Legal Advice

Besides the usual aid in letting those who need it have a place to stay, there’s all the little “extra” and miscellaneous duties that come with being a program supervisor at a sober living home.

Among these being “legal advice”.  Not just for guests, but for those who well familiar with my previously checkered past, and long experience in dealing with aiding others who run afoul of the law, know to call me.

My first advice, ever and always, is “Always​ ​shut​ ​up.​ ​​ ​Always get​ ​a​ ​lawyer.​ ​​ ​Always​ ​then​ ​do​ ​what​ ​the​ ​lawyer​ ​says.”

And when it comes to purely “legal advice”, that is not only the first piece of advice I give, but the last.  

The rest of it is not really "legal advice", but mainly explaining the process that they can expect, and what is likely to happen, and what they should shoot for.  As opposed to what they think will happen or what they think they should do.

Random Example:

Katie called out to me tonight, I was in the other room playing on facebook.  “My net friend Jane’s son was arrested!”  (Not her real name)

Me:  Was it the meth?  (I was familiar with her wayward son’s trials and tribulations.  A 30 year old ne’er do well with some prior prison time already under his belt.)

Katie:  First it was failure to appear, then meth later. There’s a dozen or so more charges now, she doesn’t know why.

Me:  Prosecutorial overkill.  Throw on everything, see what sticks, “give in” on half of them, and still plea out the other half.  

Katie:  They had a chance to arrest him at a traffic stop, but let him go, then a few hours later they surrounded the house he was at and arrested him there.  She doesn’t know why.

Me:  Because if they had arrested him for "failure to appear" at the traffic stop, they’d have needed a search warrant to look in the house.  But busting him there means they get to do a “search incidental to the arrest” and they don’t need to bother a judge for a warrant for that.

Katie:  How does she get him out?

Me:  She shows up at arraignment tomorrow.  They’ll assign a bail amount, and she can post 10% of that.  She should know that nowadays they rarely give the whole amount back.  They’ll seize part of it for fees, penalties, court costs, jail costs and such.

Katie types some more, as she is typing each of these things I’m saying and messaging them to her net buddy.

Katie:  She says that he was arrested on Saturday.

Me:  Well, she already missed the arraignment then, they always do it within a day, two days if it’s the weekend.  He’d have likely been arraigned on Monday, and so now all she needs to do is call the jail and ask what the bail is.  They have to tell her, and then she can come up with the 10%.

Five minutes pass.

Katie:  $10,000.  No, wait, $100,000.  

Me:  Then they really want to keep him there, or they’d have set it at $5,000 to $10,000.  She’ll have to mortgage the house, or get a loan off of a car or other assets, or if her credit’s good enough, a signature loan.

Katie:  She can’t do any of those things.

Me:  Then it’s time to hire a lawyer, if he’s left with the Public Defender he has no hope at all.

The best public defender ever.  And he lost.  Yeah, really.

Katie:  How does she find a good one?

Me:  That’s a tough one.  Poor ones can work harder, and rich ones can ignore you, or the rich have connections and the poor ones are dumb.  You never really know unless you know someone who had a good lawyer get him a good deal before.  

As a general rule, you don’t want a very large firm with a full color glossy ad where her kid will be one out of five hundred cases.  But you don’t want some newbie just out of law school who the DA will run rings around.  Best to find some three person firm of forty somethings specializing in criminal law, and the amount they charge should be affordable, but hurt a bit all the same.

Katie:  What do you mean hurt?  

Me:  Well, unless she’s a lot richer than us, she wants to pay enough that it will hurt her budget quite a bit.  Bargain basement prices get you - generally - a bargain basement defense.  She should be thinking around $1,500 to $3,000, and $3,000 would be better.

Katie:  To get him off?

At that point I leave off my facebook playing and go in to speak to her immediately.

Me:  No, no, no!  Meth, failure to appear, burglary, some of these are felony charges, not to mention the miscellaneous mopery and dopery.  Taking those to trial would cost around $10,000 to $15,000 and she does NOT want to do that!  Never minding the massive expense, she needs to understand very clearly that her son would lose anyway.

Katie:  Why?

Me:  Because from what you’ve told me, he is, in fact, guilty, and our system, with all it’s flaws, is more than capable of establishing the guilt of a meth addict.  They convict a dozen innocent folks a day, imagine how much easier that is when they’re really guilty!  

He needs to place his fate in the hands of his mom who loves him and a private attorney qualified to represent him.  If he tries to Matlock this at a jury trial, he’ll never see the light of day again.

Katie:  Why a lawyer at all then?

Me:  His lawyer will have one job and one job only.  To get him the best plea deal possible.  If his name were Leroy Minority, he’d get the lousiest plea deal and do the most time.  If his name was Trent Cavendish Merryweather IV, he’d get the best plea deal and likely do no time at all.  

As it is, he’s in the vast middle area, and there’s a lot of room for maneuvering there.  His lawyer will then use all his skills to get him the best deal possible, where he’ll do less time than he deserves, but more than he wants.  Which is a given, because no one wants to do any time.  But if he gets under five, he should feel that it’s a success.  If he gets a year, then wow, he found one heckuva lawyer.  

In any case, he’ll only do 50% to 80% of the time, depending on the state and their rules of how much time off you can have for good behavior.

Katie:  His mom thinks he’ll want a trial.

Me:  Trials are for the stubbornly and stupidly innocent.  And lawyers hate representing the innocent, because they should avoid trials too, but rarely will.  They insist on their day in court, sure that if they only tell their side, they’ll be set free by an intelligent jury and fair minded judge.  Two things that you may bank on being absent in the system.  

The reality then is that they’ll go down any way and get more time than they would have.

With guilty clients it’s easier, as their lawyer can just tell them, “Hey, you did it, so knock it off.  I’m just here to get you the least time for the dumb stuff you know you did.”  And when they’re guilty, they’ll usually understand that eventually and go along with it.

Katie:  What if he insists?

Me:  It’s a movie myth that lawyers have to lie for their clients.  The lawyer is allowed to say, “I’m not going to lie for you or let you perjure yourself.  You take the best plea I can get you, or get another attorney.  And since I don’t give refunds, that will be the Public Defender.”

The threat of the Public Defender will scare him straight!

The point his mom and attorney must convey to him is that while he’s going to want to blame his friends, or the girl with him, or the police, or this, that or the other, that it won’t matter.  He is actually guilty, everyone knows it, and trying to get off scot free is only going to hurt him.  

You find the best lawyer you can, let him make the best deal he can, and do the time as best you can.  It’s not glamorous, it’s not like the movies, but it’s the safest and sanest way to go.

Katie:  His mom says he didn’t do the burglary, the guys who live there don’t want to admit it’s their meth.  

Me:  And they’re unlikely to change their story, so that’s that.  The penalty for hanging out with addicts is that they are sometimes - heh, heh - less than honest! This should be a lesson to him. Sadly, it probably won't be.

Katie:  What should he do while his mom gets him a lawyer?  His mom says he has a big mouth.

Me:  He needs to get some duct tape.  There is nothing he can say to aid his case, except to be a model inmate at the local jail and say “Yes, sir” in his daily life there.  He can put his mom’s name on the visiting list, attend the jail house AA meetings, and any little Christian prayer group that will inevitably exist there.  He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t shave his head or tatt up, and he doesn’t join any gang “for protection”.  It’s jail, not prison.

Past that, he tells his attorney everything, listens to everything his attorney says, does that exactly, and accepts whatever plea his attorney gets him.  A truly penitent allocution won’t get him a lesser sentence than the plea deal, but it may help in which facility the judge recommends to the DOC that he serve in.

Katie:  Nothing else?  

Me:  Nothing.  And especially he should say nothing to any cell mate or anyone else.  Not a one in there wouldn’t snitch to shave a month off their likely sentence or get a charge reduced or dismissed.

Now.

That basically concluded the conversation.  I would only add that the movies and TV shows are truly harmful.  Generally speaking, you are not going to “beat the rap” by getting the cop or the county on some fine point of Constitutional law.  Or a “technicality” whatever you imagine that to be.  Or an insanity defense.  Or a surprise last minute witness.  Or by “putting the system on trial!”  Or by having Henry Fonda hang a jury.  Or by Clarence Darrow giving a nine hour summation that brings the jury to tears and has the Judge apologizing to you.  Or by having Jack Nicholson scream about how poorly he feels you can handle the truth.

And in such rare cases as you might, well, the attorney you got, that’s his job to know, so if he’s not mentioning it, then yeah, it is unlikely to exist.

Also, the above should not be took to mean that you automatically cave.  It's just a random example.

If it’s truly a bad bust, something like “sassing a cop in the third degree” or “driving while black” or “wrong time, wrong place” then you might wish to fight.  That will be between you and your attorney, and will be based far more on what you can afford then any fine issue of moral/legal right and wrong.

And of course, none of the above advice changes the fact that you NEVER make it easy for the cops and DA by talking, answering questions or making a statement.  Even if you’re innocent.

Especially if you’re innocent.

Always shut up.  Always get a lawyer.  Always then do what the lawyer says.

(I told you that was not only my first, but last advice!)