What can police actually do if you are arrested?

Nov 15, 2022

What can the police actually do if you are arrested? Should you cooperate if you are arrested? Can the police lie to you? Do you have to talk to the police if they arrest you? In this episode Susan and Tracy break down what police can actually do if you are arrested, what you should do if you are arrested, and other myths and truths about what police can do during an arrest.

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Transcript

Tracy Hightower-Henne: What can the police actually do if you get arrested on this episode of the Lady Lawyer League podcast? We’re going to tell you what the police can actually do and what you shouldn’t do if you get arrested.

Susan Reff: This is the Lady Lawyer League podcast.

Announcer: Omaha’s Leading Lady Lawyers.

Susan Reff: Empowering Women to Be Legal Savvy. Hosted by Susan Reff and.

Announcer: Tracy Hightower of Hightower Rough Law.

Susan Reff: Welcome to the Lady Lawyer League podcast. I’m Susan Ref.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And I’m Tracy Hightower.

Susan Reff: And today we’re going to talk about what the police can do actually do if you get arrested.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. What can they actually do? I feel like they can do a lot of stuff. Yeah, well.

Susan Reff: We’ll kind of talk about like what they can do and what they do do and what are.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: You Doo doo.

Susan Reff: Doo doo doo.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: But I think it obviously depends on what. Why are the police interacting with you too.

Susan Reff: Right. There’s a lot of it depends, right. I mean, like always that lawyer thing. Yeah. You know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t think we can like always say it depends on the podcast. So I think people I know, I know.

Susan Reff: And that’s hard because sometimes we, we get asked or someone presents a scenario to us that’s there’s, there’s so many other things that go into it that make the answer.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Oh, you mean when we’re like in a social setting and someone’s like, I have a quick question for you.

Susan Reff: I have a quick question. Can I ask you a quick lawyer.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Question and the Facebook messages? Hey, I don’t know if you remember me, but we went to high school together.

Susan Reff: I don’t know if you remember me. One time I was talking about we talk about this all the time, right? Like the people that reach out and think that we know all areas of the law and that we just have knowledge, which is kind of flattering, right? We know everything.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: But because law school teachers do everything.

Susan Reff: Yeah, I was telling Mike, my husband, that I one week I kind of calculated how much time I spend answering little texts, Facebook messages, emails, random phone calls, walking up at a social event that isn’t lawyer related lawyer questions. And it’s probably it could be up to an hour or more every week.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah.

Susan Reff: And I know. I mean, you’re in the same boat.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah.

Susan Reff: Sports analogy.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Is that a boat? Boat or a boat is a smart sports analogy.

Susan Reff: I don’t know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Is it from rowing? Because you’re a rower. It’s from your rowing days.

Susan Reff: I just want everything to be a sports analogy.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I just want to be on a yacht, not a there’s a.

Susan Reff: Sporting Let’s say that you’re in the same yacht. See if people get it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: You’re on the same cruise ship.

Susan Reff: Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. So we get a lot of questions from clients. Mostly clients have been already arrested the time they’re coming to us. But what we want to talk about is what should you do in the moment of your initial interaction with police and what can they actually do.

Susan Reff: Yeah, from yeah, after they start talking to you.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah.

Susan Reff: So there are situations where a police officer, you may have an encounter with a police officer. That isn’t because they think that you’re committing a crime. You know, like maybe you witnessed a crime or maybe they’re trying to get information or you were in a car accident, you know, that kind of thing. I think that’s a different scenario than where we’re going, where there’s some suspicion or even more that you are doing something wrong.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. Yeah. So police your first interaction. What’s your advice about cooperation, like the level of cooperation, Should you cooperate? Yeah. Should you tell them fuck off?

Susan Reff: Oh, okay. We’ll get to that level of cooperation. So, you know, if if a police officer thinks that you are have committed a crime and they’re talking to you and they’re asking you questions, you don’t have to answer the questions if you do. If you take active steps to not cooperate like you continue to walk away, you drive away. You know, you’re in a car, you roll your window up and you just sit there like they can actually add charges to whatever they’re ultimately going to charge you with in the sense of not being cooperative with their investigation.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So I think there’s a myth, not a misnomer. Right. Looked it up. Misnomer is only about names. Yeah. Miss naming someone.

Susan Reff: Yes, but or a thing.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I just don’t know why they don’t call it misnomer.

Susan Reff: Anyway, we could start that. We could try it. So there’s a misnomer.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: There’s this sort of idea that like if police ask me for my ID, I don’t have to give them. So can police actually do that?

Susan Reff: Yeah. It’s called a Terry stop from like terrycloth. Yeah, kind of, but no, it’s a case, a Supreme Court case.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I know. I remember from law school.

Susan Reff: It’s like this big thing. It was like a big deal, right In the sixties.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All these do with the Fourth Amendment, right? Yes.

Susan Reff: The police.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Is the right against unreasonable searches and.

Susan Reff: Seizures.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: There you go. I taught that to my husband. That’s the one I think he knows word for word.

Susan Reff: That’s cool.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t know. And so every time we drive down like the interstate and there’s someone pulled over, he’s like their Fourth Amendment rights getting violated. I’m like, Good job. Yeah. All right, So, Terry.

Susan Reff: Okay, the Terry stop is like the brief encounter with the cops where they’re like, Who are you? And if. If. They want some information from you. Like, as for who you are, you have to give that.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So what kind of information do you have to give in that moment?

Susan Reff: Your name?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: What if they ask for your ID?

Susan Reff: I think. I mean, again, it depends, but I think you should show them your ID if you have an idea.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: What if you don’t have it on you?

Susan Reff: If you don’t have an idea and you. It’s not. It’s not legally required that you have an ID on you when you’re just walking around. So if you don’t have it on you and you say, I don’t have it on me and they believe you. Yeah, but if you’re carrying a big old backpack or purse or something, they’re going to be like, Come on, come on. Or they saw you show your ID to someone else, like 5 seconds before maybe, you know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. Like a bouncer in a bar.

Susan Reff: Right.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay.

Susan Reff: So you’re going to say, if you can say fuck off. I want to talk about that really quick.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Can you say fuck off?

Susan Reff: Yes, you can.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Because that is the.

Susan Reff: First Amendment. You can say fuck off, you can flip your middle finger.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Which is also an expression of.

Susan Reff: Speech, right? It’s speech. It’s protected speech. You just can’t say to a cop anything that it would be considered inciting violence or threatening language. So fuck off is not.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: How about I’m going to fuck you up that I think that might be inciting violence.

Susan Reff: Yeah, that might be slightly threatening. Maybe. Yeah. So? So you can say fuck off.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Fuck you that to me, I feel threatened. So I think it’s not slightly.

Susan Reff: Going to fuck you up. Okay.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. So don’t say so. You can say fuck off to the police, but you might have some extra cooperation you need to do with the police.

Susan Reff: They’re not going to treat you very well if you say fuck off to them a whole bunch, probably. You know, they’re not going to be in a good mood.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay. Yeah.

Susan Reff: So. And they have guns.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Know you can, but don’t do that. Yeah, it’s probably not the best idea.

Susan Reff: So. Another thing people often ask is like, when you’re having that encounter with the police, you know, at what point can you leave?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And you just said you can’t walk away when they’re like communicating with you.

Susan Reff: But if you’ve given them your ID and they’ve taken down your name and they’re like, okay, Tracy Hightower was walking down Dodge Street in a blue green sweater, whatever, then I think it’s like, okay, are we done here? You can leave. And if they’re like, Well, I have a couple more questions for you. And you say, I have I have to leave, I have an appointment or I don’t want to talk to you. You can walk away. They can’t arrest you unless they have a warrant for your arrest, unless they actually think that you have recently committed a crime.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And they can’t arrest you unless they have probable cause. Right. Is that from an amendment? No, I don’t. That has to do with Fourth Amendment.

Susan Reff: Yeah, they have to have probable cause to think that you have just committed a crime.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Before they can arrest you, and then you’re not free to leave. Right. Yeah.

Susan Reff: If their report was there was a blonde haired woman that stole my car.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And she was wearing a green sweater.

Susan Reff: And you are a blonde haired woman, but they have nothing else. Like you’re not even in a car. Like, probably not enough probable cause to arrest you. But all of these things that happen, the way lawyers deal with them is all after the fact.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. So then we’re filing motions to suppress. Yes.

Susan Reff: That’s what’s really interesting about criminal law. Everything is after the fact. It’s all reactive.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. So as criminal defense attorneys, we’re taking the actual arrest scenario and then we’re breaking it apart and going, did the police do what they should have done Right? What did they actually do and was it wrong? And can we get that arrest thrown out? Right. It’s like an escape room.

Susan Reff: How is it you’re.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Trying to escape the arrest?

Susan Reff: Oh, okay. With the clues.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. Fun. I love it. We should have. We should do an escape room that is like that arrest courtroom. That’s what we do in real life.

Susan Reff: Like break out of the courtroom.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yes.

Susan Reff: There could be a.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Like a legal.

Susan Reff: Escape room.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yes. We should totally sponsor this. I have no.

Susan Reff: Idea how that would get set up, but.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: We’ll figure it.

Susan Reff: Out next time.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. So talk about the public defender and court appointed situation. When someone gets arrested and they can’t afford a lawyer, how does that work?

Susan Reff: Right. So if someone gets arrested, the first thing that happens is after they get arrested is they have an opportunity to post a bond. Most of the time, you know, sometimes there’s no bond, but we’ll just say most of the.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Time that’s like first degree.

Susan Reff: Murder. Yeah. So if they can bond out of the jail, then they’re out. If they cannot make their bond, then they’re in jail. Either way, they’re going to have a court hearing.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: They can try to escape.

Susan Reff: They could try to escape. I mean, that’s always out there.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Not suggested.

Susan Reff: Yeah, not suggested. But after that initial arrest did they bought out, didn’t they bond out? They’re going to see a judge pretty soon. And at that first court hearing, if they show up without a lawyer, a judge is going to inquire like, can you afford an attorney? I don’t see you have one today. And if they say I can’t afford an attorney, a judge is going to go through and ask questions to see do they meet the income guidelines for whatever that court has to get a free attorney, a court appointed attorney or a public defender?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Because part of like what we know as the Miranda warning is that whole thing that gets said, you’re under arrest. What you say can and will be used against you. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.

Susan Reff: Right. Which is the Sixth Amendment. Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Gideon versus. So we have one, four, six.

Susan Reff: Yes. How many more can we talk about?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: We could talk about five in a minute. The fifth one, not five more.

Susan Reff: Oh, five more. I was going to say, I’m not sure. I know. I know there’s like 20 some, but.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Someone asked me the other day and I was like.

Susan Reff: How many men.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Really know that? Were they.

Susan Reff: Like through a random like, what’s.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: The Third.

Susan Reff: Amendment?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And it was. It’s 20 something.

Susan Reff: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, cool.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right, so you’re in court.

Susan Reff: You get a free.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Lawyer. Yeah.

Susan Reff: Then what?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: You know what really, really bothers me? So used to be a public defender, and I think you’re a pretty amazing lawyer and all of that. And when people call it public pretenders.

Susan Reff: Oh, yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I’m like, Are you kidding me? Like, the public defenders are actually the lawyers that know what the fuck they’re doing right with the criminal defense.

Susan Reff: I think it’s like, I mean, anybody that knows anything about anything knows that what you’re saying, like, that’s their opinion. Public defenders are really good criminal defense attorneys. Like, I was explaining this the other day to someone, you know, for example, and this is the example I gave. If if you’re charged with murder, do you want the attorney that you’re their first murder client that’s been charged with murder? No. Or do you want the public defender who had five murder trials last year? Right. And then you know, well.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Is it your first murder, though? Or you’re like, is this your first murder and their first murder or.

Susan Reff: Sure, if it matters, you know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. So but props to all the public defenders, because they’re real and they’re badasses, actually. But they’re in court all the time.

Susan Reff: Yeah. I mean, when I was a public defender, there were days when I would have more than one trial a day. Yeah. I mean, that doesn’t happen in family law.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. And, you know, the Constitution gives you the right to an attorney when you can’t afford one. And it’s so it’s so important that you get a real lawyer, right? Not a pretender.

Susan Reff: Right.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay. Yeah. Citizen arrest.

Susan Reff: Oh, my gosh.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t really like.

Susan Reff: So not a lot of people know there’s, like, laws on citizens arrests in Nebraska. Citizens are not allowed to detain other people for the purposes of an arrest.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Because then they’ll be arrested for assault.

Susan Reff: Kidnapping? I don’t know. I mean something. Yeah, Yeah. But I think in other states, citizen’s arrest is an actual thing.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay, interesting. I was going to make some joke about, like, handcuffs. Like what happens if you handcuff someone? It depends. It depends in the bedroom.

Susan Reff: Did they want to be handcuffed or consent? Are they playing like.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Does a citizen’s arrest always include handcuffs? All right. But I tried to stop myself. And then.

Susan Reff: Yeah, what if somebody just ran around like screaming citizen arrest, citizen arrest, like, Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I mean, there’s so many of those things happen in movies, and then people get so confused, like, Can I do that? Yeah, well, what’s the what’s the okay, this is not the same at all, but the movie Purge.

Susan Reff: Oh, I heard about. I haven’t seen it. I’ve heard about it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: We spoke about Purge on our last episode, so.

Susan Reff: Oh, yeah, the word purge.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Isn’t that the. The movie where you get to, like, do whatever you want overnight or one hour of the night?

Susan Reff: I thought it was 24 hours or something because it was I haven’t seen it, but it was enough time where you could do some substantial damage. I think someone or.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Something you don’t get.

Susan Reff: You get trouble, right?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Which has nothing to do with citizen’s arrest, I don’t think. No, I don’t know. I thought about it. So movie not doing whatever I want.

Susan Reff: What would you do if you weren’t going to get arrested?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: There’s a couple of people that I would punch and maybe like, break out their car window or something. Ooh.

Susan Reff: I would go to the all you can eat ice cream place.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And get all the gummy bears. I would get.

Susan Reff: The biggest thing.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: This is what you would do.

Susan Reff: Why not? I don’t.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Like Gosh. And then I sound so violent.

Susan Reff: I. Yeah. You took my answer, though. I mean, punching certain people would be really satisfying. Yeah, but see, if we all get the same 24 hour period, they could, like, shoot you back, right? If it, you know, if I got my own 24 or something.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: No.

Susan Reff: In the movie. Do they all have the same 24 hours?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. Oh. Oh, it’s chaos. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So citizen’s arrest. Not in Nebraska. Do we know about Iowa?

Susan Reff: I don’t know about Iowa.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I feel like they’re way different to like.

Susan Reff: Well, they have casinos, all sorts of strange stuff over there that we don’t have.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So strange casinos.

Susan Reff: It’s casinos have tons of laws. I mean, that’s where I was going with that.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So in the casino, different laws?

Susan Reff: Well, no, like gaming laws.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Got it. Okay.

Susan Reff: Okay. All right. So what can the cops do once they actually arrest you? A lot of people ask that, too. Like what? Like can they leave you in handcuffs forever? Can they put you in the car? What? What can they.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Take you to the police station? Yeah. Sometimes they let you go home.

Susan Reff: Yeah. So you can be charged with a crime and never go to jail. You can get a ticket and or you can get a summons. This doesn’t happen very often here, but you can get a summons to appear, and then you go to court and you’re charged. That’s kind of interesting.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And then you pay some fine.

Susan Reff: Well, you get whatever penalty. I mean, if you’re convicted. Oh.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. So the interviewing police interviews. Yeah, police interviews. Can they lie?

Susan Reff: Can police lie to you? Yes. Yeah, they do.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: They’re allowed to and they do. And what you say can and will be used against you.

Susan Reff: Yes. So they’d be like, Tracy, you’re here as a suspect on murder and we’ve got your husband in the other room. And he just told us that he saw you do it. He saw you use machete your enemy.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: During your 24 hours.

Susan Reff: Yeah. And your husband might be at home watching sports on TV or whatever.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right.

Susan Reff: But they can they can do that. They can say, we have your fingerprints on the machete so we know it was you. So you might. It’ll be easier on you if you tell us the truth now, which is also a big.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Why are your fingerprints there? Yeah. And they’re not there, Right. And they have no fingerprints.

Susan Reff: Or they may not even have a weapon. Right? Yeah. So they can lie to you to try to coerce you to make statements against yourself.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Do a false confession? Yeah. You know, my past life, I volunteered with Innocence Project.

Susan Reff: False confessions with the big thing.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah, False confessions is one of the top reasons for wrongful incarceration.

Susan Reff: Because they don’t have any other evidence other than that person’s statements.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: That.

Susan Reff: Were coerced, either through lies or they can. They can keep you in an interrogation cell. Yeah. Or a room or whatever we’re calling in.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: That false confession is used against you.

Susan Reff: Yeah, they can withhold like they can. You know, if you’re in there for hours and hours, you’re like, maybe you’re hungry. Maybe or haven’t slept in a long time. Maybe you haven’t taken your medications. Yes. They don’t have to really give that stuff to you.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And often then people falsely confess just to get out of the situation. They think they’re going to go.

Susan Reff: Home, sleep.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Eat.

Susan Reff: And maybe the cops have even promised you that, Right. So, yeah. And that’s and that, again, is something that an attorney after the fact has to pick apart to try to get their client’s arrest or confession or whatever thrown out because cops did stuff they shouldn’t do or the law has said they can’t do.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. So, okay, so after you’re arrested, can the police No, no, no. Can police handcuff you without arresting you?

Susan Reff: So this one is is a I think, a case by case thing. And I think where it’s been held up in court that it was okay for a police officer to handcuff someone if they weren’t arresting them was they said it was for their own safety or for the police officer’s safety or like public safety. So if you’re like freaking out and there’s a crowd and you’re swinging your arms around and you could hurt somebody and a cop has said stop it or whatever, they could handcuff you and then ultimately say like, okay, just leave, you know? Right. And no arrest, no ticket or anything. But I think they’re probably pretty careful to do that because if they do detain somebody, you know, there’s been lawsuits brought for people getting injured when that’s happened or, you know, just saying like, you detained me and then you didn’t arrest me. So clearly I wasn’t doing anything wrong. And any freedom of movement can be considered a violation of your constitutional rights.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay. Talk about searching phones after arrest, because I’ve always heard the interesting how you can open your phone with your facial recognition and oftentimes like if you’re arrested. Did your phones locked. Right. So the police want to look at your phone to see if, like maybe you just texted someone, I’m going to go shoot this guy. Right. And that would be a really good piece of evidence.

Susan Reff: Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Called premeditation.

Susan Reff: Yes.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: The planning don’t tell people your plan before you do it. Yeah. I mean, most.

Susan Reff: Of the times criminal.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: People aren’t.

Susan Reff: Yeah, they’re not that smart.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So I’ve heard that the police are like, unlock your phone. And then someone was like, No. And they’re like, Oh, look at it. And then it unlocks by their facial recognition.

Susan Reff: So the police can seize what they consider evidence at any time during in an investigation. They have to get a warrant to search your phone, meaning look at your contacts, look at your texts. If there’s pictures in your phone call history, all of that. And they have to show that the phone is reasonably related to the commission of the crime. So where phones are, I feel like the biggest thing is when they think someone’s dealing drugs because they’re communicating on the phone with the the dealing. I mean, that’s been my experience.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: With the daily.

Susan Reff: The Yeah. And same with laptops you know they want to see your what’s going on in your laptop and both phones and laptop any computer keeps track of like websites you’ve visited and all of that and potentially location of where you’ve been.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right right.

Susan Reff: So the phone maybe there’s really nothing on your phone except to show that on Friday night, if they can see a ping location, ping at the scene of the crime or whatever. Right. So but they can take the phone from you, put it in the little evidence baggie, and then get the warrant from the judge to send to Verizon or whoever.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Then lock it, unlock.

Susan Reff: The phone and look at everything. So that’s how that works.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: They just put it in front of your face and unlock it right then.

Susan Reff: But I think that’s still a search that isn’t supported with a warrant.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Got it. Yeah. Violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Susan Reff: So, like me, you know, I don’t have a lock on my phone because I’m not that I can’t even feel.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t know that. That’s insane.

Susan Reff: Okay. I thought, whoa, Diet Coke. I thought we’ve talked about I don’t have a lock on my phone. I know I.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Should. Oh, that’s why you accidentally. But dial me sometimes.

Susan Reff: I there’s a lot of reasons. I should have a lock on my phone, and I don’t.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t think I knew this.

Susan Reff: But just because my phone isn’t locked doesn’t mean the police can just look at it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay, but you need to lock your phone.

Susan Reff: I know, but I’m a little worried I won’t be able to get in.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Because you won’t remember.

Susan Reff: Well, like I show your face. What if I don’t have my face available? Like, can you do it with, like, okay.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So.

Susan Reff: Sunglasses and all that? Like, how does it work.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: If I’m laying in bed right my face down, I have a double chin, it doesn’t recognize my face. And so I have to be like, okay, this is my face.

Susan Reff: Do you have like, face?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And yeah, you can unlock it with the number.

Susan Reff: And like, finger.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And I know my phone doesn’t have a finger anymore.

Susan Reff: So when I ride my bike, this is funny. My phone I have, I usually wear gloves that don’t have touch.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah.

Susan Reff: So I use my nose.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Oh, because there’s no glove on your nose.

Susan Reff: Yeah, it totally works. And since I have swipe text, I can text.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: We can also get you some gloves that have the thing.

Susan Reff: I, I have. I could do that.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And lock your phone.

Susan Reff: I have two pairs. One has the thing on the fingers and one doesn’t.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. Okay. All right.

Susan Reff: So can the police unlock your phone? No.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So the answer is no. No. And also just double chin it. If they put it in front of your face and then it won’t unlock.

Susan Reff: Yeah. What if your eyes are closed? Does it unlock? Try it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: No, it doesn’t. Well, how would I know? My eyes are closed.

Susan Reff: Well, then you open them and you like.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And then when you open them and unlock. Well, look.

Susan Reff: Move the phone.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And here, let’s. We can do it. And you watch.

Susan Reff: Okay? Do it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right now. Yeah. Okay. Here, here, do it. I didn’t unlock.

Susan Reff: Okay, Keep your eyes closed.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right? And close your eyes. Okay. Okay. Let’s go to Can the following people arrest someone like who is able to arrest someone? And I think the first question is, can the IRS arrest someone?

Susan Reff: Can the IRS arrest, you know, the IRS about.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: An IRS agent?

Susan Reff: The IRS? No. An IRS agent is probably an accountant. Right. Or a CPA, don’t you think?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Listen, I interned at the IRS.

Susan Reff: There was a lawyer. You worked with a lawyer.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: There was a.

Susan Reff: Lawyer. Was he considered an agent? Like, what is what is even IRS agent mean?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I don’t know. I don’t even know.

Susan Reff: But the. Ira. So I think the IRA is considered an administrative branch of the government.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: The government? Yeah.

Susan Reff: But so if if the IRS thinks that you’re committing a crime, they can go to a law enforcement agency, probably the FBI, and ask them they’re the federal government police.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. So or so. The IRS cannot arrest you. And also, like those calls that you get, this is the IRS calling. You’re going to be arrested. You had spam.

Susan Reff: Yeah. Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And if you answer it because your phone’s not locked.

Susan Reff: Public service announcement.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. Park rangers so can not approach the.

Susan Reff: Buffalo Park Rangers arrest.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: You, but can they arrest you if you play with the buffalo?

Susan Reff: I don’t know the answer to. If park rangers can arrest people, I can say that there are game wardens whose sole job it is, is to make sure, like if you’re hunting, that you’re abiding by the laws and the limits of your hunting license. And I have a thought in my head that could totally be wrong that sometimes a game warden actually is a park ranger like they in a smaller park. I don’t know. But like, if you if you’re fishing and your license and the season is you can get ten fish that are 50. I had cases like this in the public defender’s office. Oh, if you’re fishing and your fish are, you have to have fish that are certain length and you can only take so many and you’re violating that you will get a ticket from a game warden.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay. But they can arrest you.

Susan Reff: I think they I think they probably could. If they can issue you a ticket, they can probably arrest you, but maybe they don’t. Maybe they call the, like, local cop. Okay. Like, sheriff.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Don’t take too many fish.

Susan Reff: Well, it was a big deal. Did you hear about like, there’s this huge thing about recently in Nebraska, I think, about illegal hunting, which they call poaching. It was like a general term of all the elk or something. Some guy got like 30 years in prison. It’s a federal crime.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: There’s elk in Nebraska.

Susan Reff: Maybe it was an elk and maybe it wasn’t in Nebraska. I don’t know. It was a big deal. I was following it slightly.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah, maybe I heard that, but I don’t think it was Nebraska. I don’t think there’s elk in Nebraska.

Susan Reff: Maybe it wasn’t elk.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: That in western Nebraska they come over the border.

Susan Reff: A little bit. I feel like it was the.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Only elk in Colorado. So they don’t like stop at the border and go, That’s Nebraska. Turn around. Did you bring your passport? Funny. All right, elk jokes. Let’s go to the entire weekend spent by producers looking at questions about what can the police actually do.

Susan Reff: Searching the keyword phrase, arrested.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: All right. First up, was Will Smith arrested? We assume this question is related to the slap.

Susan Reff: The Chris Rock slap.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah.

Susan Reff: If those two were ever going to get in a cage fight, I don’t think I’d put my money on Will Smith.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: No, not at all.

Susan Reff: Except he is tall.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I mean, the slap was a pretty good slap.

Susan Reff: It totally looks staged to me.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: It looks staged. But like. And even so, stage that the slapping sound was like, was there like a sound maker that was like, in the background making it extra slap, like the.

Susan Reff: Rubber thing hitting the other. I don’t know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: As far as we know, he wasn’t arrested.

Susan Reff: Yeah, they said that the that police were involved but Chris Rock said, no, please don’t arrest me, which never happens in real life. No, it doesn’t matter if you want someone arrested or not, the cops are going to do it. Yeah, if they’re going to do it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Okay. Okay. Next question. Next, Can you get arrested for buying weed seeds? What’s weed seeds?

Susan Reff: Like seeds to grow marijuana? I think so.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Like, I literally just had this idea that like, oh my God, they’re seeds that grow marijuana plants.

Susan Reff: Like, duh. Like, you hadn’t really thought about it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: No, that they were just magic plants.

Susan Reff: That’s because you don’t grow marijuana.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Like like everyone has to have a plant to start it. Yeah. Seed.

Susan Reff: I think you can also propagate. Do you.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Do you do some gardening?

Susan Reff: Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So do you always start with a seed? No. Yeah. To lay the difference. Do you know.

Susan Reff: I guess a little plant.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah, it’s already started. So I guess I forget that all plants start with a seed.

Susan Reff: I think.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I think this. I had to remind myself what was the question?

Susan Reff: I would think that the seed that grows in illegal plant is part is categorized within the law. If it’s illegal in that state.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Is there any like hallucinogenic benefit to just the seed?

Susan Reff: I don’t know.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Do you eat it?

Susan Reff: Yeah, if you eat it or.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Like a sunflower seed.

Susan Reff: I have no idea. They’re probably like.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Minuscule, I feel like. If you got arrested just for weed seeds, we would do some research and maybe file a motion to suppress escape room style.

Susan Reff: It depends on what you were doing when you got arrested. If there was probable cause. Yeah. Okay. Don’t confess. If you have weed seeds in your pocket, don’t confess.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And don’t look at your phone.

Susan Reff: Yeah. Okay.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Can you get arrested for using fake handcuffs? Are they furry?

Susan Reff: I think it depends.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: For using fake handcuffs. I mean, sometimes police, if they’re like at a riot scenario, they don’t have enough handcuffs, so they use zip ties.

Susan Reff: Zip ties. What do they call those? There’s a name for those things. Zip ties? No, but they they call them. They’re like cinch cuffs or something like that. Oh, but that’s not it. But I.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah, I don’t. I don’t.

Susan Reff: But like, like toy handcuffs, like the kids might have and they’re like, Sheriff, little uniform.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Can you get arrested for using fake handcuffs? I don’t know.

Susan Reff: I think you would only get arrested if the other person didn’t like it.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. Without consent. Yeah. No means no. No means no. Okay. Was Bill Nye arrested? Bill Nye the Science Guy. Nye the science Guy. How would he have been arrested for?

Susan Reff: I, I haven’t heard about anything in the news with Bill. Bill Nye. So I’m going to vote no.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Yeah. What’s your vote? I’m going to say no.

Susan Reff: Okay. Moving on. Was Bill Gates arrested?

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Why is it all the bills will?

Susan Reff: Because it was Will and then Bill.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Bill, I don’t know how this Google Google works.

Susan Reff: I have no idea.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Bill Gates.

Susan Reff: I kind of feel like I heard something happened with him.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: The same story as the elk.

Susan Reff: No, it wasn’t a hunting. I don’t know. But I.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Don’t know. I mean, I feel like he probably was arrested at some point, but I don’t know. He’s a pretty like, upstanding guy as well.

Susan Reff: Didn’t all this info come out recently about him having an affair with someone at the office and his wife is like, pretty cool.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: So you don’t get arrested?

Susan Reff: No.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: I know. By having an affair? No. Unless you use fake handcuffs, maybe, and have weed seeds. And during the affair. Next.

Susan Reff: Ooh, this is a good one.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: How do you get your ex arrested? Woo! There’s a lot of good ways. I feel like, though, that might be giving unethical advice.

Susan Reff: Yeah, we probably shouldn’t tell people how to get someone else arrested. I mean, if they break the law, call the police.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Right. There you go. I think that’s what we need to end with.

Susan Reff: Just follow them around, wait for them to break the law and call the police.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: But don’t.

Susan Reff: Knock them.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Don’t plant any weed seeds. And by plant, I don’t mean in the ground.

Susan Reff: Well, that too.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: And then give them some fake handcuffs. I think that’s it. All right.

Susan Reff: That was fun. Those were really weird. I feel like of all the ones we’ve done, those are the weirdest ones all weekend.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: They spent all weekend.

Susan Reff: Bill Nye.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: The Science Guy.

Susan Reff: Now I’m going to go look it up. Yeah.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Look it up.

Susan Reff: Look it up.

Tracy Hightower-Henne: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Lady Lawyer Leak podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any episodes. Give us a five star review and check out our show notes for some more resources on this topic about what to do if you get arrested and what the police can actually do.

Susan Reff: Thank you for listening to the lady.

Announcer: Be sure to like and subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts if you would like to learn more about.

Susan Reff: Please visit our website at law Omaha. We’ll see you next week.

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