EP. 58 - INTERACTING WITH POLICE PT. 2

Hi, this is Collin McCallin. Thank you for listening. Please do us a favor and leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe so that you don't miss any future episodes. Thank you. [inaudible] Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of is this legal? My name is Colin McCallin and of course I'm joined with my partner in crime Russell Hebets in Denver, Colorado. How are you today? Russ?

I am having a fantastic day. Welcome everyone out there. All our faithful listeners. We have a good one for you too.Yeah, so we are going to pick up where we left off. This is episode 58 dovetailing from episode 57 two-part episode on interacting with the police. There's a lot to cover here, which is why we did a two-part episode. And for those of you who are jumping into this episode, you might do yourself the favor of going back and listening to episode 57, interacting with the police. Part one, because we are we, we're going to expand on some of the topics that we discussed in that podcast. Today we're really gonna dive into Miranda V Arizona, that United States Supreme court decision that came down in 1966, which was a groundbreaking decision that really changed policing. And frankly, the country in general, it was a really landmark decision changed, primetime TV, and anyone who has watched virtually any crime show, detective show, cop show, you have heard the Miranda advisement or someVersion of it. Yeah. And by the way when you're watching it on TV, most of the time it's wrong, by the way you're watching it. What you're seeing is not representative of actually the way Miranda works. And frankly, most of the time you're seeing really bad police work. So next you're going to tell me Collin, that everything they do in CSI is not accurate.I mean, none of it's accurate, man. I don't think you can get an ear print lifted off like a concrete wall from 20 years ago. I think I saw that at an episode. But you know, but if that's what you think the prosecution needsTo prove a case, we ought a reasonable. Go ahead and think back, let's keep those not guilty is comingOr defense attorneys right now, what we're going to get into it. We've got a brand new dumb criminal of the week for ya. We also have a podcast interview for, is this legal should be a fun one. So Russ, what do you say we get into it? Let's talk about Miranda V Arizona

Miranda V Arizona, just from the name I'm going to hazard a guess that this case came out of the great state of Arizona.

No, that is correct. And second thing you probably infer, it involves a person by the name of Miranda.That that was going to be my second guess. So yeah, the quick setup truly the facts of the case, aren't terribly important. Here's what you need to know about it. There was a guy in 19 in the 1960s named Ernesto Miranda and he was he was suspected of committing a pretty serious crime and the police brought him in for interrogation. Russ, they pressured him pretty hard. They questioned him for a long time and they actually got him to confess. He made a full oral confession. The police brought in a signed statement that he was supposed to sign also basically a written confession where they wrote it out for him. And he was basically supposed to sign it saying I swear that what I've written down here is true and correct, and that I have not been coerced by anybody to make this statement, right? So he went to trial. His lawyer at the trial level, tried to suppress his confession for basically being involuntary. And the case went all the way to the Arizona Supreme court who affirmed every court affirmed the conviction until they got to the United States Supreme court. And in a six, three decision not unanimous. The United States Supreme court said actually that confession was, needs to be thrown out. Russ. What did the court conclude?

The police made couple of very significant mistakes in their treatment of Mr. Miranda. First. They never told him that he had a right to counsel. So they never told him he had a right to an attorney prior to speaking to them. The second thing they did wrong is they never told him he had a right to remain silent. They never told him he had a right to invoke what is his fifth amendment, right? And we've talked about your constitutional rights. You have a fifth amendment, right. To remain silent. That's constitutional. You have a sixth amendment, right to counsel, which is constitutional those rights. Collin go back to 1791, but they weren't codified in the U S until this decision. That's right.

The other big thing that came out of this too, is the Supreme court, Earl Warren was the writing he's the chief justice. And he wrote the opinion. He also said that once a person asserts these rights, once a person asserts their right to remain silent, or once they assert their right to counsel interrogation must immediately cease. The police are not allowed to question the suspect first.

And that really makes a lot of sense because if, if interrogation was not required to stop at that point in time, the cops could say they could just keep trying. They could just keep going and going and going. And it basically makes those rights irrelevant.

All right. And for those of you who just listened to episode 50 spoiler alert. So stop right now, if you don't want to know what happened, but in our, is this legal segment, we talked about this very issue, right? We here's what we had. We had detective Myrtle who she wasn't questioning a suspect. She was, but she was clearly trying to get information out of this guy without asking him a direct question out of Jebidiah. I mean, let's use names here. Let's get Jebidiah has proper dude. Yeah, that's right. And, and the reason that we, that, you know, that that was a problem. The reason why detective Myrtle violated Miranda was because she was interrogating him after he had invoked his right to remain silent. Exactly.

And in that case, like she didn't, she didn't overtly say questioned him. She wasn't saying, how did you do it? Where did you do it? When did you do it? But her story that she told him was specifically designed to evoke a confession essentially. And so even if it's not questions that is still interrogation. So now let's talk about how Hollywood and how TV shows and Netflix, how they screw this up every single day, Russell let's let's get into this. Well, what they do is they just make us as defense attorneys explain overAnd over again to clients who come in. I mean, legitimately, probably weekly, a client comes in and sits down and says, yep, here's what's going on. Here's my case. And by the way, these cops never advised me of my Miranda rights. And Mr. Mccallin, I want my case dismissed.

That's right. And unfortunately, we usually have to be the bearer of bad news in that situation and say, I'm sorry, but I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding banks to pop culture about what Miranda, when Miranda is required, because it's not required. Anytime a person is getting, getting arrested. Let me repeat that one more time. For everybody, the police do not have to issue a Miranda warning every time they arrest somebody. I think that's news for many

Of our lists. I bet that's news for like 80 plus percent, probably 90 plus percent of our listeners. Russ. I would actually venture to say anecdotally, in most cases when the police arrest somebody, they don't Mirandize somebody. There's a reason for that though. There's a reason for that. First of all, they, they, there's, there's two things that we said you have to have custody. So first, if you have a cop talking to you or talking to someone on the side of the road, you're not under

Wait a minute. The Russ, that sounds a lot like interrogation. I mean, that's what we were just talking about, right? The police are questioning

And, and, and it is absolutely interrogation. Without a doubt, the police are interrogating you, but you need both. You need interrogation and custody.

You need to be in custody. That's w that has to be a prerequisite to the Miranda warning. Exactly. So let me, what is custody?

So some exists. Here's some examples of custody. If you're handcuffed, that's the easy one. That's the easy one. You're in custody.

You're not, you're basically what a reasonable person feel free to leave. Right? If you're in handcuffs, no, the answer is no, you're not going to be able to walk away.

Say, see ya, officer double wave. I'm going to go find a blacksmith or that's, that's what Jebidiah says. I think he used the village blacks. That's what Cornelius says. I'm sorry. Okay.

Right. So, but let's, let's put the shoe on the other foot. What if okay. So the, the police, they think that Jebidiah has committed a crime. So they go up, they put handcuffs on him. They arrest him, they take him to, they take him to jail, but they don't Mirandize him. What's what's the issue there, Russ, isn't that a problem?So if they don't interrogate him, it's not a problem. And honestly, if Jebidiah they do that in your scenario, they handcuff him. They take him to jail on the way Jebidiah unprompted says, gosh, I feel so guilty about just robbing Cornelius that I just have to get this off. My conscience officer, I did it and it go easy on me please.

No, no, that's a great example. Let's I'm glad you brought that up. So here's what we have here. We have custody. We have a man who's under arrest. Who's in police control. He's certainly not free to leave. Is the back of a patrol car? No doubt about it. The man is in custody, but do we have interrogation? I didn't hear a police officer ask one question or make one statement that elicited that response from Jebidiah from Jebidiah. Yeah. So that's that's not going to trigger a Miranda warning.

It was, it was officer mum who talks very infrequently and he didn't say a word, so no, no problem. No problem.They can write that confession down. They can record that. They can use it against him in court, even if they never uttered the Miranda warning, because it wasn't required since they weren't interrogating. And, and1, 1, 1 last thing I want to make sure everyone understands, let's say there is a violation. So let's say they arrest Jebidiah. They put them in Coffs. They put them in the cop car and they start questioning him without Miranda. That comes to us, Jebidiah comes to us and says, I was interrogated. I made all these incriminating statements. I confessed to like 15 crimes and they didn't Mirandize me. You know what we get to do as defense attorneys, we get to suppress those statements, not dismiss the case.

That's right. Yeah. that's a great point, Russ. I mean, again, our clients come into us and say, well, look, I'm going to get my case thrown out. Right? Like this thing's going away. Right. And you know, E in that rare where we actually do have a Miranda violation. Yeah. That's what we have to tell them. We have to say, no, your case is not getting thrown out. Your statements are going to get thrown out. Any statement that you made that was incriminated, actually, actually it doesn't even need to be incriminating. Really? Any statements that you make in connection with with the case could get set up. Yeah.

So sometimes maybe if all they have is your confession, then yes. The answer is, yes, we can, we can get the case thrown out because all they had was that confession, that confession is suppressed. And we're good.Like an example of that real quick, but we're talking about Miranda that the actual Miranda case after his conviction was overturned by the U S Supreme court, he was retried. And all the prosecution did was just not use his statements that were the problem. Right. So they could use all of the other evidence, all of that stuff doesn't get suppressed. Right. So he ended up getting convicted of the original charges that he was originally tried for.Okay. So let's, let's transition to something that a lot of people have been asking questions about. A lot of fans of the podcast have been asking questions about which is recording the police. But before we do that, let's go to our segment. Is this legal and hear from this week's podcast guest, our guest this week is Steve Wolf from, in addition to being a Michigan man, Steve is a very accomplished videographer and producer. He is, has been spent the last couple of decades living in new Orleans in his time on the job he has flown into and drove into hurricanes. He's witnessed gun battles on the streets of new Orleans. He has also won multiple awards, such as being named the city's top visual storyteller. His stories have made a tangible positive impact on local city governance. And just last year in 2020, his coverage of a group of new Orleans musicians, traveling to Cuba, netted him and Emmy. Steve, thank you so much for being on.

All right, Steve, how you doing?

Thank you very much. I was waiting for the crowd to go wild. We're going to add that in later. Excellent. Excellent post. I understand.

So Steve, we appreciate you coming on our podcast today. You it sounds like you have definitely been a man about town for some time and have probably seen your share a fair share of things, huh?

Yes, I have. I would say that's accurate. I'm wondering if

You can, this being a legal podcast and everything I'm wondering if you can tell our listeners a story about where things got legal for Steve Wolf from, can you, you have such a story you might be able to tell our listeners.I was I was thinking about that in preparation for this podcast. And I can remember one day I was working on another story and and we got call of something going on outside of a bank. And and when I pulled up what I can tell is, is that there were marshals on the scene as well, us marshals on the scene. And then there was also what looked to be bounty hunters. So it wasn't, you know, even though it was near the bank originally, I thought it was a bank robbery. When I first pulled up, they had set up the perimeter in the parking lot, but it only kind of blocked off, you know, from one light post to another you know, I've not my first rodeo. I know that that perimeter means don't cross.

But they didn't complete the perimeter. And they had some, they had some witnesses who were on the other side. And I started to make my way around, down the sidewalk, up towards another alley to get there. And, and as I was approaching some of the witnesses one of the officers came up to me and were like, Hey, Hey, Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Hey, you can't talk to them. You can't talk to them. And I looked at him, I said, are they, are they in custody? Why can't I speak to them? They're, they're sitting here on the sidewalk. They were probably witnesses. And they can give me a perhaps there, I w I witnessed account as to what had happened. And he said, you can't do that. You can't do that. We're in the process of an investigation. You know, knowing that the perimeter wasn't set up and they were now gonna hurry and go get more police tape and barricade me to talk to them.I I said, you know, you're violating prior restraint. And the officer looked at me like speaking. Great. And I, and I was wondering in that situation, especially with one where, where an officer didn't know what were my rights what were his rights? And, you know, obviously I maintain a very good working relationship with the NOPD. So I wasn't looking to, I wasn't looking to make waves that day. But it was, it was a, certainly a situation where I definitely felt like I was being impinged in my, my ability to tell the news of the day.

And, and how did it, like, did you push back at all, Steve?

I initially I said what do you mean they're, you know, they're not, they're not being held or are they, if they're witnesses, you know you know, can I talk to them after? And he said, no, no, you need to get on the other side of the perimeter, but there was no,

There was, there was no perimeter to get on the wayside. Yeah. It seems like maintaining

That the sidewalk was the perimeter and, you know, that's, that's not the case. I mean, he's got to delineate a crime scene, you know, for that perimeter rule to take place, you know, I don't cross prime tapes. Yeah. Yeah.I mean, this very episode, Steve is on interacting with the police. So you you've actually raised some interesting questions. I'll tell you if they did not coordinate off a visible crime scene. I don't see how you would have been violating anything by asking these witnesses some questions. So I mean, certainly they have a right to investigate. They can take certain precautions to make sure that that crime scene is intact. But as far as I'm concerned, they can't really prohibit or not prohibit witnesses from talking to a journalist. That's my take on it. But however,It was probably a good idea for you to like, back off, because, you know, it's always easier to, you know, get the story from the other side of the crime scene than from the inside of a jail cell. Even if it off a little nest. Well, Steve, it's time we do it. We do a segment here where we ask you,

Is this legal

It's time to place. So are you ready?

No prizes nor awards, just bragging rights. Just the knowledge that, or, or not, you're on top of it, depending on if you

See if I get it right or not.

All right. So let me, let me set you up here. So we have a couple of recurring characters on the podcast and they're named Cornelius and Jebidiah. And in this scenario, there's police officer Cornelius, and he is patrolling an area at night, he's driving, and he sees a car in front of him that does not have a license plate or a temporary tag. He activated his lights. Initially, it's a traffic stop. He pulls the person over for that traffic infraction, the driver complies and pulls over as officer Cornelius is approaching. He notices that there is in fact, a temporary tag that's visible. He just didn't see it from his angle before, but the car is actually legal. He then continues up to the door, has the person rolled down the window? And it's, it's this old nemesis Jebidiah. And he says, ah, Jebidiah give me your driver's license, proof of insurance registration, you. Then it goes back to his car. He runs, everything comes back, clear, walks back up to the car, returns the documents. But as he's returning the documents, he gets an odor of alcohol coming from Jebidiah in the driver's seat. He then says, Jebidiah, I think you've been drinking. He starts a traffic, a DUI investigation. And he arrests Jebidiah Steve, is that legal?

Hmm. Well, in Louisiana that would be Boudreaux. And Tibideau second, I'm going to say that the officer doesn't have probable cause cause the probable cause was exhaustive when he realized that the car was legal and he didn't pull him over for swerving from lane to lane. I think I think the, just the mention of the wasp of alcohol, I mean, you know, I could have just wash my hands with hand sanitizer and that could have been alcohol at that point. I don't, I I, you know, I'm not exactly sure what Jebidiah should have done in reaction, but I think that's a bad stop and a bad arrest.

You are correct. We have a winner, we have

A winner winner, chicken dinner, Steve Wolf.

So here's the analysis, here's the analysis for anybody out there, who's kind of curious. And, and Steve, you were, you were almost right on the money. You were using the word probable cause actually a police officer needs actually something less than that to conduct a traffic stop. He just needs a reasonable articulable suspicion that someone has committed a crime. In this particular example, he pulls over a guy basically erroneously. He pulls him over because he thinks he doesn't have a tag. He does have a tag at that moment. Like you said, the purpose of the stop was exhausted. He had no right to ask for Jebidiah his personal documents. He had no right to detain him. That case will get thrown out of court. Good job, Steve.

Well, thank you very much. Good info.

Yup. And, and that's actually been like pretty much every state Supreme court in Colorado. It's a case called red injure. There's a federal case out there that follows those lines and it's, it's really clear. The cops can't keep detaining someone if they don't have a good reason to

Let's ask you this, man, do you have anything that you would like to plug? Anything that our listeners should know about Steve Wolf from

Jeez to be continued? I don't know. I'm I'm currently on the prowl for new opportunities. So by any means, if any of your listeners have anything, maybe I'll come work for K USA up there in Denver. Actually I do have some of the plug I'm sending my daughter to cover Colorado university of Boulder in the fall. So y'all better keep an eye on that Wolf from, for me.

All right,

Gentlemen, thanks for having me on the show.

Serbian OD. We really enjoyed it, Steve, and we wish you nothing but the best.

Thank you for coming down to see me soon.

All right, absolutely. Welcome back everyone. We are now going to talk about recording the police. What is a, what is allowed, what is a absolute no-no and how you should comport yourself when you're in a situation where either you're being investigated by the police or you see someone being investigated by the police?

I just want to say comport, what a great word how you should comport yourself.

I try to use that as often as I can. I

Get a lot of weird looks, but I feel like it's,

It's called for so Colin, first of all, should you assume that things are being recorded or not when you're in writing, acting with the police? Yeah.

So, you know, maybe as recent as five years ago, I might've had a different answer to this question, but I'll tell you what most, most police agencies are, the body cam direction, where all officers are recording every interaction that they have with members of the community, whether that's just a cordial interaction, whether it's con you know, a traffic stop or a raid, all of this stuff is getting recorded. And, you know, there's, there's, there's a lot of reasons for that. I mean, this is something that I think protects everybody. This protects the person that's getting arrested. We know what's happening. We know what the police were doing. It also protects the police. You know, the, the police are protected. You know, if a couple of defense attorneys like us try and say, Hey, wait a minute, officer, you, you didn't, you, you should have read her Miranda rights in this case.

And you didn't actually counsel, as you can see here, I'll play here. Here's where I read the Miranda rights. Let's go to minute 22. Right? Exactly. So this is actually, we think this is a really good thing. I mean, we think that this is good for police accountability. We think it's good for transparency. So the answer to your question, Russ, yes, you should assume that the police are recording you. In fact, they probably are it could come in the form of a body cam. It could come in the form of a dashboard, the camera,

And that's, that's a camera that points forward out the front of a patrol vehicle that records, whatever is in that field of vision in front of the vehicle. And a lot of like in Colorado, Colorado state patrol, every vehicle has a dash cam that dash cam automatically comes on when the lights come on. Right?

And by the way, you really, you don't have any right to tell the police to not record, right. If they are in a lawful contact with you, they get to record you. There might be an exception if, if, if you invite them into your home and you're not being arrested or something like that, like if they're a guest, I guess, I suppose you can say, I don't want to be recorded. I can't, that's the only exception I can think of that. Right.

Right. And, and, you know, in today's day and age, like you said, a different answer five years ago, like today's day and age, you should assume that even without cops there you're being recorded. I mean, you have halo cams that are going up at every intersection that are recording. What's going on there. Every business is starting to put cameras, videos on their business.

Have you heard about it? What's happening? Like in London, it like, there, there is an effort to basically make sure every single corner in London is, is captured by surveillance equipment.

I saw a story and this story was probably like four years old, where they literally used that surveillance system that you're talking about to track thiefs right from the scene of the crime, through the city. They're like, all right, go to camera 214 now. Oh, here they are entering screen left. Here they go. All right. They're exiting that, that camera's view they, London is covered. I mean, you can not, if, if

The London, right, if the London authorities legal advice, the London authorities want you, they're going to find you.

Right. So so that's a little bit about how the policemen recording now. Russ, can we, as citizens, do we get to record the police? So super

Interesting question. We in a previous podcast mentioned a case out of Philadelphia. We didn't, we didn't name it, but that case out of Philadelphia at the time, it's been a couple years since we mentioned that case that had a federal court saying you do not have a blanket first amendment, right. To record the police. Since we said that, that case has gone up to the us court of appeals for the third circuit, the court of appeals for the third circuit joined the first fifth, seventh, ninth, and 11th circuits in affirming your right to film the police. Now. So you're usingThe word rights. You're saying that it's, it is a right, that you have to film the police. It is aConstitutional right under the first amendment. You have a right to film the police that holds some water folks. Yeah. And so why you may ask are all of the court appeal court of appeals decisions from odd circuits? I don't know.

Where's the second, maybe the eighth. I wasn't wondering it, but I'm wondering it now. It's you're right. No, 2, 4, 6, 8. No, we have 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11.

I would consider that an odd opinion.

I mean, what

Bravo. So yeah, you

Can record the police now, now. Okay. Hey, you

Can record the police Russ, but should you record the police?

So, I mean, that's, that's a tough question. Colin. Thank you for asking it of me. I, I appreciate being put on the hot seat.

You're running the show. So here's the deal like you should.

I think you should, if you can do it safely, right? So I don't want anyone to be out there putting themselves in harm's way to record the police. When you know, you're going to put yourself in a situation where you're going to be injured, you're going to be even arrested. Although, you know, you have a right to do it. So, so there there's some rules of thumb for recording the police, right? And, and the first one and a big one is tell the police your record, boarding

Them and tell them politely don't here's what not to say,

I'm getting this all on camera, you pig.

We're not going to do that. Okay. So

That might distract them from whoever they're taking into custody. So like, if you're trying to save your friend and you're willing to take the heat, that's what you should do super quick. My wife was in high school. She got pulled over by the police. The, the people in the car, she, people in the car had had something to. So the cop is talking to them. A car goes by and a bunch of kids lean out the window and yell, Hey, big, quit picking on people. The cop packs up,

Hops in his car and goes after them right. Out of smoking in the band. So that was

Just a quick aside, but getting back to what we're talking about, you know, you, you have that right to record the police, but you should, you should definitely do it carefully. You should politely like, like you said, Colin, tell them, don't ask. Yeah.

You don't say, is it okay if I film you officer, you're going to say officer, just so you know, I'm going to film this interaction with my phone. Perfect. Or officer, just so you know, I am recording this interaction. Right.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. I am currently officer, I'm currently recording this interview,

Calm tone of voice. You're not being confrontational. You're just letting the officer know. And honestly, th that, if you think about it, you're a police officer and you're, you're being told, you're being recorded. You're probably going to be on your best behavior. But of course, you're also recording the interactionToo. So, you know, everybody's covered here. There really

Shouldn't be a big deal. If there, if there's a red flag to recognize, is it it's it's if the officer says, no, you do not have a right to record me. Turn that off. Yeah. That's, that's a tricky situation. What do you do in that situation? Rusty, you stop recording. Do you follow the

Police command? So here's the deal like, as long as there's some caveats to this, you don't have a blanket uniform, right. To film police. Like you can't have a cops trying to take someone into custody and you are, you know, 12 inches away from their face. Getting the closeup of, you know, the, the suspect as he's grimacing with being, being knelt on, you know, you cannot interfere with police activity. If you're interfering, if you're close, you do not have a right to record the police. Right? So one of those rules of thumb is stay a reasonable distance away

Right now, if you're a car in a traffic stop, I think it might be enough to just activate your audio recorder. You know, you still want to keep your hands visible. You don't want to be waving the camera around it. Like, again, we, you don't want to be accused of interference or of, of somehow endangering the safety of the officer. You have to comply with any reasonable commands that they make. I personally think if they tell you to stop recording you, you say you politely declined. So listen, it's my first amendment, right? To record you. I'd like to record this interaction. I'm, I'm leaving, I'm leaving my recorder on. If at that point they seize your phone. If they stop recording that, which they're not allowed to do, by the way, that's your property that they would be interfering with. It's not, it's not allowed for them to grab your phone and mess with your phone. Right. if they do that, you have to let them do that. You're not going to fight them. You're not going to resist. And you're going to have to let a lawyer fight that for fight for you later. But in our view that that is something that will be an for that prosecution going forward.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, an interesting thing, like if you're going to record, like Colin said, you want to record it and put it down Google in your state, whether you have two party requirement for recordings or not, because in the state of Colorado, you only have to have one, one end of that conversation, which is you have consent to record. So for example, like if I'm talking to you, Collin, and I record, I don't have to tell you I'm recording. I'm part of that conversation. And I can record

Check your state by the way California both parties have to consent for example, that they're different than color. Right?

So, yeah, so, so this is not blanket advice, but some places you don't need the cops permission, as long as you're part of the conversation right

Now. I think Russ, where you were about to go a minute ago is, you know, what if you're kind of like a third party? What if you're, what if you're, let's just, let's say there's a protest going on where there's a large police presence and maybe you see a police officer being aggressive with the protester, you know, can you film that

Interrupt action? You, you absolutely can. As long as you stick with those rule of thumb, you know, stay a reasonable distance away. You're not interfering and you're not right. Don't interfere, right. You, you that's, that's a constitutional right that you have to do that. And, but cops don't always know that, do

They? That's right. And you know, I'll tell you what journalists have gotten in trouble for this, with this very issue. There, there was a w let's talk about a case for just a quick second Russ. There was a journalist in Iowa. Her name is Andrea is a Hori. She worked for the Des Moines register and in the wake of all of the protests that came out of the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 there were a lot of protests. A lot of journalists were there covering this. She was one of them. There was a dispersal order that had been given by the police. And she remained on scene. She didn't leave. She didn't interfere with anybody, but she didn't comply with the dispersal order. She gets arrested. In fact, Russ 120 reporters were arrested or detained in 2020. Now, in most of those cases, most of those cases, the far majority prosecutors looked at the case and dismissed well Andrea Horry was tried with, for failure to follow a dispersal order, an interference with police. Her case went all the way to trial. She had a six person jury

Hear her case, and she was found not guilty of all charges in a pretty high profile, a jury trial that was just decided a couple of months ago in March, 2021. There was a lot of press coverage on that case. You know, the, the, the press called that is a really important victory for the first amendment. And you know, Ms. Sahari is back doing her work.

That's one that I really, I have trouble understanding the mentality of the prosecutor's office to go forward on a case like that, because there's no harm, you know,

Russ and I have actually handled a few protests cases. Unfortunately we see prosecutors giving these cases a pretty good luck and saying, okay, what law was actually broken here. Right. And so I was, yeah, like you run some kind of surprise that went all the way to a jury trial, but fortunately it looks like justice was done in that one.

Well, you know what? I think what the listeners want right now is a little bit of levity and a little bit of,

And for a little bit of stupidity is what they're looking for. Well, we have it for you. Folks is spades. It is time for that.

[Inaudible] Dumb criminal. Who do we gotStepping up to the podium this time. I love this one, Colin, this, this one, this case comes out of Sebastian, Florida. So another Florida,

I believe Florida certainly is holding the record in the United States, Florida DCO, DW, Florida definitelyIs a ripe picking ground for DCO TWS. So in Sebastian, Florida, a homeowner mining their own business, looked out their back window and imagine their surprise when they saw a naked man in their backyard, jumping on their trampoline. So they called the police. The police arrived and they observed the naked man. Now, man was a guy by the name of Michael Renard. So you're welcome, Michael, for us naming you by name. The police said I observed or not jumping on the trampoline without any clothes on Renata was dripping with water and appeared to have recently been in the swimming pool. Renard told police, he didn't know the homeowners were home. He thought they were snowbirds. He said he was just hanging out and enjoying the pool. He didn't hurt anything. AllHe did was took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, located on the back porch. So the police look aroundThe residence for any signs of four century. And they actually found something. They found that the bottom portion of the door track had been removed and set to the side. They asked Renat about it. He said, well, I was just tryingTo gain entry to the home because I had to use the restroom. I didn't want to urinate outside. At least he did pee in the pool, which that would have just been insult on the injury. So they could've gotten them for evidence standpoint. So they Renada, if he was currently under the influence of any narcotics, to which he stated, then IHaven't used any methamphetamine since last night, the night since I've used any math. So wait, wait, I have one more. I have one more.

Mr. Nod was on probation at the time.

Wait, wait, it gets better. The homeowners had exterior video and audio and they recorded him on the phone with a friend outside of the home, telling the friend, this is where he was going to live. Oh, wow. So it's your intent? Pretty clear. Isn't it? It really no word on why he was naked. I know it sounds like the police asked him a lot of questions about this. You just being free, man.

And also sounds like he never invoked his a fifth member, right.

To remain silent. And in fact, I'm sure

His attorney kind of wishes that he had. Well, this,

This is an example of good police work, where they did not take him into custody. Remember custodial interrogation, as long as the police asked you all of the questions before they arrest you, there's probably no reason to read Miranda. If he's out there swinging free. He's definitely not in custody. Mr. Nod was ultimately charged with Berg, blurry, theft and violation of probation. Amazing. Yeah. It's an awesome one. Yeah. All right. So Colin knuckleheads. Let's hear it.

This is easy. This is easy for me. Five knuckleheads. I mean, you've got indecent exposure. You've got trespass, you've got breaking and entering, or you've got a full confession. It's got all of everything. You need to spell out the word stupid in bold letters. So I say full five knuckleheads. I don't, I can't imagine what he could have done to make this stupid. I

Am. I am going to give him 4.5. I'm giving him some leeway with half a knucklehead because although he clearly didn't research this and it was incorrect, but he thought no one was home. He thought they were in fact probably in Florida. Got it. Or no, not in Florida.

Up north, somewhere up north, somewhere right. Anywhere north. Certainly not south.

That's a good one. And remember all of you out there having a bad day. Just be thankful that you're not Mr. Run-On because remember things could always be a little bit worse. Right?

Thank you guys. We're, we're happy with you guys here for another episode as always hit us up on Twitter. Is this legal pod Hebets McCallin on Facebook Hebets. Mccallin. If you

Can't find us, you're just not looking hard enough. Have a good one. Bye-Bye [inaudible].