EP. 57 - TO SPEAK OR NOT TO SPEAK - INTERACTING WITH THE POLICE

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. []

It's late at night. You're driving home from your friend's house, where you just finished a drink. You're on your way home. You're tired. And suddenly those flashing red and blues come on behind you. Your heart drops straight through the bottom of your chest and onto the floor you start sweating. And the first thing you think is why me? The second thing you think is

Why am I not wearing pants?

Well, that's what you would think. Collin I'm Russell Hebets. And I'm here with my partner, Colin McCallin for another episode of is this legal. And we are going to answer the question of what do you do in that situation? And in other situations, when you're interacting with the

Police and pants on everybody, come on, like let's, let's keep it together out there. Do not drive bottomless. It's just, it's just silly. And frankly, no one wants to see that. So Russ great setup. You know, I I'm, I'm hoping that our listeners went to a place in their own mind when they'd been pulled over by the police before that situation is very palpable. Isn't it? Even if you haven't done anything wrong and you don't know, you don't know why you're being pulled over.

Even if you haven't just had a drink, even if you're just, you're just driving home, it is a tense, anxious situation, having any contact with the police.

But guess what? You have rights that you know, that in fact constitutional ones and they are going to help you in this situation. Once you actually know how they work and how they can be used to your benefit, most people out there, Russ it, they even kind of know their rights, but they're afraid or intimidated to exercise them. When they've got a police officer with a mag light shining in their eyes,

Being, being interviewed, questioned, spoken to at all by a police officer is inherently intimidating. That's right. You know, and it creates this situation where you want to do what they want, what they tell you to do, because you think that that's in your best interest. And sometimes it might be, but most of the time, spoiler, it's

Not that's right. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. We've got a great special guest to play. Is this legal with Clint? Rudolph will be joining us in a little bit. And of course we got a brand new spank and fresh DCO, but Russ let's get into it. Let's talk about interacting with the police. How about we start here? Does a person, is a person required in any situation to communicate with the police? The police officer stops you when you're walking down, the sidewalk said, sir, I'd like to talk to you. Do you have to stop there? Like, can we talk about those types of situations?

Absolutely. So here's the deal like you are under no obligation to give any information to the police unless they're investigating a crime. So in your hypothetical, if I'm just walking down the street and an officer stops me and says, excuse me, I'd like to talk to you for a little bit. You know, maybe the polite thing to do is talk to the police, but you don't

Have to. Yeah. You can say, hi officer, how are you today? Nice day. Right? Right. Or you can ignore him and you can keep on walking.

Absolutely. And you are doing nothing wrong. You are not breaking any laws. You are exercising your right to be free from that confrontation. Okay.

Now let's continue with that. Without encounter let's let's say Russ that you hear an officer call your name and you keep walking, but then the officer turns around and follows you and says, excuse me, sir, you stop right there. I'm talking to you then what do you do?

So again, this is going to depend on what the officer has. If the officer has what in the business we call reasonable suspicion, okay? That's, that's a legal standard that basically gives them the ability to stop you to do an investigation. And that is if they have a reasonable suspicion that you just committed a crime, or you're going to commit a crime. So let's say it's late at night, you're in an area without many people and you're holding a crowbar right? In that situation, he probably has reasonable suspicion that you're up to no good. And you have to stop you, but all you have to do in that situation. If he meets that legal standard is give him your identifying information. That's right.

So, you know, if, if the police officer kind of more forcefully, you know, stops you and says, I'd like to see your identification that is the one request that you must comply with. You must provide your ID identification. If you have it, if you don't have your ID, you have to provide your name, your date of birth. That's it. Yeah. That that's correct. Folks. That is the only information you ever have to provide. The police is your basic identifying information.

And that's it. Regardless of any other circumstances out there, like you could be climbing out a window of a house, holding a TV

And the police stop.

You. You do not have to say anything other than give your identifying.

Yeah. And frankly, you should not say anything in that situation.

Maybe other than

Officer, can you help me move my TV out of this

Window? My door's jammed officer and I can't get it out the door.

Now, so, so RAICES, right? Basically they have to have some sort of reasonable suspicion in that remember that's short of probable cause probable cause is where a police officer has a reasonable belief that someone's committed a crime in order to just stop somebody. He doesn't even need that. He just needs to be able to articulate a reason that he stopped somebody, you know, for, for suspected wrongdoing of somebody.

Yeah. Probable causes a higher standard. They basically think they have enough to charge you. That's what you need for an officer to arrest you.

Now, Russ, I know our listeners out there. They're smart people. They think for them smell,

They smell for themselves.

They think for themselves. And I know some are out there like, you know what? These guys, I don't, I don't, I don't get it. If I've done nothing wrong. If I haven't committed a crime and I'm interrogated by a police officer, why am I not just going to lay everything out for them? Why am I not going to say, okay, here's what I've been doing today. Here's why I didn't Rob that bank. Here's why you guys are barking up the wrong tree. You know, why is it not the best idea, even for an innocent person, Russ, to make statements to the police.

So, you know, in, in different individual circumstances that may work, that absolutely may get you off, but you're talking to two people who have extensive experience with the criminal justice system and both Collin and I, and you're talking about us, I'm talking about us. Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, not, not our listeners. Our listeners are like boy Scouts and girl Scouts. So, but we have had experience and we know that people can and do get charged with crimes. They did not commit. I mean, all you have to do anyone out there, go listen to R K R a podcast on DNA exonerations. You know, people absolutely get charged and get convicted of crimes. They did not commit.

And, and you know, the reality is if the police are questioning you for some alleged wrongdoing it makes sense that they actually think you might be involved. Okay. So when you protest your innocence, you remember you're working against the framework of the police who think that you might be guilty. So, you know, when they say in the Miranda advisement, and we're going to talk about Miranda in a minute, but you know, your advice, anything you say can and will be used against you. You know? So, you know, let's just say you're accused of a robbery of some kind and you have a rock solid alibi. And you say, look, I was at home watching Charles in charge during the time of this wreck.

Crazy. Why did I pick Charles and Charles? I don't know because I to watch it all the time. And I used to like Scott bale,

You've dated yourself. And now like, like, I think there were about like what 20 people who watched that show

Ever. I was

Lucky 19, I guess, anyway. But then the police do some digging and they say, wait a minute, sir, Charles in charge, wasn't on Magnum PI was on at that time. So then the police were like, wait a minute. Why did this guy lie to us about what TV shows he's watching? He must be lying about other things too. Right? You mistaken about one little fact, but then all of a sudden that's going to invite new police scrutiny on it. Even if it

Was a completely innocent mistake, like you actually were watching Magnum PI, cause Magnum PI is like a thousand times better than Charles in charge. And that's fine. That's clear, right? That's clearly what you were watching, but you just, it was a slip of the tongue or a slip of the mind, but that will lead them to go down a path. You don't want them on. And remember, police officers are not these infallible symbols where they know right from wrong and they know good from bad. They are people and people make mistakes.

Let's talk about what else the police can do. Russ, the police can lie to you. Okay? The police do not have to tell you the truth that there, there is Supreme court case law on this point. And you know, here's how this can work. They arrest somebody for, you know, they, they, they think someone's killed another person. So they've got the suspect in the interrogation room. Here's what they can do. They can say, Hey suspect just talk to the boys at the crime lab. We've got your DNA all over the victim's apartment. We have an eye witness who just told us, they saw you enter her house at seven o'clock, you know, 45 minutes right before the murder. We've got all of this information. Go ahead and just make this easy on yourself and sign this written confession here. Okay. We,

We, we have your accomplished Jimmy, who just told us that you did it, right. He just confessed. He told us everything, all of

Those might be complete fabrications of the truth. All of those might be lies, but the police can use them in order to get somebody to confess. And that puts pressure on somebody.

And that is just good police work. It is.

It is. And that's why you need to know that that's what they're doing. You need to know your rights. And that's why we tell people less is more so the less you say, the less they have to do, he was against you. What about Colin? But what

About like, you have this good cop. I mean the classic good cop, bad cop, right? Where you have you're you're clearly the bad cop in this scenario. You come in, you're just banging your fist on the table. You're just grabbing them by the lapels. Like

If this camera weren't on, I would your head, [inaudible] five minutes alone with you. Right. Right.

And then, and then I come in, cause I'm clearly the good cop. And I'm like, listen, I can't control this guy for much longer. Like, he's, he's going to do something just let's let, let me help you, help me, help you. Exactly. And, and that is totally legal. I mean, and, and it can just be the good cop. Right? Right. It can just be, what if a cop comes in and says, Hey, listen, listen, Benny, you, you go ahead and confess to this and I'm going to make things go easy on you. I'm going to put in a good word with prosecutor. Maybe, maybe we don't even have to file charges. If you just come clean, you get to go home tonight. That's a huge

One. Maybe you get to go home tonight. You're you're, you're whether you're innocent or not have a crime. And you've been sitting there being interrogated for hours and hours. You know, you, I'm telling you, you are going to feel a lot of pressure. That the only thing you're going to want is to get out of that room. So

Let me ask you, does the cop have the ability to download, charge you to not charge you to say we're not going to give jail in this case?

So yeah. Those promises, those inducements that the cop is telling you, oh, everything's going to be okay. You know, we'll put in a good word. If you confess, the judge will take it easy on you. All that is nonsense. First of all, in most jurisdictions, the police are not the actual prosecutors, prosecutors. They're not bringing the charges. Okay. What they do is we, they, they submit documents to the court saying, Hey, we've arrested this person. We have probable cause that he committed X, Y, and Z crimes. The prosecutor will review that information. And then they will actually initiate the charging document. They will charge the person the key point that we're making here. That decision rests with the district attorney, never with the police, never,

Never like tiny, small traffic offenses. Right? That's the only time that the cops are ever prosecutors. If you're charged with like running a stop sign, then yes, the cop can be prosecutor. So if it's in that circumstance, sure they can offer you that. And they, that actually has some, some standing, but otherwise they cannot.

All right, now we're going to take a little break. When we get back from the break, we're going to talk more about what you should do or should not do in the context of that traffic stop. We were talking about let's get to something people can use. Exactly. But before we get there, we're going to go to our, is this legal segment with our guest of the podcast? Clint, Rudolph

Welcome everyone. Today's guest is local business owner and entrepreneur Clint Rudolph. Clint is a bit of a Renaissance man. He is an actor. He sings, he plays guitar and he is the founder of a very successful media company. Clint founded excite media group in Denver over 10 years ago. Since that time he has grown his company to around 30 employees, but that's not all folks. He is also a podcast or hosting, not one, not two but three separate podcasts. Welcome Clint to our show.

Hey, let's happen. And how are you guys doing

Great. Doing great.

I'm doing, I'm doing a really well considering. We'll just say that good three

Podcast, man. That's got to keep you busy. I mean, thanks for making time for ours.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I love it. Well, Clint,

We would we would love it. If you have the ability to regale us with some sort of legal tale, can you tell

Us when things got legal for Clinton rules?

Oh, when the, when the crap hits the fan is they say, right, right. We deal with, I am a very good person. I don't have very many story. Okay. I've got a few gosh, probably my favorite really didn't involve me getting in trouble, but in the end I got in trouble. If that makes sense. And I don't know. Maybe in college, my roommate comes home with a golf cart. I love, I love it already right in the middle of the night. And I'm like, what the hell is this? It's like, oh, we got a golf cart. Like, okay, cool. I guess. And

That's what you always wanted. Right. So

It's just like sitting in our backyard. Right. So a couple of weeks go by and there's a knock on the door and I'm like, hello, police officer. And he hands me a card and says, you know, we've got some we got an investigation going on. We'd like to ask you some questions. If, if you could schedule an appointment to come down and talk to one of the detectives, that would be great. I'm like, okay, great. Like what the hell do I do? Like, did you, where did this golf cart come from? The police officer mentioned people in the neighborhood. Somebody saw sat at the backyard and reported it. And so my roommate comes home and I'm like, did you steal this? Like what, what is going on? Where did you get this golf card? He's like, no, no, it's fine. Like, okay.

So I go down on my scheduled day to talk to this detective and I've never done anything like that at this point in my life, you know, getting speeding tickets was about the most I'd come in contact with the law and I'm like sweating bullets. Right. And I don't really know anything, but I don't want to get my roommate in trouble either. Right. So I'm thinking I'm doing a good thing. He's like, so where did the golf cart come from? I'm like, I'm not sure. It's my roommates. It's like, well, where do you think it came from? I'm like, I honestly don't know. I mean, I don't know where he bought a

Horse perhaps. Right. But you know,

I'm trying to be a smart, but think that I'm making good connections. I'm like to be honest, I couldn't tell you where he bought his pair of shoes or, I mean, I'm not with him all the time. I don't, I don't know where he got it. I do know his uncle's a golf pro and he plays golf a lot. I'm making all this crap up. Right. Well, an hour before my roommate was there and admitted to the whole thing and stole

It. No. So

Then the guy comes back in, you know, the detective leaves for awhile. He comes back and he's like, well, Mr. Rudolph just wanted to let you know that you, you will have a good story, but your roommate was already here. And he confessed to the whole thing. And I'm like, oh,

Information that would have been useful yesterday would have been handy to have talked with your roommate. Was there any follow up with that? No, there wasn't nothing. Yeah.

Nothing happened to me. I think nothing happened to him. Right? Like they came and took it away and that was it. You know, wherever he got it, they didn't press charges or whatever. So, but it was pretty funny that I'm trying to defend them. And at the same time, he's in the hotbox admitting the whole thing. That's awesome.

That's, that's like a classic prisoner's dilemma, Clint, except you know, you actually acted in the best interest of everyone

And your roommate threw you under the bus rolled on everybody.

That's awesome. Well, that is actually a perfect story to segue into this week's episode of is this legal, as our fans will know, every week we've started having someone on where we give them a legal scenario and we ask you the guest to tell us, is it legal? And so this one we're actually going to be talking about a police interrogation experience, extensive experience listeners. We didn't plan this, Sarah. So let me set it up for you Clint. So if for, for our listeners, our longtime listeners will know that there's a couple of blokes out there named Jebidiah and Cornelius. They have a long standing feud. They are kind of always going at it with each other. Well, in this hypothetical, Clint Jebidiah is suspected of killing his rival Cornelius and burying him somewhere on the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Wow. Detective Myrtle is on the job.

She gets the case. She has reason to believe Jebidiah did this. And she arrests him. She Mirandized Jebidiah Jebidiah responds. I'm not going to answer any questions without an attorney present. So detective Myrtle, she agrees not to question him, but she still really wants to recover that body. Now she knows that Jebidiah is a religious man. She tells Jebidiah Hey, a storm is moving in. This is a snow storm. This is going to bury the Eastern. It sure would be nice. If Cornelius could have a Christian burial before his Prairie grave is covered in snow and lost forever. Now I want to be clear. Clint, detective Myrtle never asks. Jebidiah a single question, but in response to her concern about that Christian burial Jebidiah voluntarily leads detective Myrtle to the unmarked grave of Cornelius and the body has recovered. The question is, was detective Myrtle's clever ruse to get Jebidiah to disclose the location of the body. Was that legal? Was that a legal interrogation method? Clever as hell.

It was so good police work there by detective Myrtle

Or jeopardize just an idiot. I'm guessing from all the, from all the stories that he is I'm gonna have to go with, yes, it's legal. If she didn't ask him a question, she was, he was Mirandized. She he said he wouldn't answer any questions without an attorney present, but he volunteered to take her to the location I'm going with. Yes, it was legal Myrtle, Myrtle nailed it.

So you had multiple courts agree with you because this exact scenario came up and they kept agreeing with you Clint, till we got to the U S Supreme court, us Supreme court in the case of brewer vs Williams said, Nope, that is not legal.

Yep. The analysis there is a is, is kind of what is interrogation. It turns out that it can be more than just questioning a subject. So w what the court said is basically if, if the detective says anything that is designed to elicit an incriminating response on the part of the defendant that is going to be considered interrogation. So yeah, for that reason that's actually not legal, but it's, it's a doozy, as you can tell, it's still good police work. Yeah. So

It was this guy in jail all this time, as it went through every court. And then by the time the Supreme court, how many years did, I mean, that had to take

Years. And actually here's what happened. He, he was, so his conviction was overturned. He was convicted of murder. His conviction was overturned, and he was granted a new trial based on what the Supreme court ruled. So he was retried without that confession. And he was convicted a second time. So he is behind bars.

Okay. Does it gets off like that? That's crazy. No.

Justice was eventually served. It just took two rounds to get it done. Wow.

That's amazing. That's a good one.

That, that was, that was that was another doozy. So were

You, man did well Quinn,

Tell us, please. Before we wrap up our segment, how can people find your work and get to know more about you?

Geez. What do I say? Not liking the braggart. If you have any marketing marketing problems or need website work or anything like that, you can find my company@theexcitegroup.com. That's T H E X, C I T E G R O U p.com. And my podcasts are all over. You can search my name. You can search dance, dad, you can search above the pivot there, they're out there. So, so thanks for having me. This is fun. And,

And I'll tell anyone out there who does need work done on their website with digital marketing. We can tell you from personal experience, we have used Clint in the past. He is outstanding. He is, does an exceptional job, and we highly, highly recommend his work. So if you need that, please look them up. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Take care, buddy. Bye-Bye

Welcome back everyone. And now we're going to go to, we're going to revisit that opening scenario that I threw out there, where you're driving home. You have had one to two drinks. You are not drunk, but yet certainly have the odor of alcohol on your breath. It's late at night. You probably have red eyes because you've been up since five because all of you listeners are hard workers out there and you get stopped, right? And you know, this, this goes for anything. This goes for, you know, the first time I got stopped when I was a teenager, when like my heart was coming out of my chest, when I saw those lights come on behind me. So what do you do in that situation? So Colin, you pull over, you pull over the first safe place, right? You use your signal to turn, to pull over, get completely off the side of the road completely right? In the first safe spot. You put your car in park. You put your hands on the wheel insight. So an officer doesn't think you're reaching for a gun, very important

People that in this day and age, you want your hands visible to the officers. It's it's going to immediately put him at ease. Yes. And frankly, deescalate an already tense situations.

Yes, absolutely. So an officer comes up, you've done all that. Okay. You're sitting there, you have your hands on the wheel. The officer comes up and the officer, you know, you have your window rolled down. The officer says to you actually a really quick aside here, if it, if there is a breeze and you have had one or two drinks don't open both windows. Because if you open both windows, you get cross draft. Wow. And that cross draft we'll send the odor. If the wind's blowing in the right direction, straight to the car.

I mean, listen, meteorologists, Russ Hebets. Is there any way we can get a seven day forecast real quick here? I mean, that is pretty

Technical knowledge right there. All I'm saying is you want to have it matter which direction the wind is blowing. Yes, it does. Thank you for asking. So, so first go outside, throw some grass

In the air, just see which way it blows. Okay. How quickly does it dry? So you've done all

That throw on the grass. You've done the finger test. You know, you only have your

Window down. Officer comes up, officer says to you,

Here's what they always say. Right? Russ. They say, they always ask you this question. Do you know why I pulled you over? Right. That is, that is intentional. They know why they pulled you over. Okay. Okay. Right. They clearly, they they're trying to get you to say it because

Once you say it, you have confessed.

That's right. So, so let's, let's, let's take that through its conclusion. Do you know why I pulled you over? Yeah, I guess I was speeding a little fast back there. Okay. That one statement it's very disarming. It's probably what 95% of people who are stopped for speeding say, right. But what you've just done, like Russ said, you just confessed. The officer can then detain you further because you essentially confirmed his suspicion

And, and the, and the officer can use the, the da in a future. Prosecution can use that statement

In a trial. Absolutely.

He admitted he was going a little

Fast back there. Right? So here is what you say, Russ D in the, in response to the question, do you know why I pulled you over? You say, no, officer, I don't know why you pulled

Them. And that is the truth, because you're not in this officer's head. Even if you know, you were speeding, even if, you know, you just rolled through that stop sign, you don't know if the officer saw you clocked, you knows why you could be pulled over for some completely different reasons. So it's a true answer. I don't know why you pulled me over officer, and that is your answer.

And it preserves so many things for you. I mean, first of all, you haven't confessed to a crime. Okay? You haven't admitted any wrongdoing. You're also holding the police to remember this, the burden of proof in a criminal case, always rests with the state. They have to prove you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. You don't have to help them with that. You don't have to provide them statements to make it easier, but there's nothing in the constitution that says, look, if the police think that you've committed a crime, just roll

Over and confess already.

So Colin, what about, I mean, I'm sure there are people out there who have talked their way out of tickets, right? You, a cop comes up to many of them, right? And the cop comes up and you say, you know, officer I'm really apologetic. I'm sorry. I was, my mind was elsewhere. You know, I've had a ticket before. This is my neighborhood, all of these things. And they, the officer says, you know what, Mr. Mr. McKellen, I, I appreciate your fourth righteousness. And I'm going to give you a warning this time. It happens.

It does. And you know, you might have success there, but in our experience, most of the time, that stuff never works. Right? Most of the time you're dealing, you almost have to assume that you're dealing with the police officer who has basically no discretion. And he, you have to assume that he is going to, you know, essentially use everything you say against you and arrest you and prosecute him, wanting to get you prosecuted. It was kind, kinda

My personal opinion on this. My personal opinion is if it's a minor traffic fence and you don't have anything else to hide. So, like, for example, you don't have a kilo, a blow in the trunk of your car, right? And you don't, you don't have a bad driving record where, you know, another ticket is gonna revoke your license. Maybe in that circumstance, you can try that because your worst case scenario is you're going to get a minor traffic offense, which is going to carry a small, fine, and great, no big deal. You can handle that. Not a big, not an issue. Right. But in the majority cases, like Collin said, you want to preserve your rights, especially if you know, you have your mother-in-law in the trunk, right.

Either way, it's probably cradle. Yeah.

That's a good point. And, and, you know, I also want to remind you for those of you out there who are like, I can talk my way out of anything. Again, you might be able to, you might be one of those silver tongue devils who can just get out of everything. But one of the reasons that we try and talk our way out of a ticket is because we think that if we're nice, if we think, we think that if we're acquiescence and polite to the police officer, they're going to, they're going to let us go, okay? That is not usually the case. And by the way, you can still be polite and respectful to a police officer while confidently asserting your rights. So, you know, none of this says that you have to be confrontational with the cop. You can be as polite as pie, but, you know, let, let's, let's keep going with this Russ when, when they pulled me over and they say, Hey, you know why I pulled you over? You said, no, I don't want no, I pulled you over. And the officer says Hm. You know, I smell alcohol wherever you've been coming from. So

Here's my answer. And if you're not driving, take notes, your answer to that question is officer. I'd rather not discuss my day.

That's correct. That's the perfect way to handle it. It's polite response. It lets the officer know that you're not going to answer those questions. You're not volunteering. Any incriminating information. What do all of us want to do in that situation? Yeah. I was just up the road at my friend's house. We had a couple of beers. I only had two officer. The problem with that, even if it's 100%, honesty is again, you've just given the cop probable cause to arrest you for drinking and driving exactly the minute you say I was drunk, I was driving and I'm coming from a friend's house. After having some alcohol, you've just basically sunk.

Right. And even though it's not illegal to have a beer or two and drive because it's old, remember this people it's only illegal to drive when you're impaired or you're drunk. It's not illegal to drive after you've had a beer or two, if it doesn't impair you, but the officer doesn't care like that fine distinction is lost on. Let's a hundred percent of the

Suicides, you

Know? So they are like Collin said, they, that gives them probable cause to arrest you for the DUI 10 out of 10 cops, 99.5 out of 10 cops will arrest you at that point.

Right? And so, you know, these are ways that you can protect yourself because if you're not volunteering information that they can use against you, this is going to put the police in a difficult position. They're not used to that for one thing, they're, they're used to using their power of intimidation. They're trained on how to use their powerful command presence, to get people, to do things they wouldn't normally do. And when you're facing an officer and they're telling you, look, it's either you're you're getting arrested or you tell me what I want to know. It's really difficult in that situation to, you know, to want to keep your mouth shut. But that's what we're telling you to do. Because at the end of the day, this is the best way you can protect yourself from ongoing criminals.

Right. And, and the key right there is from ongoing criminal charges. Like, like make no mistake. And officer might get and officer might get really out of whack. Like his panties might get in a bunch and you might be getting yourself arrested. Right. Okay. Don't like

It. When they're dealing with people who know their rights, they're used to people just doing what they tell them to do. And then they sometimes don't know how to handle it. Right. When a person protects them,

Oftentimes, I mean like think of this, these, these are cops. These are not, they have not had extensive. They haven't had constitutional law training know admin law school. Right. At most they had like a two weeks in the academy for two weeks in the academy of which like maybe one hour was on like rights that, that motorists have, if that amendment exactly. So, so they may not even know the rights you're asserting, but you know, you are putting yourself in a position where lawyers like Collin, or I can at a later point down the line, get the case thrown out because you asserted those rights. So a cop may get. A cop may say, I'm going to arrest you because I don't like the way you're dealing with me, even though our advice is to be polite. You know, you're putting yourself in a better position. Long-Term rather than sitting there and just waiting those rights and giving them ammo with which to shoot

You. That's right. That's right. So look, there's a lot here. And we actually think we're going to do a two-part episode on this. The next time we join you guys, we're going to talk a lot more about Miranda or we're going to talk about whether or not you can film the police, whether or not they can film you a lot of stuff on interacting the police, but let's, let's face it. I think I think our listeners are looking for a little bit of levity here. What do you think Russ?

I think so too. I think it may be time for

[Inaudible]

That's right. Everybody step on up. We got another fresh, dumb criminal of the week. In fact, I've got to Russ dumb criminals this week two

For the price of one, two for the price of one. And this is, this is a humdinger that's for sure. We're back in the good old us of a where no one does stupid or better than Americans, right?

So the emphasis on the word stupider. So here's the setup. After a night of drinking, I mean,

W what great, what great story. Doesn't start with those fibers. After a night of drinking to Arkansas men decided to test the durability of a volt Bulletproof vest by shooting each other, Rogers, Arkansas residents, Charles Eugene Ferris, and Christopher Hicks ended up in the hospital where they originally told investigators they were shot after they were hired for a secret mission involving following someone at Hobbes state park in Arkansas. But that story was completely debunked by Mr. Ferris's wife, who showed up at the hospital saying that ain't what happened. These two guys were sitting on the porch getting drunk, and they decided to test out Charles's new Bulletproof vest. He straps on the vest. He has Christopher shoot him in the abdomen, which he does. He, he survived, but it really, really hurts. And Mr. Ferris, who didn't like this, put the vest on his buddy, Mr. Hicks, and unloaded an entire clip into the chest of, of Mr. Hicks while he was wearing the vest. Fortunately, no one was killed. In fact, no one was super seriously injured. They did both have to go to the hospital for a few cracked ribs and things

Just cause it'll stop. A bullet does not mean it won't hurt, but then

They were treated from the hospital. Both of them were charged with mirroring charges for felony aggravated assault. I looked it up, Ross. They both ended up pleading guilty. They both ended up getting probation. They could have gone to prison for up to six years for this. So man, what do we think about Mr. Hicks and Mr. Ferris?

I think it's just tremendous. I mean, everything about that. You can

See it all in polling, right? I mean, after a night of drink, right? I mean this, I mean, let's see how this thing works. Just boom.

I want to make sure we actually try it on, let's not put it against a tree

Or something like that. Let's actually put this thing. Let's feel the test. And

I didn't even think of that. I mean, so, so you know where I'm at with it. Like, I, I have done some stupid things when I was drunk. So I can very easily see how this happened. You can sympathize even I, yeah, I can even sympathize. I don't think I would do that when we're talking about a live firearm. So even in my most inebriated state, I feel like I would have realized this was a bad idea. But super entertaining and a good, not even a good, a great story. Great story. Right. So I mean, as far as a knucklehead scale, like this is nowhere near the top for me, like I would say they're certainly knuckleheads because all it takes is like failure to aim correctly and you're dead, right? Like, oh, that was your throat, not your chest. Sorry about that. Now your dad and I'm going to prison for 20 years. So there's, there's definitely a level of knuckle headedness, but I'm going to give them a I'm going to give them a 3.5.

I'm going to hand out a four on this. What's preventing me from the full five is they obviously, I mean the best worked one didn't get through their plan, work to Bedford

Was apparently good enough where, you know, he,

He was able to hit a vest while the person was wearing it. So that says something. So but boy, this is pretty stupid. I mean, drinking, shooting people with firearms, bullet proof or not, I'm going to go for four knuckleheads on these guys.

All right. Can't argue with that. Well, everyone, thank you for joining us for another episode of is this legal, we appreciate your support as always find us on Twitter. Is this legal pod or Hebets McCallin find us on Facebook Hebets, McKellen, let us know what you think. Let us know any topics, any questions. And we will see you next time. Bye-Bye [inaudible].