36:30:29 – 00:36:47:25

Well, unfortunately, that’s not the case. Yeah, you might beat the D and that might be what your end goal is. And by all means, if that’s your end goal, by refusing it, more power to you. And it might work. But if you are not going to end up beating that DUI, you really just did yourself a disservice. So let’s talk about that.

00:36:47:29 – 00:37:04:06

Tony Ramos, the video there and then Levi, I want you to play this part of the video where he’s being read his chemical test warnings. There was one part of it that I thought was really weird and interesting and maybe unique to Wisconsin, where they gave him the ability to bring in his own tester.

00:37:04:06 – 00:37:28:11

You have either been arrested for an event that involves driving or operating a motor vehicle after using alcohol or drugs, or both, or you are suspected of driving or being on duty time with respect to a commercial motor vehicle after using alcohol or drugs, or both. This law enforcement agency now wants to test one or more samples of your breath, blood or urine to determine the concentration of alcohol or drugs in your system.

00:37:28:11 – 00:37:51:18

If any test shows more alcohol in your system than the law permits while driving or detectable amount of a restricted controlled substance, your operating privilege will be suspended. If you refuse any requested test, your operating privilege will be revoked and you will be subject to other penalties. The test results, or the fact that you refuse testing can be used against you in court if you take all the requested tests.

00:37:51:19 – 00:38:16:00

You may also choose to take the alternative tests that this law enforcement agency provides free of charge. Is that you may also. What’s the alternative? You may also have a test conducted by a qualified person of your choice at your expense. You, however, will have to make your own arrangements for that test. If you have a commercial driver’s license or were operating a commercial motor vehicle.

00:38:16:01 – 00:38:34:14

Other consequences may result from positive test results or from refusing testing, such as being placed out of service or disqualified. Will you submit to an evidentiary chemical test of your breath? No. Like I said, I want my lawyer for the eighth time.

00:38:34:16 – 00:38:35:26

So I figured that expert.

00:38:35:27 – 00:39:03:29

Yeah. Yes, yes. Tell me about that. It’s not he doesn’t bring in his own. What they can do is essentially you can ask that the state lab or whoever takes custody of the blood sample to hold the sample so you can have it independently tested. Oh, okay. So it’s not for actually drawing the sample. Yes. Okay. So I’m glad you looked into that after the fact because when I, I’m like, what, does he have someone on call that he’s going to come in and like draw his blood traveling phlebotomist.

00:39:04:00 – 00:39:23:17

He’s got a lot of that’s actually what I got that my note just says private phlebotomist. But I did look into that. And yeah, that’s that’s my understanding. And I would assume that you could probably do that anywhere if you request the sample. I mean, we could do that in Pennsylvania. Yeah. The issue is just like I’ve seen a couple of times where the amount of the specimen that’s left over after testing could be an issue.

00:39:23:17 – 00:39:46:12

So if they don’t know that, they need to retain some of it to have it independently tested, then the quantity could be an issue. It could be so low that it couldn’t be tested. I’ve also, I think I’ve seen some cases to where the amount of blood that was drawn that they actually were able to successfully get from somebody was not enough to provide definitive results, because there has to be enough that they can actually test it.

00:39:46:12 – 00:40:04:28

I actually had a case just the other week where it was a woman who consented to the blood test. However, they stuck her like 15 times and they literally couldn’t get blood out of her body. I’ve seen that too. And it was interesting because she’s like, am I going to get suspended because they didn’t get my blood? And the answer is no.

00:40:05:00 – 00:40:27:16

There is a small weird wrinkle to that. And that is in the Ar.d program in Pennsylvania. There, the law basically reads that if you are getting put on to ARD in a case where they do not have a chemical test, you can get suspended for that. Really? Yeah. So you’re not getting suspended initially for like refusing the two months is two months for not having a chemical test.

00:40:27:16 – 00:40:47:20

I think it’s like 3800 for or somewhere where it’s a weird caveat. And I had it happen in a case and I went to the DA’s office and I was like, why are you suspending my person for this? And they said, well, it’s unfortunate, but the whole reason is because under this section. So, you know, we ended up doing and I didn’t advise my client to do it this way, but she wanted to do it this way because she didn’t want the suspension.

00:40:47:20 – 00:41:00:08

Is she actually took a plea on it. She just pled to the general. She pled to a general impairment tier one and got no suspension. But then she the exchange was she got it on a record. Yeah. So I mean, that’s why I told her you’d still worth it because I wanted you to get it off your criminal record.

00:41:00:08 – 00:41:17:00

But she didn’t care. So that’s a trade off. I mean, you know, it’s a it’s a trade off that the client. I think that’s I mean, it sounds like it was a well-reasoned decision. Yeah. We definitely sat down and talked it through. And in the grand scheme of things, you know, one DUI offense that’s an outlier is not going to sink you.

00:41:17:00 – 00:41:35:27

And it can be sealed, you know, like so after five years, it can it’s going to be off your public record at that point. And it’ll it could still be potentially visible. And also now A or D other than it being expunged if you get another one. Still a second. Yeah. You know right. Yeah. By the way I’m going to go slightly off topic here you guys.

00:41:35:29 – 00:42:06:20

On Monday I heard did you guys see how like one of our posts went like crazy viral across the country profile or what social media it was on Facebook. We so it was it was an older discussion we had in a previous episode where Tim and I, I think, were exchanging about how firearms or no sorry, prior drug offenses or sealable in the state of Pennsylvania after a certain amount of years, which can really save people’s records.

00:42:06:20 – 00:42:28:15

And we’re talking about even like little weed charges and things like that, that might be felonies. And the the short that was up did not. We didn’t actually say that it was just in Pennsylvania. And we were getting calls from all over the country. On Monday alone, our office got fielded almost 300 different points of contact on that one post, to the point that I actually had to take it down.

00:42:28:16 – 00:42:47:05

Like I took it down because I and I told Levi, who does it for us, and Levi, I love you. But it was overwhelming the staff here. And I think you guys, I texted you about it and you guys were like, oh my God. Yes, actually, that reminds me, I went into Lauren’s office on Monday for something and I forget what it was.

00:42:47:06 – 00:43:03:06

It was about someone calling in, I think, and I was like, oh, well, if they call back, like, I’ll be in my office, just put them through to me. And she’s like, again, I got like 200 calls today about these, like expungement or something like that. And I was just like, oh, like, yeah, what happened? I do want to just grab it real quick just to hammer this home for you.

00:43:03:06 – 00:43:30:23

If you want to add this as a caveat on the short, and Tim, I want you to comment on this as well, because you’re kind of our in-house expert on this, but as I understand it, in Pennsylvania, certain felony drug charges are sealable on your criminal record. Again, in Pennsylvania, under this newer law that has gone into effect, that can actually save people from having employers and just all anybody in the general public seeing this where it might cause a major issue for

00:43:31:00 – 00:43:50:23

It’s not just felony drugs. Felony drugs are included, but it’s actually it’s other felonies as well. Yeah. So so I mean, obviously we won’t go through the list of things that are not included. But as part of one of the recent changes, the felony drugs have been brought into that umbrella as as the class of felonies that can be sealed.

00:43:50:25 – 00:44:10:07

And I emphasize the word can be sealed because it’s not required. It’s still up to a judge as to whether or not they’re going to agree to do that. Yeah. It’s a maybe sealed right. It’s a discretion. So for those of you out there that might have prior felonies on your record, felony drug offenses in Pennsylvania, please give us a call.

00:44:10:07 – 00:44:28:22

We’re happy to help you. If you live in Missouri or Utah or whatever, I wish you good luck, but you need to contact an attorney in that state. That doesn’t apply here in Pennsylvania. Of course. So we’re happy to field any phone calls over anybody in Pennsylvania on this topic. And again, Tim is kind of one of our experts on this, and we’re happy to help anybody out that we can.

00:44:28:24 – 00:44:54:28

Okay, guys, you want to go ahead. We can move into our Justin Timberlake case. Yeah. Before we do, can I can I set like a transition here? Because there is something we didn’t talk about with Tony Romo last time and this time. And I really think that it is worth pointing this out. The blurb that in the outline of Justin prepared here is really good because as defense attorneys, we’re not just looking at the question, did the officer think that somebody was drunk?

00:44:55:00 – 00:45:14:27

What we’re asking is a whole bunch of questions that feed into that question. What was the basis for the stop? Was it, you know, bad driving, or was it like a technical violation or an equipment violation on the vehicle? Whether that stop is legitimate, what is the officer seeing? What are they thinking? What are they smelling, what are they hearing?

00:45:14:27 – 00:45:58:11

And then at what point does the stop become an investigation into DUI? Because if you’re pulled over because you you are, you know, your tail lights out and that is just a traffic stop. You know what I mean? Like, there’s not necessarily like a reasonable suspicion for DUI, but based on some of those other questions that we as defense attorneys and also the officer and the prosecution ask those questions to based on the answers to some of those questions, it matures into a DUI investigation, and it’s important to nail down at what point that becomes a DUI investigation, because as we’ll talk about with this one, they may have suspected the DUI when the vehicle

00:45:58:13 – 00:46:16:13

first got pulled over. Same thing with Tony Romo. I mean, I think they talked about his driving being weird. Like, you know, he said he swerved to touch the white line, right. Like that. So they may be thinking DUI, right. But there’s any number of other explanations for why that happened. And so at what point do we get to we’re thinking DUI now.

00:46:16:16 – 00:46:38:17

Yeah. Good point Tim. And I think it’s also worth clarifying that the police are of able to do that. If they initially pull you over for a taillight, and then they come up to your window and other indicia of intoxication or scene or not other just indicia of intoxication or scene at that point, they can then start investigating the DUI, and there’s nothing in the law that precludes them from doing that.

00:46:38:17 – 00:46:52:19

And you can’t go to court later and say, oh, well, you didn’t even pull me over for swerving. You pulled me over for a tail light, so you can’t even go down this rabbit hole. That’s wrong. You they are allowed to do that. And frankly, that’s how most DUIs actually start. And again, I think that’s an excellent point to bring up.

00:46:52:21 – 00:47:12:29

It’s different maybe with Justin Timberlake because from what we our notes say, they did pull him over suspecting that he was impaired. Right. I think it’s the difference, like we’ve talked about, between reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed, that crime could be DUI, right? The driving behavior itself might cause reasonable suspicion to think this individual may be intoxicated.

00:47:13:00 – 00:47:30:22

Maybe you pull them over. And I was just talking to some police today about this. And they turns out they’re having a medical emergency. Their blood sugar is low, they’re diabetic. And then the cops call an ambulance and they get a medical help, and it doesn’t turn into a DUI, of course, but that is a little slightly lower standard than probable cause that a crime has been committed.

00:47:30:23 – 00:47:52:00

Right. That would be things like speeding, you know, running a stop sign, things like that where they can pull you over for that because they’ve witnessed it. And now technically and we’ve talked a little bit about this in passing, but but technically, by statute, the requisite level of suspicion to initiate a traffic stop is reasonable suspicion per the statute.

00:47:52:00 – 00:48:16:21

But there’s there’s a big divide. The courts have, I think, muddied that standard a little bit because there are some things that you could be pulled over for, like you said, that don’t require any additional investigation. So what really are they investigating? Primarily, I think what they’re investigating for regular motor vehicle code violations is the road worthiness of the vehicle and the legal status of a person to be able to drive that vehicle.

00:48:16:22 – 00:48:41:29

Are they insured? Are they registered? Do they have a license? Those would be things that they’re able to to investigate. And then whether they can investigate further depends on whether they’ve developed reasonable suspicion. But you’re right. I mean, there is a difference there between pulling somebody over with the intention of conducting further investigation and pulling somebody over because you’ve witnessed what is clearly, on its face, a violation.

00:48:42:01 – 00:48:59:01

So you’re I mean, I think it’s really it’s intuitive that you’ve brought that up. Yeah. Well, I think you brought it up. I just comment, you got it. Okay. But either way, it’s right. And everybody needs to know that. I mean, if you get pulled over, mind your peas. And cuz it might be nothing, but it could turn into something.

00:48:59:06 – 00:49:25:28

And, you know, we’ve talked about vehicle stops and it was such a hot topic. I feel like when we did it that we might even kind of want to just do a refresher at some point on that. It might be slightly repetitive, but I think we have luckily, and I like this viewership enough at this point of our podcast that I’ve gotten a lot of comments about the vehicle stop episode that we did that, and people who actually come up to me in person and ask questions about it and talk about it, and I think it’s been pretty beneficial for people to learn.

00:49:25:28 – 00:49:38:03

So, yeah, we should definitely put that on a list of another refresher because we’re going to keep doing this. All right. Let’s jump into Justin Timberlake’s case. So I think a lot of you’ve probably seen the video. Levi I’d like you to play snippet of this and maybe we’ll play a few throughout.

00:49:38:05 – 00:50:03:06

So the reason for the stops, because you’re veering off to the left and then you’re not stopping at the stop signs. Yeah. Sorry about that. Is this your vehicle? Whose vehicle is it? Yeah, I just rental. It’s a rental. Okay. Do you have any registration with it? Do you know if they can put it in the glove box?

00:50:03:09 – 00:50:21:27

How long you renting it for? Just for a couple of days. What, do you visit him? Yeah, I’m on tour. What are you doing? I’m on the world tour. Oh, what a world tour. Doing what?

00:50:21:29 – 00:50:29:27

Hard to explain.

00:50:29:29 – 00:50:35:28

World tour. I’ve gotten to break.

00:50:36:00 – 00:50:40:04

What’s. What’s your name? Justin timberlake. You are Justin Timberlake? Yeah.

00:50:40:06 – 00:51:00:18

guys, I kind of want to get your thoughts here on this one. So again, if we’re kind of grading Justin on how he did, I’d probably put him similar to Tony, maybe a D because again, he was he was drunk. Like it was pretty obvious, right? But he also did do the whole engaging with the police, having conversations with them.

00:51:00:20 – 00:51:18:19

He even at one point later when he was at the station kind of riffed about, man, I was just following my buddies home and one martini. And up to that point he had not said he drank anything. Yeah. But then he just kind of, I think, got a little upset with himself and was just like, shucks, like one martini and I end up in this situation.

00:51:18:19 – 00:51:38:29

And what was that? What was that evidence that you were drinking? And he didn’t have to say that, right? It’s funny. It reminds me of a homicide that I was a prosecution that I was involved in. Where where an individual who was a witness, we had believed that he was the wheelman for the the the defendant and the defendant.

00:51:39:01 – 00:51:56:03

We were still in the process of identifying him. He was he was known to us by an alias. His lineup had been picked out. His photo had been picked out of several lineups. But everybody was real shady about actually giving the name. And so the, the, the street name was very distinct.

00:51:56:06 – 00:52:09:02

And the guy who we knew that he had gotten into the car with was brought in for an interview and was was really silent about everything, didn’t give a name, wouldn’t really talk.

00:52:09:04 – 00:52:32:06

And when the detectives left the room, when this guy got into his head, it was the same kind of thing. He he said as a spontaneous utterance, with nobody in the room but still being recorded. So everybody in the room, he so, so the world in the room. Right? He says basically crap. And he names the name, the street name gives the street name.

00:52:32:06 – 00:52:52:28

I knew I shouldn’t have gotten involved with that guy, basically something to that effect. So this guy before previously wouldn’t even identify the suspect by street name, has now shown a link between the street name and the street name that was given by other people, and the individual was picked out of the photo lineup. The best interrogator in that situation was himself.

00:52:53:04 – 00:53:13:01

And so he has without even wanting to without, you know, he identified the guy. Yeah. And even though he was put on the big screen at trial. So. All right. That’s a good example, man. Thanks for bringing that up. Same with Justin Timberlake. Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty much identical just in a less serious situation. But the point is I mean, you know, people are listening.

00:53:13:02 – 00:53:35:10

Yeah. You’re always listening. Always on camera. And again we’ve hit it another episodes. Cameras are everywhere, especially when you’re in police stations and in cop cars. But they’re all over the street to people. Their ring doorbells are everywhere. Okay, so let’s talk about Justin. Stop. So they pull him over, they come up to the window, and I kind of like, loved that moment when.

00:53:35:14 – 00:54:00:25

Not that I loved it because I felt kind of bad for Justin Timberlake, but he’s kind of sitting there like a dog with his tail between his legs, like right away, like, oh, you got me. You know, like, I know I’m wasted. You know I’m screwed. Like I don’t, you know? And it looked like like I feel like the cop probably thought the same thing when he walked up because I watching him, I thought it it was the first thing I thought, you know.

00:54:00:27 – 00:54:20:01

And then I love the comment about, like, what do you do for work or where are you coming from? Justin, I want you to hit on this because you did it well last time. Yeah. He’s like, he’s like, what do you do for work? And he’s like, I’m on world tour. And he’s like, what? And at one point I’m pretty sure Justin Timberlake literally he’s like, well, this is going to ruin the world tour.

00:54:20:03 – 00:54:37:26

But but he’s like, yeah, like I’m on world tour. He’s like, what do you mean you’re on world tour? And he’s like, well, I’m like an entertainer. And he’s like, he doesn’t say an entertainer, though. Was he saying he just says, I’m Justin Timberlake? Yeah. He struggles because because the officer follows up by asking him, like, what? What do you do while you’re on tour?

00:54:37:27 – 00:54:55:03

Yeah, that’s what I. And then he’s like, he’s struggling. You know, it’s like this. Like he can’t even articulate. I am an entertainer, you know what I mean? Like he said Justin Timberlake. Yeah, I think that’s what he said. This was his moment where he was like, how do I like, not play that at this point and know who he was?

00:54:55:04 – 00:55:11:01

That was the best part. And you almost wondered, is the officer being for real? Like, does the officer really not know who Justin Timberlake is? Well, he does say when he when he says, I’m Justin Timberlake, he goes, You’re Justin Timberlake. Like like he kind of didn’t know who that was, right? Like and then he’s like, can I see your ID?

00:55:11:02 – 00:55:33:25

Yeah. Yeah. No. And he’s Justin Timberlake is great of an entertainer as he is and, you know, awesome music and everything. But he kind of has that like little boy appearance to him. In a way. He really did look like a scared puppy in that moment though. Like he looks like he’s afraid. When we talked about this last time too, is that, you know, we may, in the back of our minds, be like, how could you not know this is a famous person?

00:55:33:25 – 00:55:51:06

But also, I mean, what are the, you know, the cop initiating this stop in New York and it’s a rental car, so it’s not like it shows up when you runs the place he’s not expecting. I just initiated a trap at a traffic stop at three in the morning, and I’m about to be interacting with a famous person here, one of the most famous people in the world.

00:55:51:07 – 00:56:06:25

So, like, this is a guy who, I mean, there are probably lots of people in the world who look like Justin Timberlake. Yeah, and he actually does because he was just look like a normal guy. But he was also he’s a he’s a pop culture icon and people he obviously has set fashion trends and that kind of stuff.

00:56:06:25 – 00:56:27:07

So people do look like him. And so like you’re looking at somebody who, yeah, maybe resembles this guy, but like the officers not thinking, well, I’m about to interact with the very real Justin Timberlake right now. You’re not. I don’t go around my life thinking that guy looks like Justin Timberlake. That guy looks like it’s not something that I like even think of on a regular basis.

00:56:27:12 – 00:56:44:28

He’s probably not either. Yeah, I’m a huge Dodgers fan, right? Right. But like, if I walked into Shohei Ohtani on the street. I’m not expecting to walk into Shohei Ohtani on the street. And I may not recognize him. And I’ve had that a couple of times where I have seen he’s not in his uniform. I have seen famous people.

00:56:44:28 – 00:57:03:03

I was on a flight one time on military leave, where a very renowned politician got onto the exact same flight as me, and as he’s walking by me, I’m like, is that the guy? And I’m looking at his staff and I make a face to the staff, like. And the staff member was like, you know what I mean?

00:57:03:04 – 00:57:21:03

Like, like, I’ve seen bands where it’s the same thing. I gotta tell you a story that I had once. This was funny. Many of you will not know who this person is, but I was. I still am a very big Baltimore Orioles baseball fan, I follow him. That’s kind of my baseball team. I’m sorry. Phillies to. Hey, they’re doing all right.

00:57:21:04 – 00:57:38:16

But Phillies too. But growing up, I was Orioles big time. And when I was growing up in the 90s and all that, there was an outfielder named B.J. Hof. Have you guys ever heard of him? I’ve heard of him. Okay. He was a really good outfielder, kind of a if you knew the team, you knew him, right? And he obviously retired a long time ago.

00:57:38:16 – 00:57:59:01

I was a kid when this was he was playing. But when I like probably seven years ago, 5 or 7 years ago, I was boarding a flight. It was same thing. I was on a plane in Dallas, Texas, and I was on the flight. I was already seated. And B.J. gets on the plane and I immediately he’s going down the aisle and I immediately, like, looked at him.

00:57:59:01 – 00:58:17:09

I was like, I know that’s B.J., sir. And he looked at me and we made eye contact. And I did one of these, like, as he’s going down the aisle. And he immediately was like, oh crap, I’ve been recognized. He’s like, never in a million years. I think someone’s going to recognize because he wasn’t like like an A-lister player.

00:58:17:16 – 00:58:33:09

You know, he was only if you knew it and you knew. And we weren’t even in Baltimore. We were in Dallas, Texas. Right? He probably thinks he’s just totally anonymous, but that’s another that’s illustrative of the point. Like you’re you’re at a place where, like, you know, nobody gets onto that flight thinking, I might run into one of the Baltimore Orioles players today.

00:58:33:10 – 00:58:51:15

Yeah. You know, the cops just doing a job. He’s just doing a job. Right. And if he’s not, like a fan of Timberlake or somebody who follows him or has a daughter that knows him really well and sees his posters everywhere, and I think it is really, to both of their credit, whatever you think about them as entertainers or you know, players or you know them as people, obviously they made mistakes.

00:58:51:15 – 00:59:08:12

But it is to their credit that they behaved like humble, reasonable human beings instead of making it about how famous they are. And Justin was awesome with that. Yeah, I really thought he did a good job of that, even though he did the whole awkward world tour conversation that’s still, you know, funniest quotes and like, yeah, because he very much does.

00:59:08:13 – 00:59:27:25

He he puts his hands up I think like this. And he’s kind of like how do I explain it? Right, right, right. Exactly. So his fields are bad though. Yeah. So I will say though, there was somebody that was with him, which you didn’t see until later in the video that was really playing the whole Justin Timberlake bye bye bye.

00:59:27:26 – 00:59:35:11

Yeah. Tell me you didn’t like bye. Bye bye. Yeah. Cut this guy a break. He’s Justin Timberlake type of card. But it wasn’t him. It was getting a little dicey there.

00:59:35:14 – 00:59:40:15

Can you guys please just do me a favor? Because you loved. Bye. Bye. Bye. Or, like, sexy bad.

00:59:40:17 – 00:59:48:05

Like you did one favor. Let me ask him if he wants me to give him his phone. Yeah. This is insane. So it’s not going to be a long thing. I’ll let you walk up, please.

00:59:48:09 – 00:59:55:28

Yeah, it almost felt like bribery. That’s. Yeah. Do you remember what she said? She, like, will do anything or whatever. Yeah. She said we’ll do anything like, you know.

00:59:56:00 – 01:00:13:17

And I say that you can’t say that. And the cop bomb in an airport. The cops handled it the right way because it wasn’t just I feel like it was Justin doing it. It might have been a little different, but this was just somebody kind of last ditch effort. How did you like his? I think we talked about the last, like like a publicist or they brought out her face or something.

01:00:13:19 – 01:00:36:15

No, I didn’t know that. They. I thought her face was in the video. It was blurred out. I couldn’t see it in the video. And that’s something that we touched on last time, too. But you do have to be careful, because obviously you care about the person who’s being arrested, but you’re making yourself a witness in a situation where, like you, you could be called then potentially because it’s like, why are you having this conversation?

01:00:36:16 – 01:00:56:04

Yeah, because the argument is you have knowledge that this person is guilty consciousness of. Right. And so they wouldn’t necessarily be able to admit that statement. You know, without that person, they’re right. It would be hearsay. But if they can overcome the hearsay objection that could potentially come in, and then that one that looks terrible for a jury, they’re going to hate that that witness.

01:00:56:04 – 01:01:14:09

But two. Yeah, like you said, they have a very good argument about like everybody kind of knew that he did something wrong here. And it looks like yeah, yeah. It just escalates the situation for no reason. It’s like recording the police. I thought the police handled it right though. You know, they were just like, no, ma’am, we’re already kind of treating it as informal, like, let’s just pretend this conversation didn’t happen.

01:01:14:10 – 01:01:36:20

Please stop. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that’s an effect of where they were? Because it was SAG Harbor, New York, which I believe is a pretty, pretty nice area. You know, something like that happened in a I’m assuming it’s a pretty residential area. Yeah. It did look like that. At least know what I mean. So that’s something I think if would be a lot different if it happened like the middle of a like New York City or Philadelphia, Baltimore, it could go.

01:01:36:25 – 01:01:51:01

You have somebody running up to a traffic stop. Not the best idea. I don’t think she ran up. I think she was in the car. Was she? I don’t think she maybe in a car, too. It’s been a couple of weeks. Maybe she was in a different car and came up. Maybe you are right. I thought that she was in a different car.

01:01:51:07 – 01:02:13:02

Maybe. Either way, yeah, well, if she was in the car, it might be worse, because then she. Did. She just get out and start now intervening in trunk or something? Just out. Finally get out. Yeah, but also don’t arrest him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, all right. So, yeah, let’s talk about his. Feels a little bit fields were he didn’t do well.

01:02:13:03 – 01:02:13:20

Abysmal.

01:02:13:20 – 01:02:17:28

side. While you’re doing this you’re going to look down at your toes guys.

01:02:17:29 – 01:02:46:16

I’m just I’m just following my friends back to my house. I’m not like I’m not doing anything. I’m just follow my friends back to my house. What will you do? Do these tests? Sure. And then? And then just walk. I’m sorry. I’m here. I’m ready. Ready? Ready. A little nervous. Left right foot in front. You’re gonna look down.

01:02:46:17 – 01:02:55:21

Ready? One. Two. Three. Four. Like that. Okay. Hang on. You want to go? You want to go? You got to start. Sorry. No. You’re

01:02:55:22 – 01:03:17:02

there was I want to talk about the one like Stan a little bit. His one like stand testing because I thought that was exceptionally poor. Yeah. He with the one like Stan test in Pennsylvania. And it may be different in New York, but it seemed to be pretty similar. You have to hold your leg up off the ground for and just count essentially indefinitely until the cop tells you to stop.

01:03:17:04 – 01:03:33:23

What Justin kept doing is he would hold his leg up for like three seconds, four seconds, like a count of one 1002. And then he would put his foot down, probably. And it looked like he was kind of losing his balance. And then he was trying to couch it in. Am I done? Do I keep going like kind of make an excuse?

01:03:33:25 – 01:03:40:26

Like why he put his foot down. The cop said to him, I think 3 or 4 times, you need to keep going, like until I tell you to stop.

01:03:40:28 – 01:03:48:09

Woman two 1000. Three 1000. Four 1000.

01:03:48:11 – 01:04:01:04

I remember, just just continue. Yep. Okay. Yep. Gotcha. Sorry. One 1203 1000 400,000 500,000.

01:04:01:06 – 01:04:17:04

Do you want me to keep going? Yep. Yeah. Until I tell you. Stop. Yep. Okay. One 1203 1000 400,000. Five 1000. All right. That’s all good.

01:04:17:06 – 01:04:23:05

All right. By the way, these are like. These are, like, really hard tests.

01:04:23:08 – 01:04:42:11

And that’s an issue too, because that’s essentially an indicator of impairment. It’s one of the clues not listening to what’s foot down. Well, putting a foot down, but also not listening to the instructions within multiple times. And we talked about the fact that while not listening to instructions is not one of the validated clues, it is a clue because they’re divided.

01:04:42:11 – 01:05:01:29

Attention. Exactly right. So you have you have validated clues for the. But then all of your other stuff is also like, why is this person doing that? We didn’t talk about it with Tony, but his SFS were bad too, right? When they’re explaining the rules, what’s he doing? He’s stretching and bending over and limbering up and all that stuff.

01:05:02:03 – 01:05:19:26

We forgot to talk about that. Well, we’re talking about it now, and that’s not a clue. A validated clue that he’s he’s, you know, stretching, putting, doing bird dog, putting his leg up in the air or whatever he’s doing. And the whole time he’s smiling like, yeah, but it’s one of those things where it’s like, why is this person doing that?

01:05:19:27 – 01:05:42:10

Right? You know, it’s not a clue, but it is a it’s not a validated clue, but it’s a clue of impairment. It’s something that indicates inherently, in Tony’s case, I think the police had to tell him to stop, like just. Sir, please. Hands at your side. Stand still. Like. Right. You know. And he kept doing it. At first, I didn’t think it was that weird, because he was in the back of that police car and he was pretty cramped in there.

01:05:42:16 – 01:06:02:08

But at the same time, like, now that I’m sitting here thinking about it in this moment, like, what a weird thing to do. Yeah, and it’s weird. It looks weird. It looked really strange because it’s not really like proper stretches. Like, I would I would think it would be way funnier because it’s it’s legit, but it’s comical, you know, to seem like doing windmills, you know, like, I’m like, he’s on field.

01:06:02:09 – 01:06:15:19

You know what I mean? Like, he’s so like, if he’s or he does, like, high knees for a few seconds, it’s like, at least you’re like, okay, you’re limbering up. I think it went on for like 2 to 3. It goes on for a very long time. High knees. You look pretty damn agile for being drunk. That’s true.

01:06:15:21 – 01:06:40:08

Yeah. That’s true. But. Yeah, that. Yeah, but we talked about the fact, too, that some of these things that people do, it interrupts the flow of the officer who’s giving the SFS instructions. And that’s a big deal because the the officer, these are standardized field sobriety tests. We talked about that. Lastly, reading it all. You are and we talked about that, the fact that she was reading it off a card and how that is kind of a good thing because the whole point is standardization.

01:06:40:08 – 01:06:55:20

And if you deviate from those instructions, then there’s an argument to be made that you did not adequately explain the test. That verbiage has been landed on. It’s part of the professional, you know, the way that those tests are supposed to be done. So for her to read off a card, it’s better than going from memory and just winging it.

01:06:55:20 – 01:07:14:23

Because as we said last time, gone are the days of just telling people, say, the alphabet backwards or all that stuff. It’s standardized for a reason. There’s science behind it, and the cops are trained for that, and you got to do it standard. And when people start interjecting and doing weird stuff, it interrupts that flow and that. And who does that fall on?

01:07:15:01 – 01:07:31:21

It comes back on the defendant. Ultimately, you know, you’re the one that’s making this harder than it is. Again, you don’t have to be in a position where you’re doing field sobriety testing. You can refuse to field sobriety testing. I’ve actually had a few cases recently where clients did that. And I’ve asked them, why did you refuse the field sobriety testing?

01:07:31:21 – 01:07:48:15

And most of them say like, oh, I thought I was supposed to or whatever. And I’m like, would you hear that anywhere? And they said, no, I just, you know, and some people I think just intuitively. But then a lot of times that’s the same people that then refuse the blood test. Yeah. I’m like, oh, like they don’t know the distinction between the two and they think it’s the same.

01:07:48:17 – 01:08:04:03

I actually had a case just this morning where the lady refused the blood test, and we were down there at the prelim, and she’s just she’s been kicking herself since she did it, because she’s now dealing with the license suspension and has to get rides everywhere. And she’s like a grown woman. And her parents took her to court because she didn’t have a life.

01:08:04:05 – 01:08:27:02

Well, that’s I think, one big, huge issue with the whole refusing the blood test. Then you get that suspension. Yeah, we can file a license suspension appeal, but what’s the win rate on those 0.00 than that? It is more than that. I mean but what’s the standard. Do you know what the actual standard. It’s a it’s preponderance of the evidence isn’t it.

01:08:27:03 – 01:08:50:14

Well but no I’m sorry not not not the legal standard, but it’s I think it might be preponderance either way. You actually have to prove that you were essentially unable to offer your consent. Like medically. Almost. Right. You can’t say I’m confused. I want to talk to a lawyer. I need to read this again. I don’t understand that is considered a refusal.

01:08:50:15 – 01:09:07:14

Yeah. And we’ve talked about this in prior episodes. You know, refusal is not just. No, obviously that’s a refusal. But all those questions are pushed backs or whatever. That’s all considered a refusal. And depending on what kind of cop you have, yeah, they might not be so nice to go over and over and over and give you multiple chances.

01:09:07:15 – 01:09:34:26

Have you had any cases with like a language barrier? Yeah, I’ve had some of those. Yeah. Sometimes they’ll actually call out Spanish speaking or you know, if it’s depending on what language it is like. Yeah. People who speak that language, they don’t if they don’t. Yeah. What do you think about that. Well that’s I, I’m kind of have one of those right now where I think that there’s an argument to be made that, like, my client didn’t understand what was being asked, even though that’s not a medical inability.

01:09:34:27 – 01:09:54:10

It’s a lot, almost a logical and ability. So you didn’t have the knowledge to even make a decision? Yeah. Like speaking. I can speak to my client, like on the phone and in person, and they understand generally what I’m talking about. But these are somewhat complex. Yeah. And if you don’t even speak the language. Yeah. And like, I would think you’d have an argument there.

01:09:54:11 – 01:10:27:15

I bet you there’s case law on that. I bet you that’s come up. I think I’ve had cases where with like the gun forms where the defense was language barrier, but those don’t generally fare too well, especially in cases where because like the DL 26 form I imagine is available in Spanish. So, you know, if you have things that are available in another language and, you know, maybe they don’t provide it in the language, but you still come back to this issue of is it is it ignorance of the law?

01:10:27:17 – 01:10:52:14

Because I mean, implied consent is the law or is it some other ignorance? And I’ve, I’ve seen some cases where that hasn’t really gone very well I think. So I would imagine maybe it would go okay with PennDOT. So that case that you have Justin, is there a license suspension peel file. No no no no. So something this is something that just kind of just kind of came up in speaking with my client about it.

01:10:52:15 – 01:11:18:02

Okay. We talked about it a little bit overall, the license, you know, the the client didn’t actually refuse the blood draw. Okay. But I was just asking if you would have one of those. But I had been thinking recently, could that potentially be an avenue to have the blood suppressed? Well, the issue is you might have case law that says that they’re only obligated to read it in English.

01:11:18:04 – 01:11:43:19

Maybe. I don’t know, that’s the case. I also think you have a point. And I haven’t done the research on it yet, so I don’t want to. I was curious to look into that. I’ll tell you what, viewers. We’re going to look into that because I think that’s an interesting point that may come up. I mean, especially here in York, Pennsylvania, I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but we have a pretty growing population of Haitian immigrants to the York area, especially in the city area.

01:11:43:20 – 01:12:04:15

And the Haitians speak Haitian Creole, which which is close to French. But it’s not French. And I don’t want to get it wrong, but it’s definitely not French. But I have had a few Haitian Creole clients who have DUIs. I haven’t had any that have refused a blood test, so this hasn’t come up. But I would be curious in that situation.

01:12:04:15 – 01:12:41:29

I bet you that’s come up somewhere. Yeah, I imagine it’s not. It’s not the like the gold, the golden stand. Like the golden gun that you might think smoking gun. Because imagine, I mean, the implications of that from a public policy perspective are that, that all 100 and whatever languages in the world have to be covered down on in the midst of a, of a DUI investigation at any moment, I think my intuition tells me the standard is they’re obligated only to read the DL 26 form, and if they do that, they have satisfied their legal requirement, whether or not you’re whether or not the jury connects the dot to consciousness of guilt, that’s a

01:12:41:29 – 01:13:03:21

jury question. My my guess is you’re probably right. That’s what my intuition that’s how the law would break down on that, I think, because otherwise you would you would read chaos. Right with that, I think. And it would be very difficult to convict anyone of a foreign language where because Haitian Creole, let’s be honest, is is an obscure language as it relates to like the official system.

01:13:03:28 – 01:13:27:02

There’s only a couple of those interpreters in the state, and I think there’s different dialects as well, correct. Within the language. So, so the ability to to hold someone accountable would hinge on the availability of a single Haitian Creole interpreter in the middle of the night, and an obligation for every officer at that moment, interacting with such a person to get a hold of that interpreter so that they could interpret with this individual.

01:13:27:03 – 01:13:43:27

I think that’s a standard that just doesn’t that that just wouldn’t be. Yeah. I don’t think the way that you’ve broken that down has kind of convinced me. I think you’re right. But again, we haven’t reached. But that’s one of the things about being a lawyer. Like, yeah, we don’t know the answers to everything. Right. But we have the ability and the training to do the research.

01:13:43:27 – 01:13:57:28

And when those things come up in our cases, we do it right. I feel like that’s hard to like. Yeah. Maybe not. I would be interested to know for all of you out there, because I know we have a lot of viewers that are lawyers. A lot of them are criminal defense attorneys. If any of you have had that experience, I’d love you to.

01:13:57:29 – 01:14:16:04

If you would reach out to me and talk to me about that so we can update this, our viewership as it relates to this topic, especially if you’ve litigated the issue or at least looked at case law about it. So for those of you out there, please contact me. You got my number, you know. Yeah. Because because also remember it’s an administrative penalty, which means that the standards are different.

01:14:16:05 – 01:14:34:01

Yeah they are right. And they’re they’re heard by and I think you’re right on that issue would be with the jury like you can’t you can’t connect those dots in favor of consciousness of guilt. Because we’re saying the reason the blood test was refused was language barrier. Right. And that’s in the instruction. They’re saying knowledge of guilt. We’re saying something else.

01:14:34:01 – 01:14:55:19

It would. It’s a different argument, though, in a, in a trial, right on the consciousness of guilt. Correct. Because that is admissible as consciousness of guilt. Correct. But what about you don’t you don’t think there’s any type of suppression issue? What are you going to say? Like if say, they did give blood, but again, had no idea what they were actually agreeing to.

01:14:55:21 – 01:15:25:14

That is an interesting that’s like that’s what I’m asking. Yeah, but but I don’t think there’s a suppression issue there because one I mean they can still refuse the blood draw in action. So when they’re yielding to the blood draw physically that is consent. But I’m saying if they didn’t understand what the blood was being used for, what they’re essentially under arrest for, like, again, people can speak broken English and little to no English and get through their day.

01:15:25:17 – 01:15:43:10

But when you’re in essentially under arrest and you’re having all this stuff thrown at you, whether or not you’re intoxicated, I feel like that would probably be like if I was in a country I didn’t speak the language and somebody like doing all that and just like kind of yelling at you in a certain way, if you wanted to refuse, you could still physically refuse.

01:15:43:10 – 01:15:59:05

You don’t have to yield your arm to the blood draw. And how many people who are heavily intoxicated don’t understand what they’re being arrested for, and don’t understand the blood draw? I don’t know who speak English. I’m just saying a lot, a lot, and even a lot that give blood. That’s why I think that argument doesn’t avail you anything.

01:15:59:05 – 01:16:15:09

And I don’t think there’s a suppression issue there. Yeah, because there’s no one in as much as it might be. Motion and lemony about how you would couch the consciousness of guilt. But I think the I think you’re allowed both sides just have to make the argument, and then it’s up to the jury to figure out what they want to wake.

01:16:15:10 – 01:16:30:03

Yeah, exactly. And that’s where a judge might come down on that. They might say, listen, we’re going to give it. The jury will be instructed to give it the weight that they see. But that is an interesting question. And I am again, just speaking from intuition. So like I don’t I don’t know if I’m correct on that or if I’m way off.

01:16:30:05 – 01:16:51:28

I think that’s one where depending on again, we always say every case is so fact specific and you can have the similar facts in a similar in similar cases and have completely different outcomes and all that. But I think that’s again one, if you put it in front of a judge and like a motion in lemonade for the consciousness of guilt thing, I think 99 out of 100 times the judge is going to give the instruction, like you said.

01:16:52:05 – 01:17:07:25

And then we you get to make your argument as to why they shouldn’t give that. But you might well have a suppression issue if they if they know this guy doesn’t speak English. So we’re dispensing with the DL 26. Right. Like we’re not going to read it right. We’re not even going to do that now and essentially agree with that.

01:17:07:25 – 01:17:24:09

And essentially we’re going to coerce him into a blood draw now right. Yeah. That would be. Yeah. Right. Like where they’re like give us your arm. Yeah. But you know what I mean. Have you seen I, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. No I’m not I’m not saying that is your case, but I’m saying that is a far cry from what you’re describing either.

01:17:24:09 – 01:17:40:20

But I could see a police officer kind of seeing that coming, getting frustrated with it and been like, I’m not. I’m just going to not even read it. We’re doing the blood draw and just trying to, like, mime to him, like what they’re trying to do. And then he just he’s just like or even telling the phlebotomist, like, take his blood, you know what I mean, right?

01:17:40:26 – 01:18:02:08

Yeah. That well, that’s a problem. And we should also clarify for the viewers that this is we’re talking about Pennsylvania. Yes. Because we did talk in the unrecorded recorded episode from last week that there are certain states where if they say or get a warrant for your blood, they’re taking your blood. Well, and I and I brought that up, they’re going to hold you down.

01:18:02:09 – 01:18:30:29

It is it is kind of a luxury in Pennsylvania that I and I think it’s generally a policy thing in Pennsylvania that you can refuse a warrant for the blood. But yeah, we brought that up last week that there are some states, I believe Florida is one of them, where especially in a case where it’s like a homicide by vehicle while DUI, they are going to get a warrant for the blood if you refuse it, and then they will strap you into a chair and take the blood like you do not get to say I’m not giving blood, because a judge has ordered that they have probable cause to take your blood.

01:18:31:04 – 01:18:49:08

And it’s a it’s a warrant. And now they’re going to take your blood. The state of Florida is really big about strapping people down and sticking needles into them, because I think they’re one of the only states that are currently still not only but regularly executing people on death row, like here in Pennsylvania. There’s a moratorium right now through the governor on.

01:18:49:09 – 01:19:05:16

Well, that’s which I think I mean, I think is unconstitutional. It depends on who the governor is, the party they’re in and all that. But I just I frequently see in the news, like Florida executed another guy today and I’m like, oh, again, Florida, like, you know, Texas probably keeps doing it. But you know, that said, I mean, you are right.

01:19:05:16 – 01:19:29:23

There are states that will physically take your blood. But I think here in Pennsylvania, at least every case I’ve ever been involved with, if you refuse, they get a warrant and then you refuse. Even after the warrant, they are not physically going to hold you down, but you’re going to a highest tier, you’re going to the highest tier, and you are going to get prosecuted, very likely for another crime called obstruction of administration of law or justice, as they say.

01:19:29:26 – 01:20:04:29

To your point from the earlier discussion, there are a lot of police officers who watch our podcast. We’re actually, I think, going to have some of them on future episodes. I know we’re all looking forward to that. But for those of the cops out there that do this to Justin and Tim’s point, if you find yourself in a situation where you have someone who does not speak English and you find yourself thinking, well, I’m not even going to read the form, you might want to think twice about that, because I think that would be kind of my dream if you did that, and I would kind of each alive on that, but I don’t I

01:20:04:29 – 01:20:26:08

haven’t seen it happen. I don’t think the cops would, but there might be some out there who might, might. So just worth a thought. One just one more brief thing on this. What are the thoughts on now because of, you know, technology and where we’re at in the world language line? I’ve seen many officers do I’ve seen I’ve seen people do an AI to AI or a translator.

01:20:26:09 – 01:20:53:28

Yeah, like a translation app. I actually had a console with a guy who was a Haitian Creole speaker native. That’s his native language, and that’s how we communicated Google translate. Oh, really? It took a while, but it honestly, it worked fine. Yeah, I’ve done that to you. Just draw my memory. I actually have I had a case where a police officer used it was either Google Translate or one of those apps to communicate in a DUI to do that with the guy.

01:20:54:00 – 01:21:14:08

Yeah, I’ve seen it frequently with officers using language line. I have seen completely forgotten about that. Yeah, that that did happen. Yeah, I’ve seen that. But it’s only getting better. I think that the problem is that that like, that’s not necessarily 100% accurate, but they’re still not be kosher as they say. Right. Would the would you how would you feel about the language line.

01:21:14:08 – 01:21:38:05

Because those I believe are like certified. Maybe they’re not court certified as like however that works. I really actually have no idea what they have to go through to be a court. So it’s not like an AI type of thing live. It’s a live person. I think that would hold up better. Yeah, but I think when you were saying like, we can’t, there’s only 4 or 5 individual core certified interpreters for Haitian Creole in the state.

01:21:38:07 – 01:21:54:15

Yeah. And we can’t have that on call 24 over seven all, all the time. When we do have some of these officers that have been talking to us about coming on the podcast, I’d like to ask them the question in their individual department, like, how do you handle the situation? Does this come up? Do you have like a hotline you call that you use?

01:21:54:21 – 01:22:14:18

I’d like our viewers to know that too. Yeah. I mean, a lot of officers, I have a feeling that if they if they just did had somebody on language line read the form to them, that that would be insufficient. Well, you just said if they read a tomb in English, that’s sufficient. Yeah. Because I think I what, what I think the and it’s been a long time you’d want to mean this.

01:22:14:18 – 01:22:32:20

I think that the standard is you have to read the form. That’s what you have to read the form verbatim. So you’re kind of saying like you want you would want the cop to read the form in English. Yeah. And then out of a courtesy, have someone else read it in somebody’s language learning it or whatever. Right. But if you just did language line and you never read the DL, 26 could be.

01:22:32:26 – 01:22:49:26

It may sound weird, but I think that that is potentially a problem. Could be challenging. It could be challenging. Yeah. Oh, you’re saying if they didn’t read it in English first? Yeah. I mean, they have to read the form. Okay. Okay. That’s. Yeah, I got confused because you notice in every do I stop. They never hand the form off to anyone else.

01:22:49:26 – 01:23:19:05

It’s not like the phlebotomist reads the DL 26 form, right? It’s always the officer. I agree with that. I thought you were just saying, like if if they just read the form meaning like whether the officer read it or not, if they read it to him in another language, that that wasn’t sufficient. That’s where I was confused. No, but by itself, I think I would be cautious about like if let’s say you have a bilingual officer, I would be cautious about the officer reading the form in a foreign language, because I’m not sure if they’re allowed to do that.

01:23:19:08 – 01:23:37:02

You know what I mean? I mean, solely a afar. Yeah. Like I would think that they would need I think it and I think for the record, they got a, they got to read the form and then maybe if they’re skilled enough they would be able to either explain it or to read it again in another language. But but I think technically they’re not really reading the form.

01:23:37:07 – 01:23:52:20

There’s an argument to be made that they are not reading the form. Yeah, I actually had an officer in a recent DUI do. And again, this gets to some officers out there that are they’re pretty good about this. They try to get people to not refuse because they don’t want them to lose their license. But sometimes it’s just inevitable.

01:23:52:21 – 01:24:09:10

And I had one that got yeah, I had blood get tossed out because an officer was too nice. Yeah, you told us about that. And in one episode we did. But in this, in this case, the guy read it. It was actually a female officer. She read it, she read it a second time. I’m pretty sure she read it a third time and like, slowly.

01:24:09:10 – 01:24:30:21

And then she actually handed the guy the form to read himself. And the guy was still like, I don’t understand it. And it was a whole like, I can’t really see it. Like he was playing, like he couldn’t see the form. And I’m like one of these I’m like, and my, my concern about that comment. And I told him this was, you’re so intoxicated that you can’t see straight.

01:24:30:22 – 01:24:43:26

Yeah. And I had he’s like the guy in the first video he’s trying to read, but his eyes are like, yeah, I had that discussion with him. Like, we might not want to go with that because it might make it look like you’re more skated. If you’re like, we play this video and you’re like, especially at a bench trial.

01:24:43:27 – 01:24:59:14

I mean, like the judge is going to hear that the form was read and like, the judge is going to hear that it was read again and that it was right again. And it’s like, and now you’re looking at it well, and also but though at what point does it then become coercive if they ultimately submit? That’s what happened in that case that I had.

01:24:59:15 – 01:25:22:27

Yeah. And really like this officer I think she, she’s a corporal or something now. But like this lady was very clearly intoxicated. Yeah. But she kept saying I don’t understand it. And the officer just it was probably between 4 to 6 times overall. Read it like she had some questions. She answered some questions on it because she really was like, I don’t want you to lose your license.

01:25:22:27 – 01:25:44:02

But, you know, like, I can only do this so much. And it was one of the I’m trying to remember who is. Oh, so the defense attorney is no longer no longer practices criminal defense. But that was the last case that they had ever done as a defense attorney, as far as I’m aware. And just because this lady was for many other reasons.

01:25:44:03 – 01:26:04:26

A little nutty, but yeah, she made a motion to the judge to preclude the back, and it worked. Yeah. Judge agreed that it was kind of coercive and because ultimately she did submit. Yeah. All right, you guys. Is there anything else you guys want to go with the Timberlake one? I know we kind of went off on a few tangents there that were related.

01:26:04:27 – 01:26:33:16

Yeah. There was one. The only other thing I kind of noticed when he was again at the police station was he made a comment about being cuffed at the police station, and it was no big deal. I think he didn’t do it in a mean way or anything or an aggressive way, but he kept being like a he’s really necessary that a and I just think it’s important for people to know, like if you’re in a police station for a criminal act, regardless of whether it’s a violent or not criminal act, which this clearly wasn’t, they’re going to they’re going to cuff you for officer safety.

01:26:33:19 – 01:27:01:03

That’s just part of like protocol. So don’t be taken aback by that. You’re not being really treated any differently than anyone else. And to the officer’s credit, even though it was Justin Timberlake, they didn’t really treat them differently. They didn’t treat him, you know, mean or rude or nice or they just treated him like anyone else. And to your point, if you’re in the police station and I have had cases where I’m defending people where like they were taken to the station and then as things are being processed, they are allowed out of cuffs and they’re sitting in the lobby like, I’ve seen that too.

01:27:01:04 – 01:27:20:20

Yeah, but that’s a privilege. I’ve had cops also allow people to ride in the front of the vehicle with their hands cuffed in front. That’s because the officer is giving you courtesy at that point, right? They don’t have to do that. So count your blessings. You know, if you’re in a situation where that’s how they’re treating you, it’s because there is a rapport with you got with with between the two of you because you’re treating them.

01:27:20:27 – 01:27:38:28

Exactly. And so they are trying to be reasonable with you. They don’t have to go to that length because as we know, I mean, it only takes one crazy person where they give that long leash to and then all of something, some, some something really bad happens. Right? Right. So they are always mindful of that. Yeah. Right on.

01:27:39:01 – 01:28:04:17

All right. Well we’re we’re at an about an hour 20 here. So I know we said we were going to talk about Lindsay Clancy’s case. But I think what we should do because that case right now is actually unless something’s happened in the last few hours since we’ve been doing this podcast, jury is still deliberating. I think they’ve gotten multiple instructions about trying to reach a verdict, but seem to be at a what they’re calling an impasse.

01:28:04:20 – 01:28:30:16

So we will see what happens with that. And I think next week we will know more and can unpack that even further for our viewers, and probably in a more educated way, where we can explain some of that and maybe even talk about what happens if they do have to declare a mistrial and what that means. I know a lot of people are hoping for a verdict in that case, including the parties and a lot of people in the public, and for that reason, I hope they reach one.

01:28:30:16 – 01:28:46:27

But at the same time, if they don’t, it’s going to end in a mistrial. And that will be a good topic to discuss, I think, for people, because that’s also a weird thing that doesn’t happen a lot that we could teach people about. We were talking about that and one of the episodes. What a brief, brief update. Oh yeah, you got one.

01:28:46:28 – 01:29:09:25

So there was a note today. Okay. Like probably about not long before we started recording and I had brought some things up. I was on the the live updates here on, on CNN, and it appears that the jury note indicated they are split 11 to 1, and one juror refuses to listen to the law and reasonable doubt. So to me that sounds like they’re 11 to 1 for not guilty.

01:29:09:26 – 01:29:33:03

Sounds like we don’t know for sure, but we yeah, we don’t know for sure. But they are reassessing for the day and coming back tomorrow. Are they really? Yep. Wow. Well you know Justin, that kind of it brings up an interesting point. It takes 12. Yeah well that can be 11 to 1. Also, I just thought by now because they had been deadlocked, they were just kept saying we’re deadlocked for two and a half days now.

01:29:33:04 – 01:29:51:22

It kind of seemed like they were split like more than that. Yes. You know, so for two and a half days they’ve been deadlocked. And the judge refused to declare a mistrial. He kept just reading them the instruction on, you know, reconsidering their their view, listening to others, which again, to me, every hung jury I’ve had and I’ve had three of them I think.

01:29:51:23 – 01:30:08:27

Yeah, three. You know, after a day or so, I guess they weren’t obviously as big as that. But, you know, after a while the jury just straight up like we were, were not changing our minds. Nothing’s gonna change us. So there’s a mistrial. So for two and a half days to be deadlocked, in my mind, I’m like, this is insane, right?

01:30:08:28 – 01:30:26:16

When are they going to when are they going to call it? They’re really trying to. And they were really trying. And yeah, I mean, I think that there’s a very good possibility they come to a verdict at this point. If they’re breaking for the day, it’s 11 to 1, say whatever one person’s refusing, they might be able to get that person over the line.

01:30:26:17 – 01:30:30:00

Yeah, whatever that may be. Whatever that verdict may be. Interesting.

01:30:30:04 – 01:30:32:01

A few moments later.

01:30:32:03 – 01:30:39:10

I’m going to declare that the jury is deadlocked and I’m going to declare a mistrial. All right.

01:30:39:16 – 01:30:57:25

Wow. Yeah. And you guys saw that, the judge in Massachusetts. Maybe we can talk about this before we end. Did give the dynamite instruction. Did you hear that? Yes. Okay, so I’m sure those of you who are following it have listened to that instruction. It’s interesting. Destruction instruction.

01:30:57:25 – 01:31:24:01

And it asks the jury to essentially try to kind of reevaluate their positions and think about the positions of others who are also reasonable people and are kind of very firm or believing their belief on that, and to kind of try to reason with that even more than they have been. And it’s a challenging instruction because it’s one that I think it like, it really gets to the line of being like, you know, are you being unreasonable?

01:31:24:03 – 01:31:41:16

Yeah. And well, and also like telling the jury what to do because you can’t do that. You can’t tell the jury you have to reach a verdict. Right. And it doesn’t say that, but it gets close. And I think it’s an interesting instruction because the judge in that case did reserve it for like later in the in the process.

01:31:41:16 – 01:31:57:04

He didn’t give it right. When they came back he said he. Yeah. But he was kind of just reading like the standard jury instruction, I think for deliberation just every time they would come in. He was he was just kind of telling the same thing, like, just go back and try again. Yeah. And I was kind of wondering, like, are they sitting there like, really man?

01:31:57:05 – 01:32:13:04

Like that’s that’s what I thought. And that’s what I think. Just being lawyers and having been through trials, all of us, and being in a position where maybe you’re not sure if they’re going to reach a verdict, like it’s frustrating, right? As the attorneys like, I can’t imagine what it’s like. I would love to be a juror like I would.

01:32:13:11 – 01:32:37:21

I think we all probably would be. But it’s got to be so difficult to be in that position, especially after this long. It’s been they’ve been deliberating 40 some hours, I think at this point almost basically a week workweek. That’s a long time to be with the same people talking about the same thing. Yeah. And I’m sure there’s you kind of your four points out there, they back there just like just sitting there or they actually hashing it out.

01:32:37:22 – 01:32:55:19

My guess is they’re talking. Yeah, I bet you they’re talking. They’re trying. But that also probably creates a very awkward social situation. Yeah. For them especially if it is 11 to 1 like you said. I mean that’s a pretty pressure type of situation. That’s what it says. I mean, we all know how that works. But yeah, we’ll see.

01:32:55:21 – 01:33:11:10

There was also one other point that I think came up yesterday. There was somebody that was photographing jurors in the parking lot as they were leaving, and that person got arrested and charged with crime. That’s pretty dangerous. You can’t do that. No, I think I forget what the crime is in Massachusetts. Like something like aggravated intimidation or something.

01:33:11:15 – 01:33:29:19

It was it was essentially intimidation of a juror or personnel, something to that effect, which is very, very serious. The lady already has an attorney and they put out a statement, something to the effect. If she was trying to get a picture of Lindsay Clancy, that’s all it was, this, that the other. But I mean, you can’t take any risks with that, especially in something as high profile as this.

01:33:29:23 – 01:33:48:11

It’s just it’s not it’s not. And I’m sure that the jurors also feel uncomfortable because they got to walk out in public still and live their lives after all this is over. So. All right. Well, I guess the moral of that is always be respectful to the jury. Yes. You know, it’s a tough job. And when Justin was five years old and his mom said, what do you want to be when you grew up?

01:33:48:11 – 01:34:05:21

He said, I didn’t want to be a juror. I think I said astronaut, but it definitely wasn’t lawyer, I’ll tell you that. Yeah. All right, guys, wait. Thanks for being here this week and doing this. We’re going to keep rocking on this type of a topic. And we’re going to get deep into Lindsay Clancy’s case next week. Y’all good rest of the week.

01:34:05:22 – 01:34:06:08

Take care.