It’s their summons. It’s their criminal complaint and their affidavit of probable cause. They’re charged with a crime. What happens next? Well, um, typically I think the best thing that we would start doing is if we understand what the charges are and depending on what the posture in the case is going to be. If you want to fight the case or if you think there are deficiencies in evidence that was gathered or in the investigation, we would have that conversation and identify any potential flaws in the case itself. A lot of times people know that they did something that justifies the charges on a basic level. They may not be guilty of everything that’s being alleged or they may not be guilty of the precise crimes that the the Commonwealth is bringing, but they did something. And so identifying what that is helps us to get the idea of what a resolution might be. So we like to try to get people involved in whatever is going to help to mitigate the consequences even before the preliminary hearing. For DUIs, that’s really simple. It’s drug and alcohol evaluations, doing the CRN, the court reporting network, uh, assessment, starting to do, if they’re a first-time offender, doing the victim impact panel because that’s an ARD requirement. getting those things done before the prelim I think helps the prelim and and you can potentially have a result before you even get to the prelim. Is that your experience as well? And I would just to add to that, this is why it’s so important to have contact with an attorney before this prelim cuz these types of things that come very natural to us, right? Like we know, okay, it’s this type of a case, it’s a DUI, this is exactly what we need to do. This is what we need to get our client working on. We know that intrinsically. That’s almost like like a reflex for us, right? But somebody who’s never been charged with that before doesn’t know that. And a lot of people think that, especially like in our jurisdiction, a lot of people think that the drug and alcohol evaluation and the CRN for DUIs are the same thing. So, we’ve seen a lot of times where people show up to the prelim thinking they they did it. They may have been ordered as part of their bail conditions to do a drug and alcohol evaluation, but they show up to the prelim and they haven’t done that because they did the CRN thinking that was a drug and alcohol evaluation. And why, Tim, why is it so important when you get to that prelim to be able to go in front of a prosecutor who’s literally prosecuting this person for a crime or to go to the police officer who’s charged him and say, “Hey, look at everything my client’s already worked on.” Why is that important and why does that have value and in mitigating the fallout? Why does that help fix the case? Well, because I think a lot of times coming from the prosecution side, we understand, I think, what prosecutors want to see when they’re evaluating their own cases. A person who is willing to take some accountability, even if there are disputes about all the facts or what exactly happened, somebody who acknowledges, yeah, I did certain things wrong or maybe I made some poor decisions here and there and these are things that I could do better. and getting involved in those those processes and engaging with programming. It it’s kind of showing we’re acting in good faith. Even if we end up having to go to trial and fight tooth and nail about everything, a person who’s done that, who’s engaged with the process, tends to be somebody who I think is perceived by the system to be more reasonable. Yeah. I mean, I remember Justin and Tim also back when I was a defense attorney, you guys were prosecutors, and we had cases against each other. I mean, we literally had these conversations and we had these negotiations. Um, some of my fondest memories of working with you guys when you were on those sides, but I mean, I remember that is palatable when I was a prosecutor. I used to love when a defense attorney would come to me and say, “Hey, I recognize my client, you know, did something wrong, right? We might not be completely agreeable to what we think that is, but my client has taken all these steps.” And that put me as a prosecutor in a position where I said, “Wow, I am willing to like work with this guy differently than I would have been somebody who wasn’t doing this.” Right. Uh and maybe they’re getting a deal that they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten and most people don’t because of those very reasons. Absolutely. um coming from the district attorney’s office and uh recently you know have being been a prosecutor when you specifically and there are some other uh you know local defense attorneys here in New York that uh do take that proactive approach and really get their people involved in things early uh and often and it makes the prosecutor’s job so much easier. So, like you said that I think they’re more willing to to work with us and continue to work with us on getting favorable resolutions for our clients. Uh because we have them do things, you know, early, proactively. Um it not only makes our jobs easier as defense attorneys now, but it makes the prosecutor’s job easier uh so that they can uh it takes something off their plate. uh you know so like I said I think they’re much more willing to uh negotiate uh favorable outcomes for our clients because of how we operate and especially in the modern the way that sentencing is handled now there’s a huge emphasis on rehabilitative uh means of rehabilitation so a person who engages with that early on is potentially the way I tell people that come to me with these kinds of cases is if you show the court that you didn’t need the court to send you to jail to do treatment or to do something, then then we can come into court and say, “Look, he’s doing stuff that is trying to fix the problem.” He doesn’t need a heavy-handed sentencing. He’s already learned like, yeah, he’s already learning. We don’t need to force him to learn. We don’t need to force his hand. He took this initiative. And um I’ve I’ve always found, and this goes for everything in life, not even just law. You make the other side’s job easier, you’re going to get what you want. You almost get to kind of in a way dictate the outcome by your own actions, right? I say to my clients in the beginning, you know, we’re going to learn and then we’re going to earn. You know, we’re going to show them that we’re learning and then we’re going to earn the outcome that you want out of this. We’re going to fix this because of the actions that we take. So, I think that’s I mean that’s the precipice that this is all built on, right? And that’s why I think here and the attorneys who do this the right way have a lot of success with that, right? But it’s a two-way street. You know, it comes with clients who are willing to, you know, get to us early, listen, follow through, stay in communication. Communication is a big deal. You know, I always tell my clients, uh, you know, having that high level of communication wins cases. Um, you know, I don’t like when I have a client who I can’t get a hold of, right? Who doesn’t call me back, who I’m trying to get a hold of, because usually I’ve got a prosecutor reaching out to me wanting to talk about something and I need to get an answer. and I want to be a responsive attorney to that prosecutor because again I want to make their jobs easy and make that decision um kind of unilateral between the both of us. So, all right. Well, let’s get back to um when you get that paperwork in the mail. Okay. So, Justin, I’ll kick it to you. When you get that paperwork in the mail and you you know, okay, now I know I got to get this lawyer. I got to go out and find an attorney, do the right stuff. What actually happens? Like we get this hearing, this preliminary hearing schedule. What is that? What happens there? Yep. So the preliminary hearing is essentially your at least with misdemeanor for the most part your first opportunity to go in front of a judge that is your district judge um and really engage uh well us as defense attorneys really engage with with the court um with the officer uh whoever the afant you file the charges is and and and the prosecutor. Yeah. And we get a face to face time with them. Right. This is like in person. Yes. and and like we just talked about having you know documentation mitigation at that point to be able to present to them um I think really drives like you said the the ultimate outcome of the chaos um and us again and not to interrupt you but the the people most people when they go to this premier hearing they haven’t done anything yet they have not engaged yet so it is kind of the norm for an attorney or a defendant I guess I should say to show up not having done anything and that’s what the prosecutors kind are used to, right? But if you do show up there having engaged early, that’s separates you from the cream a little bit, right? Absolutely. And there are certain uh misdemeanor and I mean even some felony cases that we see that if people contact us early enough, we get them into either treatment, um anything else that may, you know, help what the underlying cause of their charges was or what led to the charges. Um, we can sometimes resolve cases at the preliminary. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Great. Get some great results, too. And if you can’t resolve it, you can definitely use that proactivity to turn the thinking of the prosecutor because again, they’re kind of almost coming in there thinking this guy hasn’t done anything cuz that’s kind of the baseline. But if you’re different and you have engaged, you can change their thinking right out of the gate, which really sets the stage for the outcome layer. Right. Absolutely. Um, like you said, they’re kind of expecting defendants to come in there not having done anything. Correct. So when you I shouldn’t say it’s a good expecting though, right? It’s it’s that’s like kind of the norm. Yeah. And like you said, it’s the norm and you know, we we kind of want to combat the norm, right? We want to I don’t know that we can necessarily change the norm. Uh I guess the more people that contact us and you know, we get involved with we can try. Um, but you know, like you said, how we kind of all operate here is we want to get people started early. Um, we want to get involved early. That way there is potential for an early resolution. And cuz we don’t want a normal resolution. We want the best resolution. But I think the other thing that’s important is that prosecutors realistically know the system they’re in too, and they know that they can’t afford to drag everything downtown. So, it’s very appealing for prosecutors to to resolve what can be resolved at the preliminary hearing. So, there is an incentive there for police officers and for prosecutors to work the stuff out that doesn’t need to come downtown. And by doing that, we’re saving the prosecutor’s time. We’re saving court time, court resources. We’re also saving clients, defendants time, too, because most of the time when we’re resolving something at the MDJ, that’s coming with a sentence of a fine and costs for the most part. No probation. There’s definitely no jail time most of the time. No house arrest. That’s stuff that that is better. It’s going to cost you more money to come downtown and do that stuff. And your court costs go up when you go beyond the magistrate level to the main level of court. Absolutely. And I think, you know, people that have criminal charges, it’s a burden and it’s scary. Um, and people, you know, get anxiety. They’re worried. Um because you know, not being a defense attorney, people just always assume the worst in what they see on TV. And it it sometimes can be like that, but not always. And you know, getting someone a favorable resolution as early as possible takes that weight off their back. Um and I think people, you know, truly truly appreciate that. I mean, like Tim said, it saves everybody a lot of time, effort, and money. Um, and certainly coming from the DA’s office and knowing, you know, what the case load is like, um, what the, uh, consequences of dragging a case out for a year or more can be, um, it’s it’s a burden. Yeah. So, the earlier we can, you know, get things resolved and help people kind of move away from this point of their life, um, I think is, uh, something that’s very appealing to the people that come to us and why they come to us. Yeah. I mean the anxiety that underlies criminal charges I have found after kind of just doing this for so long and meeting with these people and getting to know them as human beings like that is one of the biggest drivers of what could be a bad result is cuz someone is so anxious they don’t know how to handle this and they just bury their head in the sand. Right? And that’s what we have to combat. Right? We can’t have that. But part of our job is to tamp down that anxiety by explaining to them what’s going to happen and showing them how we can fix it and how we get them involved to do that. Right. Um you touched on something there that I probably for a whole another episode, but I I hear from clients sometimes, you know, as we get further along in cases, like they’ll never want to take me to trial because they won’t want to spend the money. And what I I always try to dissuade that by explaining to them that you have to understand that the line prosecutor who’s taking you to trial is making the same amount in their paycheck whether they take you to trial or not. They’re not spending the money. They’re not losing money by going to trial, right? So there isn’t really a financial incentive for a prosecutor or really the county at all or the DA’s office not to try a case, you know, and and it’s actually the opposite is true because if they win that case, who bears the cost, right? The defendant, right? So if they win if they get a guilty verdict, you’re going to get the cost of prosecution assessed to you. So the one paying you’re the one paying. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean that’s that’s a whole another thing. I think at some point we should do a an episode where we dissuade rumors or things that we hear, right? Cuz I hear things all the time and I’m always in these meetings trying to uh with clients explain why that really isn’t the case, but it’s pervasive and people talk about it, you know, outside all the time. And I’m sure there are attorneys who uh propagate those rumors a bit too. in a fear-mongering kind of way. But all right. So, all right. So, again, just to kind of recap, uh, you know, we get our paperwork in the mail. Really important to kind of get an attorney, figure out what you’re doing. Let’s tamp down that anxiety. Let’s all feel good about the plan, right? Get in there, get the hearing going. Let’s meet with a prosecutor. Let’s have that face to face look you in the eye contact where we can show them all the good things we’ve started working on. And we get control then kind of over the outcome of the case. I always love that because I feel like we’re putting our client in the driver’s seat, right? Like we can get our control back when you feel completely out of control. Um, but in any event, if we can resolve it, great. We’re going to try to do that. We’re going to get a good outcome down there. It keeps, like you said, Tim, cost down. It keeps the outcome way better. Um, but the point of a preliminary hearing, right? Let’s talk about that. What is the legal point of a preliminary hearing? Right. We’ve got this burden called primmaaccia evidence. So Tim, do you want to explain what that is? Yeah, I think have a hearing. Yeah. The easiest way that I describe it to people is that the preliminary hearing is a safeguard for for anyone who is charged or not charged with a crime. It it’s meant to prevent the police from picking your name out of a phone book and slapping charges on you. It’s a fail safe court. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, it it’s it’s to it’s to make sure that the only charges that are coming into court are charges where there is a basis for the charge in the first place. So primmaaccia is a very low bar to the commonwealth. It’s not the same as beyond reasonable doubt. The commonwealth has just so people are clear, beyond a reasonable doubt is the burden at a trial. Correct. Right. A jury or a bench trial where you’re actually getting convicted or found not guilty of a crime. Right. This is a completely different burden. Much lower. Yeah. And and in fact, I believe primmaaccia is the lowest burden that exists in the legal system. Yeah. Um because it’s essentially probable cause. So, I mean, I guess the only way that you would have a lower burden would be like reasonable suspicion, right? It’s not a reasonable suspicion. You can’t amount to probable cause. Yeah. Um um I always describe it to clients like primapacia is basically is there some evidence that a crime happened, right? And is there some evidence that you were the one involved in committing that? Yeah. I say that the question is, and I think this is the language in some of the case law, is is they have to put on a little bit of evidence to show that it’s reasonable to conclude that a crime was committed and that they have a valid basis for believing that you’re the person who did it. It’s a sort of more likely than not standard. Do they have the right person? So, is it reasonable to say that somebody committed a crime? And is it reasonable to say that you’re probably the one who did it? Yeah, absolutely. Um, how you described it is basically how I describe it. you know, there’s some evidence of crime, some evidence that you were somehow involved with that. Um, and they do have to show some evidence of each and every element of the crime. Um, and I think a big misconception with the preliminary hearing is, um, especially for people who have never been involved with the legal system. Uh, again, what crime of actually is and what what the burden at that level is. And, you know, I think a lot of people initially will be like, well, I want a hearing. I want a hearing. I want to hear it. This is my trial. I want to get in there and I want to argue, right? They think that it’s going to go away. They think it’ll it’ll get dismissed at this level, which doesn’t happen very often. Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to get too deep into stats here, but I mean, doing this for quite a long time, I was doing this almost two decades now. I could say about 99% of cases are not dismissed at a preliminary hear. Yeah. All true, please. Um, you know, but I also, uh, Justin, talk about the rules of evidence are a little more relaxed at a preliminary hearing than they are at the court, please. Like when it comes to like hearsay evidence, this is a can of worms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like things come in that you wouldn’t think would normally come in, right? Absolutely. And I know that there has been uh some more I think more recent case law the last 10 years or so where uh previous to that essentially an officer could just testify to anything that they took in a report. So they could have gotten through every charge with just the officer test. Right. All if you’re the officer on stand I swear to the affidavit. Yeah. It’s all true. Boom. B. So that’s changed a little bit. And you know, I think in a lot of cases, especially misdemeanor cases, it’s it’s most of the time just going to be the officer. You may have a witness or a victim if it’s, you know, a trespass or um a criminal mischief or something like, but even if you had a case of the victim, technically at a preliminary hearing, you they don’t need to have the victim testified. Not in all cases. Um I think the the big misconception is, you know, if an officer just essentially takes a report uh for something that somebody Right. It would be like information received. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see anything. Yeah. He’s just got a report on. And it’s like, yeah, but I mean, if the officer sees even a little bit of, you know, what they’re alleging, whatever the crime may be, um, 99% of the time, it’s probably just going to be the officer. Um, and again, going back to what I was saying where a lot of people want to take hearings. It’s really in again probably 99% of cases not in their best interest to take a hearing. Yeah. Why? Uh so from my experience of you know as a prosecutor now you know back on defense um sometimes the prosecutors can can hold that against you unfortunately. Yeah. They dig in a little differently. Yes. You can kind of almost shoot yourself in the foot. Yes. By doing it the wrong way. Right. And this is why being prepared is important. Right. If you show up you’re like I’m just taking a hearing. Don’t tread on me. I’m you know this. You’re violating my rights. that you can, like you said, you rub the prosecutor a little bit the wrong way. And this isn’t to say that we’re just cowtailing to what they want. That’s absolutely not the case. But this, to me, this comes down to control. I want to be the guy controlling the room, right? And even if that looks like I’m yielding some control to a prosecutor, I’m doing it because I’m changing their thinking about this case. The be as a prosecutor, I would tell defense attorneys all the time, the best deals go to defendants who take accountability and take accountability early. That’s big. So I if if you fought with us at the prelim, you made me call a 14-year-old victim to the stand at the prelim to testify about what by the way can retraumatize the victim and the pro that’s what the prosecutors thinkingly aware of. Yeah. So, if you’re making me do that and then you file a suppression motion on an issue that really isn’t meritorious, then the perception I come away with as a prosecutor is you’re not serious about owning up to anything. You’re not serious about negotiating. And you only come to the table to negotiate when you’ve exhausted all the arrows in your quiver. And at that point, I have all the cards. So, I think you’re right. It is a balancing act for if I’m going to wave or stipulate the hearing, I’m acknowledging that the burden is so low that they’re probably going to clear it and this is a chance for me to come to the table and and extend an olive branch or show that I’m acting in good faith. And let’s start talking about negotiating a little bit too, right? Cuz that’s the other thing you can do if you if you get to this prelim and you’re not just going in there swinging a big stick and wanting to have a hearing. Let’s talk like let’s show you what we’ve done. Let’s start talking about brass tax and let’s we might not get a deal, right? But we might get a lot closer than if we came in there and didn’t play ball at all. Right. Um I think too that that something else as far as the burden and testimony and evidence that needs to come in at a prelim that needs to be said is that the law is pretty clear that at a preliminary hearing, the judge draws every inference in favor of the Commonwealth. Which means that if there are two dots and connecting those dots is a path towards a finding of guilt, the judge has to connect those dots. The judge cannot listen to a witness at a preliminary hearing and say, “I don’t believe that witness.” They’re not allowed to do that. They can’t make that determination a little bit more. What does that mean? Anything that comes out on the stand, they have to assume is true. They have to they have to take it as true. And then like I said, if there’s a question about inferences, there’s an inference that maybe goes both ways. At the preliminary hearing stage, they are required to draw that inference in favor of guilt, in favor of the Commonwealth. The other thing that’s important, and this is where a lot of people that I’ve interacted with go wrong. They want to take a hearing because they want to get up on the stand and testify. They want they want to get up on the stand and say, “This didn’t happen or that person’s lying and it’s all bull crap.” Well, the problem with that is the judge also is not allowed to hear any affirmative defenses. I had a case as a prosecutor one time. It was a burglary case where the victim testified that the defendant was not allowed there and did was not supposed to have a key. All this other stuff. And the argument from the defense was, well, he’s he our assertion is he’s allowed to be there. And the judge dismissed the burglary. They’re not allowed to do that. That’s an error. So, we brought that charge back as as prosecutors because that was an error. He’s not allowed to consider the affirmative defense and kick the charge because that’s a trial question. Yeah, you brought up a lot there that again maybe for a whole another podcast, but prosecutors have the authority to refile charges. Yes. That get kicked at a preliminary hearing. So, you could even go in there, swing your big stick, win, and get it kicked and they’re just they could refile that charge and you’d have to start all over again. And what have you done? You’ve stuck your stick in the hornets’s nest. you know, you’ve you beat it around and the hornets are flying and everyone’s upset. The other thing you talked about there was credibility. And that’s something that I think is a kind of a weird word that might not make a lot of sense to people, but credibility really means how believable a witness is, right? And that’s kind of just like a human judgment call, right? But what you were just saying is at the preliminary hearing, there is no human judgment call there. It’s it’s a mechanical judgment call, right? And it is the judgment call is that there is no judgment call. you must be believed. Meaning the witness must be believed. So therefore, that witness could get up there and say all sorts of crazy wildness and the judge’s directive is to believe it and likely as a result bind the case over. And in DV cases, it gets muddy because if you have a victim that’s recanting or saying something different, you might think, well, the judge has to believe that. Well, a lot of times though, you can impeach that witness with what was said before. And there are rules that allow you to introduce what was said before as substantive evidence. That’s hearsay evidence, right? Well, it’s actually an exception. Yeah, it’s an exception to the hearsay rule and it can be introduced against a turn code witness and then the judge has to accept that as true. Yeah. So, talk to me. I’ll throw this one to you, Justin. Talk to me about the rules of hearsay at a preliminary hearing, right? Because they’re different than they are at the main common please level at a trial. Yes, actually. And also explain what hearsay is because that’s a weird word that I I never knew what that was until I became a lawyer and we had to learn it all. But I remember being in law school and I think I missed the class on on hearsay and they confused like the most important class. I I will say I did you miss relevance too? No, I think I know what relevance is lovely. But no um hearsay is essentially an outofc court statement that is uh assertive for the truth of the matter. So um so something someone says not in the courtroom like on maybe on scene or whatever but you are bringing it into court to try to prove that what they said is true. Yes. Right. And and I think recently I explained this to uh one of my clients um where you know they were saying that they never said this etc. Um, and at the preliminary hearing, so say someone again makes a statement to an officer, um, and maybe they’re not available for the preliminary hearing. Um, the officer can testify to that statement, um, and the charges can potentially be bound over based on that. They just can’t use all fears to prove each and every So, so boom, let’s unpack that because that’s wild, right, to think about like how could how could literally a cop come into court and say, “Joe Smith told me boom, boom, boom.” And that can be used as evidence to get your case bound over. Yes. And it can’t. But like you just said, there is kind of a small tweak that it can’t be the only thing, right? There has to be some other stuff. Yes. There has to be other things. And that’s kind of where we were talking about where um Tim mentioned, you know, a case where you have, you know, a young victim and you want to take a hearing. Um calling that person or that child uh minor, however you want to uh phrase that uh could retraumatize them and and be very difficult for them. Um, and again, this could be a topic for another uh episode, but um, when they’re even younger, you know, they have the the CAC interviews, child advocacy center, uh, where they’ll do recorded interviews. Prosecution files motions to bring that in later. Uh, those are interviews of children. They’re done by professionals that are trained to interview children in traumatic situations. Yes. Yeah. And again, without going too much into it, it’s a forensic interview, so it’s just open-ended questions. They’re not, you know, asking specific things or leading. And the interviewers are trained specifically to not suggest those answers because again we we obviously as an adult population understand that children are susceptible heavily to influence. Yes. Um but again going back to the the hearsay at the preliminary hearing again as long as um each and every element of whatever the crime is charged is not proven by hearsay. So there’s some other evidence you can get essentially three out of four elements by hearsay. It just can’t be every one. Yeah. So let’s use an example. Okay. So, say I’ve got this case, right? It’s it’s a a child victim where um let’s say use like a corporal punishment example case, right? Where a father is accused of striking their child. The father obviously comes to us and says, “Hey, I was just disciplining my child. These cases come up from time to time and they’re tough cases because there is a fine very gray line between corporal punishment, acceptable corporal punishment and illegal corporal punishment or assault essentially. Right? So, let’s say we’re at a preliminary hearing for this as an example and the prosecutor does not want to put this 8-year-old kid on the stand to say, “My dad slapped me so hard across the face and now I have this big bruise.” Right? Okay. And we’re obviously not putting our client on the stand to say I was doing corporal punishment because this is a preliminary hearing. Their defense is not at issue here. We’re not going to start making a record of what they’re saying on the stand. Right. So, okay. So, the prosecution doesn’t want to put this witness up there. They decide not to do it. They’re just going to have the police officer get on the stand and testify about what the allegation was. What other evidence could exist there to get that through a preliminary hearing for a prosecutor? Yeah, I think so. Be again. I remember I mentioned there was a bruise. Yeah. Right. So, there might have been a doctor’s report with medical records and things like that. Well, they don’t even need that though necessarily, but I’m just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little fodder there. I would think, you know, something like that, medical records or photos. Um, and the photos are really enough. Yeah. The the corporal punishment thing too, especially here in Pennsylvania, it’s come up in uh criminal cases that I’ve had both say prosecutor and a defense attorney. Um, it also has come up in some some uh protection from abuse cases that I’ve handled recently. Um, and you know, the law in Pennsylvania is pretty clear on what is allowed and what is not allowed. Um, so if there is a bruise um or you know, some type of of actual injury, um, all he would need essentially is again a doctor’s report, a photo of that. Um, and then the officer could essentially just testify, “Yeah, the kid told me this happened and this is how it developed.” then you don’t even have to put that kid on the stand. So, I mean, and sometimes people go into these preliminary hearings and maybe even a different example, maybe like a domestic where they’re like, I’m going to make her testify against me. Well, good luck. Um, because that might never happen. Now, I think a lot of MDJs are guarded though in the example you gave, like I think if if the officer got up and said, “The kid told me that dad did this.” I think an MDJ would probably would probably have issues with that. um there has to be something other than just hearsay saying that the identity of the defendant that the defendant is the one who did it. Now they can get around that because if the defendant made a statement to the officer and said, “Yeah, I hit the kid.” Now they’ve now they’ve got Well, that’s an admission of it. Yeah. But it’s it’s an opposing party statement. So it’s definitionally really it’s not hearsay at that point. Right. So, but but if if they’re saying they heard it through the grape war, because there’s all these different exceptions and things like that, and we keep talking about that’s not But if they’re if they’re hearing through the grapevine that your client is the one who did it, that still might not be enough, they would maybe need something more than just that. But otherwise, I mean, the officer just putting eyes on the injury gets them 70% of the way there. Yeah. Without going into, you know, all the hearsay exceptions, etc., One of the just because you mentioned, you know, defendant statement, one of the biggest things that gets defendants in trouble or essentially convicts them is is their own statements. And people want to talk. They always want to talk. People think they’re going to talk themselves out of stuff. Yes. A lot. Yes. Um but there’s a fine line also, we keep talking about these gray lines between talking and being polite and cooperative, right? cooperative in the sense that you’re not being a jerk, a complete ass. Yeah. Okay. Um because that really can change the game in a case too, right? Yes. So, there’s a little sign over here that says you have a right to remain silent. Use it. Okay. That doesn’t mean spit on the cops, yell at the cops, you know, be rude, things like that. Walk away from us. That basically means what? Be polite. you know, if they’re demanding a specific, you know, we’d like to have your license and registration. Well, you got to give them that. That’s not a statement, but you have to give them that on a vehicle stop, right? But you don’t have to go, “Oh, I only had three drinks, officer.” Or, you know, when they say, “Have you been drinking?” You can just say, “I’d like not to make any statements.” Tim and I, you know, you should be that simple, right? Yeah. And Tim and I doing some uh uh talking at the DUI education classes over Colonial House. uh you know, we answer questions for people that are going through it, they call it the the the law, uh portion of it. And uh one of the things that we’ve talked about recently and even, you know, back when we were in the DA’s office, especially with DUIs, again, it’s people’s statements that that get them in trouble, right? So, what I tell people and you know, my friends and family, you know, if you were pulled over and you were drinking, be polite. Give them your license. You don’t have to make any statements. You don’t have to answer certain questions. You could say again, like you said, I decline answering to questions. Um, you can decline field sobriety tests. You can decline a portable breath test. Um, you know, at that point, let them arrest you and give blood. Yeah. Give blood because we’re going to do a whole episode or maybe two on this because yes, this is one of the biggest questions I get, right? What do I do on a DUI stop? And frank, we do a ton of DUI cases here. In fact, it’s probably a majority of what we do. It’s like the most common crime. It’s one of the most common crimes that very that can affect really anybody, right? And and it doesn’t it’s not really a malicious crime, right? So, it it affects people who are not very very bad people, right? But at the same time, there’s so much to unpack there and I get asked by people who know I’m a lawyer all the time like if I if I get pulled over by the police, what do I do? Should I give blood? Do I say things? Do I do field sobriety testing? Um how do I handle that and handle it right? you know, and there are some really really negative outcomes if you fail to give a blood test, but sometimes it is the right thing to do. So, we’ll talk about that on another episode. You know, that’s that’s that’ll be a good one. Yeah. So, good. All right. Well, we we unpacked a lot here today uh for our first episode. Um I think the only thing we didn’t do was for felony arrest warrants. I don’t know if you wanted to talk about that real quick. turn that into a whole another episode. Yeah, cuz that that is kind of a very different process, you know, getting arrested on a felony or or not getting arrested and doing an arrest by appointment with your lawyer. Um there there’s fine lines to handle there, too. So, I think that would be another good episode we should touch on. Yeah, absolutely. Good. Well, this was super fun. I love this. Um this is one of the things like when we opened this firm, I wanted to do because I just want to get the word out, right? I want to touch people’s lives that might otherwise not come into contact with us. I want to inform everybody. Um I just I want people to know who we are, what we’re passionate about, that we’re we’re human beings, too. That, you know, we we deal with this every day in our jobs, but we also have our own lives and things like this come up for us all the time. So, um we’d love to, you know, talk to anybody has any questions. Um but we’re going to keep doing this and uh we’ll have some more episodes coming soon. So, again, thanks for everybody who listened. Uh this is uh the Now We Defend podcast. Uh we’re all former prosecutors here and uh we love that we are now defense attorneys and we like doing it at the high level that we do. Thank you for listening.
