It Could Happen Here - Redistributing Power in the Attorney Client Relationship

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

James talks to Mo about how clients can better direct their legal defense to align with their personal and movement  goals.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or whenever you get your podcasts. We'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hello, podcast enjoyers. It's me, James, today, and I am joined again by Mo. They are an educator, attorney, abolitionist, and they serve overlapping communities of activists, queer people, and prisoners. And we've heard from them before. We heard from them about June 11th. But today we're talking about something a little different. We're talking about redistributing power in the attorney client relationship. How are you, Mo?

I'm doing okay. How are you, James? I'm existing. I'm fine. I'm thriving. So yeah, you wanted wanted to talk today you reached out to talk about this i think it's a really interesting topic and it's one that like i've become increasingly more aware of in my coverage of some sort of uh different stuff that's various prosecutions i guess in the u.s and so i was very interested in this. Can you perhaps start out by explaining what it is exactly that you wanted to discuss within the attorney-client relationship? Yeah, sure. I wanted to talk about building a trusting relationship with your attorney where you feel heard and respected and understand what you have a right to expect from your attorney and feel empowered to push for it. And this actually, I want to address this both from the

side of the client, particularly for people who are accused of criminal offenses. And I also want to speak a little bit to the people who may be representing folks who are accused of criminal offenses. And I also want to speak a little bit to the people who may be representing folks who are accused of criminal offenses. For people accused of criminal offenses, I want to make sure that anyone in that position really understands what you have a right to expect from that relationship and to feel really confident asking for it. For people who are representing individuals who are politically radical or people who are facing politically motivated prosecutions, I want those attorneys to feel safe and ethically empowered to practice criminal defense in a way that honors the goals of clients who may define their legal interests, not with respect to only their own personal liability,

but with respect to a larger set of principles or a larger community. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's a very, it's a good distinction to draw. And I think like a good thing for people to be thinking about. So why is this sort of a topic that's important right now? Well, so I certainly don't want to say that participating

in protests or in social movements is dangerous or that it's even more dangerous than it has been in the past. But I am concerned that we might be seeing some arrests and charges that are a little more unhinged than we've seen in a while. So this isn't new, but it may be new to a newer generation of activists. And I think some of the community knowledge that was cultivated and held 20 or 30 years ago may be outdated or it might be inaccessible to folks who weren't involved back then, or maybe who weren't involved in things that were like subject to this level of state repression 20 or 30 years ago. So that includes activists, but it also includes even very experienced criminal defense attorneys who maybe haven't interacted with these kinds of prosecutions, you know, for whatever reason, because they were doing a different area of practice. Maybe because this wasn't happening to the people they were representing in the geographic area where they practice or like it wasn't happening at the time that they were practicing. So I think that people on both sides of the attorney-client relationship could benefit from considering that there are some maybe important and time-tested methods of working to mount a collaborative defense in the context of a politically motivated prosecution.

Yeah, I think that's just to kind of piggyback off what you said. I think it's incredibly valuable. Often, like if you've been part of social movements, protest movements, whatever you want to call it, like for a long time, often we do have to learn things like the institutional memory of movements can be quite short and a lot of people have come to the protest movement now who were not uh like in my own case like involved in sort of the uh the the campaign against neoliberal globalization in the early 2000s right where we we screwed up a lot and learned a lot and and some of us are still around and and some of us are not sadly because in part of this of the screw-ups that happened and like um a lot of people understandably right have been radicalized by having their bodily autonomy attacked by

seeing the cops continue to murder people after we all got in the streets and got shot with rubber bullets to ask them to stop murdering people. All these things that have understandably made people realise that the institutions haven't really responded to their demands for basic human decency. And so, yeah, they might find themselves out in the streets and government doesn't generally yield power willingly. And certainly government right now is doing everything to kind of take what little liberty and autonomy folks have

and slice into that. So it's very reasonable to consider these things. So if in this attorney-client relationship, what would be some areas of friction or of, maybe I'm phrasing that wrong but like places where people might want to advocate for themselves in order to get an outcome that they desire right well so i'll certainly get more into the specifics but i i guess you, I want to talk about this because I am seeing disconnects between people in these relationships. And just from where I sit, I feel like I can see what's going wrong. And I think

that there are some straightforward solutions. And I think that having compassion, each party having compassion for the other can be really useful here. So I think like one thing that's happening is that attorneys are very much educated to be confident until the point of arrogance. And clients often either don't feel authorized to push back on their attorney's ideas, or they do and attorneys then just maybe steamroll them. And this is not entirely because attorneys are assholes. I think it is because criminal defense attorneys are very often taught to minimize their clients legal liability by any means necessary. Well, by any lawful means, I guess is what I should say. So for criminal defense attorneys who do not primarily work with movement-aligned

clients, this often means negotiating deals with the prosecution that involve cooperating with the state's investigation, handing over information on your conf Confederates, putting the client in an isolated or adversarial position with their co-defendants or co-arrestees, or doing things that require a person to renounce or disparage the people or the communities that they've been involved with, that they come from. And I think it's true that using these kinds of tactics to minimize your own legal risk is very often what people charged with criminal offenses want. But that sort of approach is often at odds with movement values. And it's often totally inconsistent with what activists want when they are facing charges.

So, you know, trying to minimize legal consequences is, you know, certainly always a part of our job. valid thing for lawyers to be doing. But the idea that an attorney's job is solely to mitigate legal fallout is not actually entirely accurate. What lawyers are supposed to do is work with the client to help the client articulate their goals. And then the attorney should use their expertise and their experience to help the client lawfully pursue those goals. And that's what attorneys are supposed to do in every case, but I think it often becomes most salient when the client's goals are less focused on minimizing legal consequences and more focused on, for example, highlighting movement messages or acting in solidarity with other people who are facing similar charges. So, you know, again, I'm talking about this right now in the context of explicitly politically motivated prosecution.

But frankly, the goals of the client have to lead in all cases. Yeah, of course. cases. Yeah, of course. So one thing that we chatted about a little bit that I think maybe folks in some areas that I've looked at might not have been aware of is the concept of a joint defense. Could you explain for people who aren't familiar what that looks like? So a joint defense is a way of approaching a legal case where there are multiple defendants or multiple arrestees. Typically, in a criminal case, if you have multiple defendants, there's sort of a presumption that their interests are at odds with each other. That, you know, one of them or one or more of them is going to get thrown under the bus to reduce the punishment of one or more of the others. Yeah.

When we're talking about something like a mass arrest or an arrest that takes place in the context of a social movement where there are multiple defendants, very often those people do not see their interests as being at odds with each other. Very often they see their interests as being unified. And so they want to act in solidarity with each other. And there are a bunch of reasons for this that are legal, and there are also political and social reasons, right? Just in terms of people, you know, having caring social relationships, they often have commitments to each other and to community. But politically, people often feel that their individual legal interests are less the important thing that's at stake, and that the thing that's at stake is actually the health and welfare of their social movement, right? And that if they did do something like cooperate with the state's investigation, they would actually be undermining

their larger social movement goals. Legally, and this is really important, legally, having a joint defense agreement or using a joint defense approach allows all of those people to work together in a privileged context, right? Because they share a unity of interest. And so they and their attorneys are able to work on legal strategy together, are able to do things like negotiate for non-cooperating plea agreements as a block, are able to just have more eyes on the problem, more people doing legal research, more people drafting motions, right? And so, in a very material sense, this is often a legal strategy, working together, actually leads to better legal outcomes for everybody involved.

So I want to be clear that this approach, both, you know, using joint defense agreements and using that approach, but also just in terms of an individual attorney-client relationship, acting in a way that's more collaborative is not just cosmetic. And it's not just something that makes you feel good if you're someone who's committed to anti-authoritarian principles. In a material way, approaching the attorney-client relationship in a way that is calculated to more fully incorporate the goals and expertise of the client or of many clients leads to better legal outcomes, less punitive outcomes. It leads to outcomes that are more closely aligned with client values, and it leads to outcomes that are better understood

by the client, even if those outcomes are bad right yeah yeah at least they're part of that process i think a great example of a joint defense that we discussed would be the the j20 case right which was um if i'm not uh mistaken it was a group of folks who were uh tried together tried together or who, who amounted to joint defense, I guess, against charges that, uh, were like filed against him. I think that was at Trump's inauguration. It was something. They were kettled in DC, uh, protesting Trump's inauguration. And there were more than 200 people arrested in a, in this mass arrest.

And they had a very coordinated defense and they all worked together. And ultimately, I'm going to say in large part, because they had so many eyes on the problem, they had so many people working on it, they were able to really go through discovery, so many people working on it, they were able to really go through discovery, go through the state's evidence against them and find prosecutorial misconduct that led to the favorable resolution of those cases. The other thing that they did is that they really all refused to cooperate with the state's investigation, which limited the harm that was done to larger social movements, because it meant that people were not just rolling over on each other and giving the state information to which it was not entitled, right? Like, you know, information about people's relationships or interpersonal conflicts or, you know, different kinds of First Amendment protected information that the state always wants to have about activists, but which they actually are not entitled to.

But which they often end up getting because people who are facing criminal charges, you know, sometimes will offer that up in exchange techniques, like you say, they're not just cosmetic. It's not posturing or an aesthetic thing. It can result in material benefits as well as aligning with your moral desires. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. The podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, películas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you.

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you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturno, Tales from the from the shadows presented by iheart and sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of latin america from ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows

as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show.

I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Can you explain substantively then how this looks in an attorney-client relationship, either with an individual or as a group mounting a joint defense?

So, you know, like any other relationship that's predicated on anti-authoritarian principles and shared values of mutual aid and self-determination. It requires building trust. It requires clear expectations, honest communication, respect for each other's expertise and consent. And I think, you know, the piece that I think is sometimes missing is a real understanding from both parties that the accused is the person who has rights and liberty on the line. The accused is the person whose goals matter. The accused is the person who needs to be able to make decisions about things like whether or not to accept a plea offer, whether or not to cooperate with the state, whether or not to go to trial,

and whether or not to testify at trial. The attorney is presumably the person who has a lot of expertise with the law and a lot of experience with the legal system, and that is valuable and important. But, you know, it really, I want people who are facing criminal charges to understand how much power they ought to feel comfortable exercising in this relationship. You know, it is up to the accused whether they want their attorney to take part in a joint defense strategy. Now, we are seeing some stuff. I have recently seen some bond conditions imposed on people facing criminal charges that appear to me to

make it very difficult for attorneys to engage in a joint defense strategy because sometimes it looks like these co-defendants are being forbidden from communicating with each other. And so, you know, that is an interesting interesting wrinkle but one of the things it can mean is that it's up to the accused whether they need their attorney to go and argue to have that bond condition removed right yeah i hadn't thought of that but there are definitely cases especially if you are being prosecuted in a group or it's alleged that you've conspired to do something illegal then it yes that might be a condition of your bond and that you've conspired to do something illegal then yes that might be a condition of your bond and that would make it very hard to to do a joint defense but like you said

that's when you you should feel empowered to ask your attorney to stop that from being a thing right right the person who's facing charges gets to make these decisions right and i'm saying well it's your right to decide whether to be involved in a joint defense. It's also your right to decide not to be. You can absolutely exercise your right to independent counsel, meaning the right to have an attorney who is not representing anyone else who's involved in your case, like who is not in any way connected to a co-defendant or co-arrestee. Now, this is not to say that your attorney has to do everything you want and they're just a yes man and that if

they decline to do everything you instruct them to do that you should fire them. You know, attorneys do have to operate under certain constraints and this ranges from things like, you know, some law is not relevant to this case, right? I've occasionally had clients ask me to use the uniform commercial code to defend their criminal cases, which is not a thing. And, you know, I've also had clients ask me to have a hearing or file a motion at a time when procedurally that's not permissible. So you can't just do everything that the client says. But look, typically, the attorney has control over legal strategy because, as I said, presumably they have expertise with the law. as I said, presumably they have expertise with law. But like, even if you have decided that you're just going to defer to your attorney entirely in matters of strategy, or even if you have an attorney who's like not super comfortable involving you in strategy to the

degree that like I might be, at a minimum, the attorney needs to be able to explain their strategy to you and justify it, right? So, you know, again, there needs to be mutual trust and respect for each other. So expertise, they're not just a mouthpiece, but if you feel like they're genuinely not listening to your goals or not helping you to understand what's happening or they're actively disrespectful it's really important for you to know you can fire your attorney yeah i think i think one area at least where i've become aware of this is somebody whose attorney was either refusing to or somehow was incapable of gendering them in the way that they would like to be gendered and in cases like that like you you have the right to ask your journey, your attorney to use whatever pronouns you prefer

and to be referred to using those pronouns. Is that, is that right? Absolutely. Absolutely. I've certainly heard horror stories and not just, and I'll, I'll speak to this in a second. I have heard horror stories, not just, and I'll speak to this in a second. I have heard horror stories, not just about public defenders, but also about private counsel being, you know, casually racist, being misogynist, being transphobic and, you know, being ableist, transphobic and, you know, being ableist, being really disrespectful and classist, particularly around things like transportation and childcare. So, you know, if you have an attorney who's just straight rude or being disrespectful or like being oppressive in some way, I would say, you know, the first step, I suppose, would be to bring it

to their attention. And if they don't, if they are not responsive, you know, you should know that you do have a right to choose your own attorney. Now, I do understand that there are, you know, financial issues with just choosing your own attorney. But particularly in the context of, you know, movement related prosecutions, there are often, not always, but often resources available to you where people will either work to find you someone who can represent you pro bono or will raise money. And the other thing is that if you have a public defender, you can almost always have appointed counsel from another office if you have some kind of have appointed counsel from another office if you have some kind of irretrievable conflict with your attorney. So I think we should talk about public defenders a bit because I think sometimes people can think that like they're sort of the worst option or like the bargain basement choice or what have you when in fact there are some things you can get with

a public defender that you're very unlikely to get with private counsel and absolutely yeah let's talk about public defenders a little bit sure i would love to um i love public defenders um especially in uh large cities that have um what we would call institutional public defenders, as opposed to everyone takes a turn being a public defender for one week out of the year. People who want to be public defenders do not go into public defense for the big bucks. They go into it because they care about for the big bucks. They go into it because they care about defending people and keeping people out of jail. And very often, you know, the people who are in those positions care very much and are really, really well trained. And they are not dummies. And they will work really hard for you. and they will work really hard for you.

And I do want to push back against the widespread perception that public defenders are not good attorneys. They very often are the best available option. You are often in very, very good hands. Now, this isn't to say that you're never going to come across a public defender who is rude or incompetent in some way. But I would really, really caution you against assuming that the public defender is not a super qualified, committed attorney. The other thing is that the offices of the public defender often have resources available to them that private counsel do not. You know, they have investigators, they have social workers, they have vouchers for public transportation.

And all of those things are resources that I think can be very useful in supporting someone who's facing criminal charges. So again, you know, certainly if you're having some kind of interpersonal problem with your public defender or any attorney, I want you to feel really, really empowered to address it. you to feel really, really empowered to address it. Um, and hopefully they're able to, you know, respond in a way that's appropriate, um, and explain what's going on and, you know, why things are happening in whatever way they are. But, um, I think it would be a mistake to dismiss, um, the public defender as a good option. yeah i agree i know some public defenders and some of them are really great people very very committed like you say to keeping folks out of jail which is his goal in a lot of these cases some of my best friends are public defenders no they don't

and like i people obviously will be i guess a lot of people in in some who are anti-authoritarian right are going to be um like less than positively aligned with any sort of institutions or feel concerned about interacting with people who are part of these institutions but like as far as those people exist within those institutions is to keep people out of much worse institutions like jails uh so if you can i think a lot of people who do public defense really have the sense that they're, you know, that their mission is harm reduction. Right. And they're prepared to operate in the confines of what are sometimes sort of Leviathan bureaucracies in order to achieve that. Yeah, and maybe a lot of folks will have run into it. I certainly know I met a lot of public defenders in 2020 in the course of covering protest.

And yeah, it's pretty clear that those folks were largely aligned with good things, with stopping the state doing violence to people in all of the different ways that it does that. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again. Apple Podcasts, or is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko.

It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get

out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Mo, is there anything else that you'd like us to get to with respect to these relationships people might have with their attorney? Yeah, I say this a lot. Attorneys have an obligation to give their clients their best understanding of what's going on, what paths are available to take, and the possible or likely outcomes of each of those paths, right? An attorney has an obligation to give you the best possible legal advice based on your articulated goals, their understanding of the law, their experience, and their clinical judgment. And their clients have no corresponding obligation to follow that advice, which can be frustrating from where I sit. But it is nevertheless, a critical attribute of my work that I do not

get to make big decisions for other people. They get to make decisions that I would not make, if I were allowed to make them. But I'm not. I think that, you know, I try to be really transparent with my clients about what my ethical commitments are, what I will do for them, what I'm not allowed to do for them. You know, I try to have those conversations in an ongoing way. I don't know that that's common practice. I think people are really busy and that's a hard practice to maintain. Um, but I, I want to encourage people who are in an attorney client relationship, um, to initiate those conversations, right? I guess the only other thing I would say is, you know, if you have concerns with your lawyer, address those concerns immediately, because the farther into a case you are, the harder it is to have that

conversation. And the farther into a case you are, the harder it is to fire your lawyer. Typically, you have a right to choose your own attorney. But if you're you're you know one week out from going to trial the judge may not allow you to do it right yeah right um so yeah i mean i guess i just i just wanted to tell anyone who's listening that if you are in a situation where you have to have a relationship with an attorney, you know, it's already probably kind of a bad situation. And you should be in a relationship where you feel like your lawyer is taking all of your goals seriously, which includes not just your straightforward legal goals, but movement support and solidarity. And if your lawyer is disrespecting your goals or disrespecting your identities or disrespecting other kinds of ethical commitments you have, you can choose to find a different attorney and there are resources available and ultimately these decisions are yours. And then I had some resources that I wanted to.

That'd be great. So for people who may be accused of criminal offenses, there's a really great book called The Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant. book called The Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant. And if you Google that, you can find a free PDF of it. I would also encourage people to reach out to and to become non-lawyer legal workers. So people who have, you know, experience with jail support, people who have experience with court support and with providing sort of community support to people who are facing charges. just so critical in maintaining morale and in feeling supported and in having the wherewithal to be an active participant in your own defense. And we do know that when people are active participants in their own defense, they have better legal outcomes. I would imagine even if they don't have better legal outcomes, they have ones that are easier

for them to understand. They're more satisfactory because of that. Absolutely. It's a win-win. Absolutely. There are a lot of times when there are no good options on the table. I don't, I want to be very clear, being an active participant in your own defense or having a really great attorney who really listens to you and

respects your goals does not mean that you are not going to experience punishment or state repression. It means that you are going to have a better handle on what your options are and why things are happening in the way that they are. So even if you end up in a situation that involves, you know, for example, spending time in carceral confinement, you will at least understand how you got there. And you will understand what the other possible options were, right? You know, somebody might choose to endure punishment rather than cooperate with the state. what most people would understand as a better legal outcome, it is an outcome that at least was more intentionally pursued than the alternative. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So where could people find these non-lawyer legal workers if they wanted to add one or if they wanted support from one? if they wanted to add one or if they, you know, if they wanted support from one? If people wanted to find legal workers in their own community, I mean, typically they're involved with movements. They might be associated with your local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. They might be the people who are most active in jail support. If you really can't find anybody, you can call the National Lawyers Guild Anti-Repression Hotline if you are actively facing charges. That number is 212-679-2811. And we can try to connect you with appropriate legal resources in your community. That is one way that I would encourage people to reach out if you are facing charges

and you're having a hard time connecting with legal resources. That hotline's mostly for federal cases and for federal repression. But if you call it, we will do our best to connect you with appropriate resources wherever you are. And there are also some resources for lawyers that I wanted to type here, which are, first of all, the National Lawyers Guild, which is a bar association for people who value human rights over property rights. What a dark situation that this is the subset of human beings. The NLG are great. Some positive NLG experiences. are great for some positive analogy experiences what a dark situation that it hadn't occurred to me how telling that was about lawyers as a whole yeah yeah when a subset of your profession well

a subset of my profession is equally the dark and terrible people so we just have to try and be better, I guess. The other thing that is available for attorneys who are interested is there is a book put out by the same people who wrote The Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant for attorneys, and it's called Representing Radicals. And that is, I think, available through AK Press. You should buy it from AK Press directly and not from Jeffrey Bezos in any way. Thank you. But, and the other thing is there are a lot of attorneys around the country who are more than happy to consult, to act as mentors,

to share motions, to share legal research. The people who work in movement spaces as lawyers are typically always prepared to share our experience and resources because we have a stake in other people becoming really good at this. You know, you know, my goal is to have fewer clients. So if anyone is interested in helping me to achieve that goal, either by going to law school, or by taking some of my clients, or taking some of the people who might otherwise be my clients, clients uh or taking some of the people who might otherwise be my clients please i i would be delighted uh to shepherd you into um movement defense yeah that would be great if we have any little uh like budding movement defenders how would they be able to find you

oh yes uh if you would like to find me on the internet please don't um but um i do have a website uh that you can find if you google me it is mo at law and uh uh i am pretty available if you reach out to me by email and have questions right um but generally when i come on these things i uh the only thing i have to plug is the concept of not talking to cops i want to do an episode on that maybe we'll do that one day i think we should do an expanded how to not talk to cops guide the i guess it's not just the concept of not talking to cops it's actually the practice of not talking to cops and certainly like it's somebody myself who lives on the border uh and has to deal with all kinds of different jurisdictions

of cops on an almost daily basis just in the travel i need to do to live my life uh it can be complicated and scary and if you're not a citizen it becomes even more complicated and scary so oh yeah that's the thing we should discuss in detail um i would like to say that um apart from some very very specific exceptions um that involve being at borders or um being subpoenaed to a federal grand jury you never have an obligation to talk to cops to answer their questions or to cooperate with their investigations. That doesn't mean you can obstruct their investigations, but you absolutely have no affirmative obligation to speak to police officers. And if they ask you,

if they are trying to interrogate you or ask you questions, you can say, I am going to remain silent and i want to speak to a lawyer and if the feds show up at your house or call you on the phone or come to your office or your place of work you can say i am represented by counsel please leave your name and number and my lawyer will call you okay yeah it's good to have scripts uh i want to yeah i think we should we should break down in detail some more scenarios we should do it in another episode because it'll be maybe a bit longer yes um yeah i think folks maybe uh i think everyone understands the concept

but the practice and there's that advice you give in there is great yeah and if you don't yet have an attorney and you feel uncomfortable saying i'm represented by counsel you can just say please leave your name and number and my lawyer will call you and then you can call the national lawyers guild anti-federal repression hotline at 212-679-2811 and have a privileged conversation about your rights risks and responsibilities and we can connect you with an attorney in your area yeah that is excellent actionable advice yeah thank you so much for giving us so much of your time and help and yeah i really appreciate it i'm sure everyone else does too not at all it's my pleasure um i am always available to come and talk to you about various the various rights of people accused of criminal offenses. Usually I am talking about your rights with respect to the state, but it has become really evident that I needed to talk about people's rights with respect to their own attorneys.

Yeah, it's good. It's empowering for people to hear this. So I'm glad we talked about it. Me too. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at CoolZoneMedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999,

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