>> Steve Palmer: All right, here we are.

>> Steve Palmer: Lawyer Talk off The Record, on the air. We are talking about the stuff they don't teach you in Law School. What does that mean? Well, we got two law students here, and we are talking about stuff they don't teach you in Law School. So this is the they don't teach you that in Law School series of Lawyer Talk. You can check it out. And all sorts of other topics@, uh, lawyertalkpodcast.com on the socials, too. See how cool I am saying that?

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: So on the socials, you can check it out. I don't even know how to get you there, but I'll bet you do. Um, and the idea here, just in all seriousness, is to take, uh. Look, I love the Law School education. I had it myself, and I think it applies in lots of places, but not so much in the real world until you get out there and start getting your boots on the ground and learning about how things work. So as Troy, uh, worked for me upstairs, or working for me upstairs, he, uh, would ask questions about stuff that he was learning in Law School and then how that relates to what we're doing up there in our practice. It sort of, uh, that was the seed that turned into this. Uh, and then we've got Bella, who has joined us. Why? Because two is better than one.

>> Bella Mata: Right.

>> Steve Palmer: So Troy and Bella, both law students at Cap University Law School, uh, coming at me with questions now. I only get just a few seconds before we start these things, uh, to prepare. So most of this is off the cuff. Uh, and I think I know where we're going. See, they handed me this. This is a case. So some court of appeals in Ohio has decided a case, and they said, what do you know about Amish? And I said, not much. So hit me with it. Let's see what we got.

>> Troy Henriksen: I like, uh, bringing them in paper, not emailing ahead of Time. I like catching on the fly with them. Um, this one comes out Monroe County. Where's Monroe at?

>> Steve Palmer: Monroe County.

>> Troy Henriksen: Oh, sorry.

>> Steve Palmer: Monroe County, Ohio. What is the County seat of Monroe? I'd have to look it up, but anyway, so Monroe County, Ohio.

>> Troy Henriksen: And they, uh, they have an Amish gentleman. He is driving his buggy with his wife and his three children, and he, uh, does not have any lights on it. Where? I don't know about other places in the country, but I've. I've driven in places where the buggy at night, it scares me. Um, but a car ended up hitting the rear of the buggy with no lights on it in the night, and it ejected all five passengers. So the husband, the wife, and the three children, they were given a ticket for violating the flashing light act, which requires you to have a battery and a light on the back of it. And then there was a criminal complaint filed against them for a child endangerment for all three of their children, him and the wife.

>> Steve Palmer: Gotcha.

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, so how does it go from a ticket to a criminal complaint?

>> Steve Palmer: All right. Well, there's two things going on. One, you have a traffic violation, and the traffic violation is. I guess that's probably under the code section. So it's either under the high revised code or whatever the local code is out there. But in the high revised code, if it starts with a 45, it's in the traffic section. So if you see like DUI is 45111 9. Uh, that's a. That's in the traffic code. Speeding would be 4511 21, I think. And so those are. Those are traffic violations. The Ohio criminal code, it starts with a 29. So if you see a 2907 or a 2901, whatever it is, then, you know, you're dealing with a criminal charge. You can have both coming out of the same incident. That's what's happened here. So they charged. They being the police, charge these poor Amish folks with two different things. One is not, uh, abiding by the traffic laws to have the flashing lights or something, you know, brake lights or flashing lights, whatever it would be. Um, and then as a result of not having that, they put their kids in danger. Because as a result of not having that, uh, now the problem is it is likely that somebody's going to rear end them like happened here and cause harm to the kids. So that's child endangering. It's also an offense in Ohio if you're driving, like, if you two are driving drunk or any. Someone's driving drunk and you got your kids in the car, that's an automatic child endangering charge. Now also. So you have both. So how do you get a criminal complaint? Well, on a misdemeanor criminal complaint, the police just swear that there was a crime and they charged somebody with a misdemeanor child endangering. Um, then that's. I think what happened here. I think it was a misdemeanor.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. And then, um. So they go to trial. Well, they go, sorry. They go to the arraignment, and they can't have an attorney. I don't.

>> Steve Palmer: So what the heck is an Arraignment. Arraignment is the time when the first show up in court where you enter plea of guilty or not guilty. So that's the arraignment. And I imagine you can just picture these poor folks showing up. Uh, they have no idea what's going on with our system. And, uh, they're asked, what do I. They're asked, what do you want to do? I watch this. You can come over to court with me sometime and watch this. You get people who are trying to represent themselves at court, and they are asked questions that they don't know the Answers to, and they're put on the spot. And as a practicing lawyer, I've actually. I've jumped in and helped people on the fly before because I just hate to see it. You, um, can do it, though. I mean, we have a right. We own. So here's the other thing. I tell people we own the courts. So now, look, there's a. There's a decorum in court that we have to respect. But it's our courtroom. We pay for it. It's our tax dollars. The judge sits at our discretion. Theoretically, we vote for the judge. Doesn't mean you can disrespect the judge. But it does mean that we get to ask questions. We get to make sure that our rights are preserved, that we know what we're doing. And in fact, the judge's job, even when they're dealing with a, uh, pro, uh, se, meaning they're representing themselves, Amish folks, the judge has to make sure that these people are acting knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily. I didn't make those words up. Those are constitutional terms. You can't waive constitutional rights unless you know what they are and you understand what they are and you're doing what you're doing, uh, without some sort of coercion. So anyway, they show up in arraignment, and they want to enter a plea.

>> Troy Henriksen: M. Yeah. Um, well, first they said they can't have an attorney, uh, because of their religious belief. Um, that's not all Amish people, I assume, because the judge just said, I've had Amish people in here before, and they've had attorneys. Um, but he said they must have been a different.

>> Steve Palmer: So the Amish people show up and they say, look, it's against our religion to have a lawyer. Now the judge is in a pickle because the judge is thinking, man, it'd be a heck of a lot easier if they had lawyers, because then I could make the lawyer do the job that now I have to do as the judge, which is explain to these people what the heck is going on. But they say we can't get a lawyer, it's against our religion.

>> Troy Henriksen: So then they, uh, plea no contest. And then the judge says he interprets that more as they want to dismiss because they bring up the constitutional issue. They say it's against their religious belief.

>> Steve Palmer: Um, all right, so here we go. There's three different pleas you can typically enter at the arraignment level. One is guilty, one is not guilty, and the other is no contest. Or nolo contendere, I think is what the old term would be that they probably should have taught you in Law School. Meaning, um, no contest. A, uh, not guilty plea means you're telling the prosecutor, you're telling the State, you're telling the city, whoever's bringing the charges, you have to prove me guilty. You're going to have to do more work here than me just saying I did it. You got to bring in evidence and prove me guilty. A guilty plea means you are actually admitting exactly what you're accused of. So if these folks pled guilty, that means I did it. I am not only admitting that I violated law, admitting all the facts that um, created the violation. Now what the heck is a no contest plea? People love no contest pleas because it makes them feel like they're less guilty. Mhm. But they are no less guilty. What happens is, if you plead guilty, the judge doesn't necessarily have to make the additional finding that you are guilty because you've admitted it. If you plead no contest, you're admitting all the underlying facts. So say in a DOI case, no person shall drive under the influence of alcohol. That's not what it says exactly, but you get it. Um, if you go in and say no contest, basically what you're saying is, I drove under the influence of alcohol. Now the judge has to step in and sort of take it home. Say because you've admitted to those facts, that's enough for me to find you guilty of the criminal or traffic violation that they charged you with. So now you've got a, uh, no contest plea to the facts and a finding of guilty. You end up in the same place, you're still guilty and you're still going to be punished or sentenced. However, it doesn't change that, um, there is some little, there's a nuance to a no contest plea in Ohio that says if you plead no contest to something, say a traffic violation, if you, ah, say Bella, you're driving home today and you paying attention or you're reading your, uh, your TikTok videos instead of paying attention to driving, and you run a red light and you get in an accident and the person that you hit breaks his leg, and you're thinking, oh, crap, that sucks. Um, I'm gonna. I'm gonna just. But I don't have a defense because there's 10 people that saw me run the red light. You can plead no contest, and what that does is it. It gives you a little bit of insulation for when you get sued later. So you've got a criminal or a traffic charge, and then you've got a civil case. So criminal civilization, if you plead. No, if you plead guilty over here. Um, we talked about torts in one of the other episodes. A tort would be you're negligent. Um, if you plead guilty, you are basically admitting that you are negligent, and that is gone. You can't challenge that later in a civil case. So plead guilty here at your own peril over here. Now, there is no more argument that you didn't violate or you didn't run the red light and were negligent. It is presumed. And in Ohio, that was, I think, a case called State vs Pond, P O N D. Years ago. But anyway, if you plead no contest and you're found guilty, you can still be. You'll still get fined or whatever the consequences in the criminal traffic case. But over here, you haven't necessarily given up the boat or given up the ship on trying to prove that you didn't run the red light.

>> Troy Henriksen: Let's say Bello pleads not guilty, goes to trial, was found guilty. What happens to the boat over there now? Is she. Is it still, like, kind of protected somewhat? Even though a jury finds guilty?

>> Steve Palmer: It would be really, really. It's not so good, right? You're sort of in the same boat.

>> Troy Henriksen: Is it better than pleading guilty, though?

>> Steve Palmer: No.

>> Troy Henriksen: All right, never mind.

>> Steve Palmer: No. Uh, like, if you can't win, I would much rather have you plead no contest. I don't, do I? Look, I do civil work. I do some civil work. Um, and when I. When I get involved in it and I bring in the other attorneys, I will always say, look, I'm doing the criminal case or the traffic case. You guys do the civil case and we'll work together. And I've asked this question. Would you rather me go to trial and lose, or would you rather me plead no contest? They'll say, take the no contest route, because at least somehow you've preserved it. Now, as a practical matter, in the real world, it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of difference. Because if 10 people saw you run the red light over here, those same 10 people saw it over here. They're going to come in and they're going to be able to prove it. But it may give you. Every now and then, it gives you a little bit of leverage. So that makes Sense. Um, so I forget where we were. So the Amish people go in and they say, we can't get a lawyer. We're just gonna plead no contest. And the judge is thinking, look, you think this is like your. You can almost hear it. They are thinking, that's somehow better because it sounds better.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. And he wants to raise the constitutional issue. He's saying, this is against my religious beliefs.

>> Steve Palmer: All right? So first, if I had a gavel, I'd throw it at you.

>> Troy Henriksen: Okay?

>> Steve Palmer: Because we talk about this upstairs too. You would get it too, if you were there. You start using these pronouns and I don't know who the hell you're talking about. Is he the judge or is he the defendant?

>> Troy Henriksen: The defendant raises the argument that I would like to argue this is unconstitutional due to my religious beliefs. And the judge says, no, you can't raise this.

>> Steve Palmer: But the defendant doesn't really say that. He says, well, it's against my religion.

>> Troy Henriksen: Mhm.

>> Steve Palmer: And they sort of dance around this idea of a religious objection. Or does the Amish guy actually say, I object to this because of my religion?

>> Bella Mata: Yes, I think he did say that.

>> Steve Palmer: He did say that. Okay.

>> Bella Mata: And then I didn't know that, that they couldn't hire attorneys.

>> Steve Palmer: I didn't either.

>> Troy Henriksen: I mean, I didn't know that either. I had no idea until I read this. That's why I like, really started catching my eye. I was like, there's a lot of issues with this case.

>> Steve Palmer: Uh, this is a great case to talk about because we've talked about arraignments, we've talked about pleas. Now we're going to talk about the nuts and bolts, the meat and potatoes of this. We have an Amish dude raising a constitutional objection to Ohio traffic and criminal laws. And I think in another episode was the last, a couple weeks ago, we talked about this idea of judicial review. And you guys were learning about Marbury versus Madison. So back in, you know, was that 1801 or something like that you had.

>> Troy Henriksen: Sounds about right.

>> Steve Palmer: You had Jefferson and Adams. Uh, they were in this fight. It was like the Democratic Republicans versus the Federalists. And, um, Adams lost the election. Jefferson comes in and. And when Adams lost the election. He passed right before he lost something called the Midnight Judges Act. And he basically created the federal judiciary. He created the appellate courts. And among his appointments, he appointed a bunch of justices of the peace. And I think one of them was a guy named Marbury. But his secretary of State, John Marshall, at the Time, um, didn't have Time to get all the. Didn't have time to go serve all the. All the, uh, appointments. And a couple of them got left behind. Marbury was one of them got left behind. In the meantime, Adams appoints John Marshall to be his Supreme Court Chief Justice, a job nobody wanted because the Supreme Court was this. It had no power. Um, so Marshall now gets the appointment as the Supreme Court Chief justice and takes it. Jefferson comes in, Marbury sues Madison, because Madison, on behalf of Jefferson, won't go serve the papers and honor the appointments that. Look, if I hereby appoint you, if it's not served, then it doesn't count. So now it goes to John Marshall, who says, look, I'm not going to go into that nonsense, but the act itself is unconstitutional. So it's stricken. We don't have to deal with it. So with one little strike of the pen, he creates this idea of judicial review. So now all of a sudden, for the first Time since its creation, the Supreme Court has this power that is sort of commensurate with the other two branches of government, whereby if Congress passes a law that's unconstitutional that may violate the Constitution, the U.S. supreme Court, according to John Marshall, in Marbury vs Madison, they get to look at it and say, that's unconstitutional. We're going to strike it down. That was not in the Constitution. Marshall just did it. And, uh, it wasn't that. It was not in the Constitution. It wasn't an express power. So, uh, it was like it just was silent on that. Now, fast forward a couple hundred years to our Amish folks.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah. Um, so he wants to raise it at trial. Sorry. The defendant wants to raise it at the trial. And the judge says, no, you can't do that here. You have to do it on appeal. So you should plead no contest, uh, no contest, no contest. And raise it on appeal. And then he makes a plea deal to bring it down to one. Sorry. The defendant makes a plea deal to bring it down to one count of child endangering, and then also drop the charges on his wife with prejudice. And the, uh, judge agrees to that. And then, uh, the defendant raises this on appeal. And the appellate court was like, no, this is something that should have been raised at trial, not at the court of appeals. This is a constitutional issue.

>> Steve Palmer: Another great. So before we even get to the constitutional issue, we got another great concept we have as lawyers, as litigants. If you're going to challenge the process, you're going to challenge the law, you're going to challenge. If you're going to say. If you're going to object to some bit of evidence or make an argument, you have to do it, um, at the Time. So you have to do it contemporaneously at the Time things are happening. You have to give the trial court the opportunity to fix the problem. And if you don't, you waive it. And in law, we mean wave means you forfeit it, you're done, you're toast. And then it gets really difficult to go back and fix it. As lawyers on appeal. If I don't have a, uh. If I don't have The Record before me where either the litigant or the lawyer on behalf of the litigant has made an objection, made an argument, done something, given the trial court the first opportunity to make a decision on it, then generally you can't raise it on appeal. You lose. You know, it's. It's. It's in federal court, when you get to things like habeas corpus, it's a whole nother discussion. But it's called procedurally defaulted. You can't raise things that you didn't let the trial court raise. And the theory is the trial court's in the best position to fix it. It's like you go to mom first. Mom, he did this to me before you go to dad. Right. So you gotta give your mom a chance to fix it before dad comes in and gives you the heavy. But, uh, that's the idea. So even before the constitutional problem, we've got this issue where because the judge gave this guy, this Amish guy, some advice, you better plead no contest. You can raise that on the court of appeals. The Amish guy didn't raise it. He didn't make the argument, but he sort of did.

>> Troy Henriksen: I mean, he just received bad advice from the judge. And that's what the court of appeal says is like, this was.

>> Steve Palmer: But it was clear from The Record as I skimmed this case. So I haven't read the case, folks, but it's clear from The Record, as I skimmed it, that the Amish guy at least talked about how this violates my religion. Absolutely. Now, in a perfect world, we would have said as lawyers on behalf of our client judge, we hereby move request that you dismiss this case because my client has a religious belief. And as applied to this scenario, the law violates this man's first amendment rights. And under the first amendment, you have a right to, uh, free exercise of your religion. And if you punish somebody for exercising their religion, that violates the first amendment. As this law is written and applied to our client, it's a first amendment violation. Therefore, we request you, judge at the trial court level to dismiss. Then if the judge says, yeah, I hear you, but sorry, Charlie, denied. Now we have a record. Now I can go to the court of appeals, read the transcript and say, all right, court of appeals, we asked the judge, we gave them a chance to fix it, but they screwed up. Now we're raising it here. And what the court of appeals says I believe is that, all right, it's pretty clear from The Record what this guy was trying to do. The Amish guy was trying to object to application of this law to him because of his religion. And the trial court gave the Amish guy a little bit of bad advice. Well, just plead no contest. Well, that was partially true because you can preserve that argument by pleading no contest and then appeal it, but you still have to make the argument. And how did it end? How did the. What did the court of appeals say here?

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, remanded back to the trial court for it. Like, what does it say? Got rid of the sensing and sentence is vacated and the matter is reversed and remanded for further proceedings. So I imagine they're just going back to trial court, where he's going to hopefully receive better advice from the judge. Let me see, first page, paragraph one, last sentence.

>> Steve Palmer: All right, so what they, uh, it sounds like what the court did here is they sent it back to the trial court to have a hearing of sorts on this issue, and then they can make it ripe for review, which is, I mean, there's so much going on here constitutionally. So then I believe what the court is saying. Go back to the trial court, Give this religion, give this Amish guy a chance to make his argument about religion, and then make a decision on that. Once you trial court, make a decision on that, write it out, give us an opinion, say it on The Record, Then we can go back up to the court of appeals and we can evaluate whether that was the right or wrong decision. And assuming if, uh, the case were dismissed against the Amish guys, then, you know, the Amish guy walks away and doesn't appeal, he wins. But the state could appeal, the prosecutor could appeal, and then it would go up to the court of appeals and they would review it, and there'd be something to review. So you are learning probably in constitutional law, this concept that things that are not. There's two different doctrines. One is called ripeness, and the other is called moot. M O O T so what does ripe mean? It means it's ready. Means it is ready for review. So this issue was not quite ripe because it wasn't raised properly at the trial court level. They didn't have everything, uh, ready to go, so they sent it back down. And once it comes back up, it'll be ripe for their review. And they did this Amish guy a favor, probably because the court gave him bad advice. They could have just dismissed the opinion. Um, and the other one is mootness. That means it doesn't matter anymore. So say in the meantime, the case, uh, the prosecutor dismissed the case anyway. And so it comes back down. Court appeal sends it back down. The prosecutor's already dismissed it. Now it doesn't matter anymore. We don't need to do anything. It's moot. Um, there's a classic exception to mootness, which says it is capable of repetition yet evading review. And that would be, I think a case called Singleton vs. Wolf is a good US Supreme Court historical case. But you know where it came up is it also comes out, uh, like Roe v. Wade. So you can say, I have a right to abortion. By the Time in the State says, no, you can't get an abortion, and you appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court. Well, by now the baby's born, and the baby in Roe v. Wade was born. But so in theory, that would render the case mood. Right. It doesn't matter anymore because this woman can't get an abortion. The baby's born, but the court says, no, there's an exception. It is capable of repetition yet evading review. We have to decide this because otherwise we'll never be able to decide. It'll just keep repeating and we'll never be able to review it. So there's like, this little Amish case that you guys brought. I mean, we could talk for hours about this stuff. This is like a whole class. You could talk about Zook State versus Gideon. Zook.

>> Troy Henriksen: Right.

>> Steve Palmer: Gideon. Great job.

>> Bella Mata: How'd you find this?

>> Troy Henriksen: So this is the green Book. This is last week. It's on our blog, too. So anytime there's a reversal, we post on our website. I. So a lot of them are kind of boring. There's usually, like, a lot of like, judge errors and stuff like that on there. But every now and then, like, there'll be, like, a cool one. So, like, this one, like, really caught my eye, and I was, okay. Like, this is pretty awesome.

>> Steve Palmer: So, look, I mean, when I. My first job as a law clerk working in this building up on the second floor, uh, you know, when I just. When I first started, I didn't really have much authority to do anything. They didn't. In that environment, if you didn't know what you were doing, you just got ignored. And my job was to answer the phone, and that was about it. But the green Book you're talking about, these advanced sheets, came out weekly. So they would be the. We, uh, called it the Obar, the Ohio Bar. And it came out of these books, and they would just stack up. And when I was bored waiting on the phone during or do whatever, I started to read them. I started to read appellate cases, all of them. Like, not just the criminal ones, but all of them. I learned so much law doing that. I mean, it is, like, it is priceless. When people ask me, what should I do to get ready for Law School? Um, what should my major be? Or whatever, I was like, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Uh, but why don't you just read the paper every day? That was back in the 90s. Because you learn how to read, and you learn how to process lots of information. Just read a real paper every day. That's hard to do because nobody has papers anymore. But read, uh, a paper every day. Now what do you do? It's the same concept. Read these cases because you learned so much procedure, you learned so much law, good and bad. But you learn how to make arguments in the court of appeals that work, which tells you in turn how to make arguments at the trial court that work. And you learn very quickly when, like Mr. Zuke here, you don't make the argument at the trial court. You're screwed. He got a break. He caught a break. But generally, you're screwed.

>> Troy Henriksen: It organizes it really well in there, too. So there's about probably 35 criminal appeals a week. And on average, I'd probably say about eight are reversed and probably six of those, eight are off. Just errors that the courts paid. Usually it's sentencing. There's usually a lot of errors there. Um, but it's pretty cool. It's awesome to see the stuff immediately as it comes out. I mean, this is last week, which is awesome. So representing yourself, I want to go back to that. I think that's an interesting concept. So a layman person, we obviously don't recommend they represent themselves. They don't know how to answer these questions. Let's say you catch a criminal charge, you decide how to have a little couple of drinks, drive home, get dui. Would you represent yourself being a criminal defense attorney?

>> Steve Palmer: Not in a million years.

>> Troy Henriksen: Why not?

>> Steve Palmer: Um, well, it's like old Honest Abe said, an attorney represents attorney. Who represents him, he represents himself. Has a fool for a lawyer, I think is how he said it. Um, and the reason is you lose perspective. Our job. If I'm representing Bella, I am advocating for Bella, but I'm also keeping Bella in check a little bit. Bella is emotionally and naturally so tied to her own case. She sees only what she sees in front of her. And, you know, we as humans, and maybe this is something that we don't recognize enough in today's day and age, this idea of confirmation bias. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear. And humans abhor. We hate, Hate admitting when we screw up. We hate admitting when we are wrong. And we don't like the exposure of, uh, the things that we did that are stupid. And cross examination is a perfect example of this. And there's a famous guy who teaches cross examination, a guy named Posner, who will say that people will go to their grave protecting their egos, and you have to find out what that is. And you can just ride that horse all the way down. They won't admit something to their own detriment because they don't want to. Their egos need protection. And representing yourself is sort of like that. And you lose perspective. Um, there may be some exceptions, but anything serious. I wouldn't represent myself. I just wouldn't do it. Um, and I haven't. I've been charged with speeding. And I would send my buddies over and say, just get me a deal, would you, please? And then they came back. One guy came back and said, look, they won't dismiss it. They want you to plead guilty to a no point speed. And I was like, f that man. They should dismiss it. And, you know, my buddy had to say, listen, you're screwing up. Take the deal. And I was like, okay. And I was emotionally tied to it. I was like, I deserve. Blah, blah, blah. It's my ego getting in the way. And, uh, that's why you should not represent yourself. And I wouldn't represent myself. Um, and I hate it when I see, even to the point where I'll go do free work for people in court. All the Time they're standing up in a rhema court here in Franklin County, and I see them about to do something stupid. I'll say, judge, give me a second. I want to talk to this guy. He's about to screw up. And, you know, most of the Time, people, the system is thankful for that. And you know, the other thing I get. Here's another good question. It's like when I get somebody under investigation. So Troy is under investigation for rape. Jesus. And say, I hope not. Happens all the Time. Not to you. Uh, but somebody calls me, they're under investigation for rape. And the detective. The detective. Flanagan's, uh, knocking on his door and wants to interview him. And, uh, you call me up and say, look, Flanagan wants to interview me. Uh, what should I do? I was like, tell me I have a lawyer. Well, if I tell him I have a lawyer, won't he think I'm guilty? I'm like, here. He does, first of all, otherwise, he wouldn't be knocking on your door. Secondly, you're about to walk into the lion's den here, and you don't know what you're doing. You're going to walk into a scenario where you're going to start to be put in a spot where you have to tap dance, and you're representing yourself in some form doing that, and you shouldn't. So always get a lawyer and forget about what it looks like.

>> Bella Mata: I feel like representing yourself would be so challenging, but especially for the Amish, I'm just thinking they don't have Internet or anything, so nothing.

>> Steve Palmer: They can't even Google it. Right.

>> Bella Mata: I feel like just the court system is so confusing, especially if you don't have a legal background. So I don't know. Just some of these terms are thrown around.

>> Troy Henriksen: Let's bring it down to the low stakes. Like, you're saying, traffic violation. You, as a tool, Are you representing yourself for a ticket?

>> Bella Mata: Well, I don't know.

>> Troy Henriksen: It's low stakes, though.

>> Bella Mata: Well, I. What do you mean? Like.

>> Troy Henriksen: Like a, uh, speeding ticket, I would.

>> Bella Mata: Just go and pay it. I wouldn't even take the Time.

>> Troy Henriksen: I feel like, okay, where would you draw the line? Like, where is the line where we. You're saying the same.

>> Bella Mata: If I actually had to go to court and defend myself, I wouldn't do it myself. No.

>> Troy Henriksen: Okay. And you're drawing the limit at, like, speeding tickets. Maybe if you were to do it.

>> Steve Palmer: You have to ask yourself, how much does it matter? Um, could you represent yourself on a speeding ticket? There's lots of resources on The Internet, because I see people at court. You can clearly they've armed themselves with all the tropes that they've learned on the Internet about what to say and how the laser wasn't accurate, it wasn't calibrated, and you didn't have jurisdiction, whatever it is. And most of those are nonsense. But every now and then there's some. A lot of that stuff can apply, but doesn't always apply, and most of the Time doesn't. And you see people coming in and trying to do it. I don't have any problem. I sort of like it because it's fun to watch. Um, and the consequences don't really matter, but where the consequences. So what are you going to get? Are you going to get a speeding ticket? All right, like you said, I'll just pay it anyway, so why not go have some fun? Um, and there's some. I don't mind that, but. But if it really matters, like if you want. If you don't want that ticket on your record or you've got too many and you really need it gone, you know, you can go in on your own behalf and beg for mercy and talk to a prosecutor and, you know, say, hey, look, this is. Give somebody your sob story and maybe they'll give you a break. But, you know, generally speaking, it's better to have a lawyer. So I guess it all depends is like so many answers we give here. It's like, where do I draw the line? Well, it all depends on how important it is to you. So if you're just going to have some fun, go have some fun.

>> Troy Henriksen: I feel like a dangerous place to represent yourself. Uh, we saw it when we were in the courthouse. Was the, uh, domestic division like anything like divorce? I feel like that would be like a dangerous place to represent yourself.

>> Steve Palmer: You know what, though? You see, it's. People end up making some bad decisions and getting some bad outcomes. Um, on the other hand, in domestic court, sort of like the people's court or like Judge Ah, Judy or these things, a lot of times, or small claims court, a lot of times the judges are ready for that and they go overboard to help get these people, make sure these people don't do something stupid. But, you know, a lot of counties, you know, you'll walk in, they're like, you want to represent yourself, do it at your own peril. I ain't going to help you. And people do dumb stuff. Other judges would be far more forgiving and say, listen, you may want to rethink what you're doing here. And that happens a lot in our Frank County Municipal Court. And that's when I will step in. I've actually had judges like sort of look at me in the back like, do you mind coming and just give this guy a little. Or they'll just say it. Hey, Steve, can you talk to him real quick? I'd appreciate it as a friend of the court, give this guy a little advice. Because the judges can't give the guy advice. Um, but they also don't want, like in this case, this judge meddled just enough to screw it up. Right. It wouldn't better if another lawyer in the courtroom came forward and said, judge, look, as a friend of the court, let me just make the argument that he's trying to. That this litigant is trying to make. And, uh, that way it'll be clear. So I, you know, I. Some, some situations, the judges will help. Again, you're always better off. Now, divorce lawyers, they're expensive though. So what do you do? You know, some people just.

>> Troy Henriksen: You can't get a court appointed divorce lawyer. Right.

>> Steve Palmer: There are clinics. Capital probably has a clinic. I think Capital University has a clinic that'll come represent some people maybe in divorce, domestic relations, civil protection orders, those kind of things.

>> Troy Henriksen: I think the main focus is like, uh, I saw it on the schedule. I really want to take it. You can only take it as a three. So you can actually have three L's come help you. I think the main one, it was like evictions. Yeah. Uh, some minor traffic, like there's no felonies. And I don't think I saw divorce on there, but that'd be like kind of nerve wracking. I feel like, to have.

>> Steve Palmer: I think there's civil protection orders. So when, when there are, uh, say you get an abused individual and they need. This individual needs protection from the abuser or you know, this. Have an anti stalking protection order. I think there are clinics out there that'll come to the rescue for that. Just for the cause. So. All right, well, I think we beat that horse. No pun intended.

>> Troy Henriksen: Um, it's a shame Zook won't be able to listen to this same. I know we should zoom.

>> Steve Palmer: I'm sorry.

>> Troy Henriksen: Yeah.

>> Steve Palmer: But everybody else can Lawyer Talk. You can listen to this and all the other back episodes we are taking on Law School questions. Why? Because they didn't teach any of this in Law School, did they?

>> Bella Mata: Definitely not.

>> Steve Palmer: I mean, what a great. Like you should take this in. You should take this into your like constitutional law teacher or maybe your criminal procedure teacher and say, here's your outline for the course.

>> Troy Henriksen: There's a lot of issues in here.

>> Steve Palmer: It's crazy. I could talk about this, each one of these topics for, uh, forever. So anyway, lots of good stuff happening. Great case Lawyer Talk, podcast.com. off The Record, on the air. They don't teach you that in Law School, at least until now.