Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Lawyer talk off the record, on the air. We're taking Q and A. In other words, you're just shooting questions at me. I'm giving you the answer most of the time without any work research. This is like off the cuff stuff. And these are coming, folks from not only the website loriertalkpodcast.com but also comments on the TikTok.

Troy Hendrickson [00:00:18]:

Yep. And YouTube.

Steve Palmer [00:00:19]:

And YouTube. Facebook.

Troy Hendrickson [00:00:21]:

Facebook. Yep. And Instagram.

Steve Palmer [00:00:22]:

We are listening. We are reading your questions and comments. We love it. What do you got?

Troy Hendrickson [00:00:27]:

This is from just a viewer 111. But would the police have to reveal their reasonable suspicion? If the citizen ask why the police wants a cid? What if you closely match the description of someone fleeing a crime? That snare would make for a reasonable suspicion. But you might not. You might know absolutely nothing about it and it's just a coincidence. How does it work in those scenarios?

Steve Palmer [00:00:50]:

All right, so I believe this is a comment or question on our. We did a video on the stop and identify statute. Stop and id. Statute, statutes. And generally speaking, we reviewed some of the Supreme Court case law that says you got to have some reasonable suspicion, meaning under Terry vs Ohio, Ohio makes it big. Again, you have to have reasonable and articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.

Troy Hendrickson [00:01:12]:

Yep.

Steve Palmer [00:01:12]:

Or something like that. Whatever that means. I'll let you guys decide. But it means they have to have a good, some sort of reason to stop an id. Now the question here is, I think, do the police have to tell you what their suspicion is when they approach you? Take a scenario. What's come up with a scenario?

Troy Hendrickson [00:01:32]:

I'm walking down the street, cop stops me, he's like, hey, I need to see your id. And I'm like, no. He's like, I have reasonable suspicion. And in my head, how I would do it naturally on the street would be like, what's your reasonable suspicion? I know that's not how conversations usually go, but that, that's how I would view it.

Steve Palmer [00:01:51]:

What's your reasonable suspicion? Now let's say the cop says I don't have to tell you.

Troy Hendrickson [00:01:55]:

Yeah, now what?

Steve Palmer [00:01:57]:

Now you become the product of a YouTube video. Because I see these all the time. Like it's, I'm a sovereign citizen. It's really easy to go down this rabbit hole. And I joke about it, but it's a problem because what happens is I think there's this notion out there and look, people should know. You should know your rights and you should know what your response, what the police can and can't do. And a Good friend of mine once said, criminal procedure in law school is. That's really just a whole class on what the SOBs can't do to you.

Steve Palmer [00:02:29]:

Right. So fair enough. And I like the police. I have lots of good friends who are cops. I have lots of respect for what they do. But you should understand what they can do and what they can't do. But what it leads to is really bad stuff. If the police are violating your rights, I can help you once we get into a courtroom, and we're gonna get to a commenter later, but once we get into a court, I can help you.

Steve Palmer [00:02:54]:

I can redress that. In a courtroom, I can't help you on the side of the road, on the sidewalk when things go really bad. The police have the guns. They have the badges. They got the numbers. You're not gonna win that confrontation. And I'm not saying the police are right, but you're not gonna win it. Now back to the question.

Steve Palmer [00:03:14]:

Do they have to tell you what reasonable suspicion is or what they're basing their stop on? No. No. Now, should they? I think they should. Yeah. But you can come up. Let's sort of chop this up both ways. On the one hand, if Troy, you're a reasonable guy, and the police say, well, look, Mr. Troy, I just watched you in that parking lot over there about 10 minutes ago, you had a guy come to your window, he gave you a package, and you gave him some money.

Steve Palmer [00:03:48]:

I think that is suspicious. That to me, looks like a dope deal.

Troy Hendrickson [00:03:54]:

Okay?

Steve Palmer [00:03:55]:

And you say, okay, and you comply and you stay there. Now, if the cops tell you that and you say, well, that's a bunch of hooey. I didn't do any of that. You got the wrong guy. You know, Na, na, na, na, na. You can't do this to me. This is unfair. You're not allowed to touch me.

Steve Palmer [00:04:12]:

You're not allowed to. I saw that one the other day. It's like, you're not allowed to touch me. You can't do this. You can't do. It was a car stop. And I think we did a episode recently on Pennsylvania vs Mims, and the person didn't think they had to get out of the car. It's like, well, look, you sort of do.

Steve Palmer [00:04:25]:

And if you don't, they're going to get you out of the car. So if you start. If you take this as a means to start debating with the police, it almost always goes bad. Yeah. So on the one hand, you would say, well, look, it's fair to Troy to tell him why they're stopping him. On the other hand, it does open a little bit of an argumental or a platform to argue about it. And the police don't want that. Now, you could say that they.

Steve Palmer [00:04:52]:

They don't want it because they don't want to be called. I not taking any issue with that. You may be right, but it often leads to these long debates on that. You see on body cam where people are going back and forth and you see like the headlines like Karen arrested after won't comply with a spoiled brat, won't comply with plea. It's that kind of stuff. And it's almost always better just to comply. Now if I. If you have committed a crime and you are, it is true that you did take a package and you did give money and it turns out it was dope.

Steve Palmer [00:05:24]:

I don't want you making any statements on the side of the road. I don't want you talking to the police. I would much prefer you just comply. Give me your id. And if they put you in handcuffs and take you downtown, call me when you can, then I can help you. I can help you against that. But if you argue with them, it'll turn physical. And it turns physical and you end up in the dirt with a boot on your neck.

Steve Palmer [00:05:45]:

I can't help you right then. Now, this is not to give police a pass for misconduct. I'm not doing that. I'm just trying to make things go smoother. Now, look, if there is no reasonable suspicion and the police stopped you and did something they're not supposed to do, what do I do? You've been around long enough. What do you do if somebody stops.

Troy Hendrickson [00:06:06]:

Me without reasonable suspicion, then you just raise a suppression issue in the courts.

Steve Palmer [00:06:09]:

Yeah, so say they charge you. It turns out they were right, that you did have a little bit of dope in your pocket. They pat you down.

Troy Hendrickson [00:06:16]:

College student. I'm trying to make a living. All right, come on.

Steve Palmer [00:06:20]:

They take you down, they charge you with drug possession, and now you call me and it's ring a ring a Ling Palmer legal defense. Can you help? Yeah, I can help you. One of the first things I look at is whether the search and seizure was lawful. Did it violate the fourth amendment or did the police do it correctly? If they did not do it correctly, we file a motion to suppress or throw out the evidence. And that's our first line of attack on the defense. Now, if you have fought the cops, if you didn't obey lawful police orders and it turned physical, now you're Also going to be charged with assault on a peace officer, obstruction of justice. And again, I'm not saying all this is right and it should be the case. I don't live in a should be world.

Steve Palmer [00:07:00]:

I live in the real world. And I see this stuff go down all the time. It's almost always better if you just comply. Call me and then I can help or get a public look. People say, well, you know, we can't afford. I get it. But there's public defenders and there's lots of good ones. They can help too.

Steve Palmer [00:07:16]:

They know this stuff as well as I do. So look, don't fight with the cops. They got all the authority. You're not going to win that fight. They'll just bring more. It'll get really ugly. So. Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:07:28]:

Do they have to tell you?

Troy Hendrickson [00:07:29]:

No.

Steve Palmer [00:07:30]:

Should they tell you? Maybe. And that may depend on how you, you know, the police are human too, folks. It may, you know, how they, how they interact with you may be a reaction to how you interact with them and vice versa.

Troy Hendrickson [00:07:45]:

Yeah. So look, in my head though, I just feel like you, I understand you saying, wait till the courts raise a suppression issue there. Why can I not just on the street there, at least raise it to the cop. Hey, I'm raising the issue like, what is the reasonable suspicion? I want to know. I view it as like procedural default. Here's step one. Before we even got to the courts.

Steve Palmer [00:08:06]:

I tried to challenge it, your honor.

Troy Hendrickson [00:08:08]:

I raised expression issue on the street right there. I was confused.

Steve Palmer [00:08:12]:

Well, there is no your honor on the street. There's no judge, and you're dealing with the police. And look, if you start, go down this rabbit hole for a second, you didn't have reasonable suspicion. I wasn't like, what are you doing now? You're making statements.

Troy Hendrickson [00:08:28]:

Yeah.

Steve Palmer [00:08:29]:

Now if you truly weren't doing anything and you're protesting, you're shouting out your innocence, you know, I get it, but I'd just as soon have you not say anything. Look, don't talk to the police. Did I say that? Don't talk to the cops. Don't talk to the police. Call me first or call a lawyer first. There's a reason we tell people that.

Troy Hendrickson [00:08:51]:

You said there's no your honor on the streets. I was just thinking that should be a great bit word. Judges drive around while, like pull people that are pulled over and like, hey, let's just, let's just hash us out on the street.

Steve Palmer [00:08:59]:

Right. Let's take care of this right now. People's court. Yeah, we'll do. We'll do the lawyer talk podcast court. You want me to solve that, too? Yeah. Anyway, so you get it. There's a reason why, first of all, you don't need to do that in order to protect your ability to challenge the case later.

Steve Palmer [00:09:14]:

And secondly, it's almost always going to go bad. Because I want to be the one arguing your Fourth Amendment rights, not you. Because he represents himself as a fool for a lawyer. You heard it here first. Or wait a minute, you didn't hear it here first. I think Abe Lincoln said it, but. Or at least he's attributed. Anyway, LawyerTalk podcast, off the record, on the air, Q and A style.

Steve Palmer [00:09:31]:

If you got your own question, shoot it to us in the comments. Go to lawyertalkpodcast.com, shoot it to us there. We'll cover it right here.