Saul Goodman - Don't Go to Jail! - Saul Goodman's Guide to Keeping the Cuffs Off

This is valuable counsel for the price of a decent steak, so consider copying some points I make as we go onto a laminated card to keep in your wallet or your car—it’s good to have something in arm’s reach when the cops flick on the bullhorn and start practicing their dominance role-play routine outside the bedroom.

• Don’t agree to searches.Like a steadfast Creationist whose daughter’s teacher wants to take her on a field trip to the Museum of Evolution: do not consent . Once you have, you’ve given the cops all they need to slingshot you directly into the nearest holding cell just as soon as they find a teeny little Ziploc bag of Maui Wowie your friend forgot when he sold you the car a year ago. The search could still happen whether you agree to it or not, depending on state laws, but any defense you might mount in court will be stronger if you confirm you did not agree to the patrolman’s desire to paw through the discarded Taco Cabeza bags in your backseat.

• Clearly ask if you can go.No mumbling, no coughing—cops aren’t telepathic, so you better enunciate like you’re reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at Madison Square Garden. They like it when you say “yes” to searches, so they will press harder if you don’t. You might be asked to wait, to build as much tension as possible so you snap and give in. At some point, they may threaten to call in drug-sniffing dogs. They might do all of this to cover for the fact that they have no old-fashioned “reasonable suspicion” to make you stick around.

“Reasonable suspicion” is “probable cause’s” lazy cousin and the heart of why cops stop and hold suspects in the first place. The beauty of refusing a search? It’s not evidence. As damning as it might feel to refuse, it’s nowhere near as damning as evidence that can be used against you. Ask Officer Clodhopper, “Am I free to go and continue living my life as a law-abiding citizen with an outstanding balance on my cable bill and incipient case of psoriasis?” If the answer is “yes,” get the hell out of there without going one mile per hour above the speed limit. If the reply is “no,” that means they’ve found a reason to hold you, and you’ve got a front-row ticket to the Judge-and-Jury sketch show. Even then, don’t freak out: the cops will have to defend the arrest. It won’t matter if they can trot out that stale Kush as evidence you are keeping the spirit of Reefer Madness alive in society today—if you asked to leave before their search began, you may be able to argue that they illegally detained you, and flush their evidence straight down the porcelain highway.

I’ve talked you through some basic principles here and they apply to any similar situation, regardless of the chemical amusements—I could also call them “alternate fuel sources”—and now it’s time we face the big stuff. It’s time for some tough love.

Like I told you about Nebraska, there are still more places than not where weed will get you in plenty of trouble. If the cops turn up evidence that you’re chasing the dragon or mainlining white lady, it can get Afterschool Special–serious. Take meth, for example…

Nazis were the first to lean on meth, for its jackhammer stimulation and impressive extension of wakefulness. (Because—Sure! Why not give The Rancor ’roid rage? What could possibly go wrong there?) It was quick to be taken off the legal market, perhaps because it’s highly addictive, the process of cooking it up is deadly, and there are too many specific physical ramifications to the user and passersby to list. Even though it’s murder on the body—a Day of the Triffids level beast of a drug that can dig holes in your brain, face, and teeth—you might find the long arm of the law much more sympathetic to the monkey on your back if it isn’t named Meth. No one on the straitlaced side of the law likes it, and they really don’t like tweakers.

As with weed, there are variations across the country in how badly you’ll be nailed if all the measures mentioned in this section fail, and the next thing you know you are trying to convince Johnny Q. Lawman that the crystalline stuff is just rock salt.

To put it delicately, you could be boned, filleted, and garnished with a twist of lemon.

An example of just how screwed: Illinois’s laws on meth possession alone dictate that just a paltry fifteen grams—half an ounce in case the metric system is alien speak to you—is felony possession and will net you a smooth $200,000 fine and up to fifteen years in prison.

Not to mention the delights of shuddering through withdrawal once the cell doors have been locked.

I’m not your dad (I hope), probably not even your lawyer—yet—just a friendly voice here, but penalties for meth, coke, morphine, heroin, or LSD are similar wherever you are. The best bet is to stay the hell away from anything to do with meth and all the rest. As far away as you can possibly get.

• Refresher: don’t agree to a search, and then ask if you can go.

• Cops admire the forthright.Don’t do that. We like to think of ourselves as good people. We want to be helpful. The worst time to be a good, helpful person is when you are sweating out the curious gaze of a cop who sees you as the best way to beat the boredom of another shift shuffling papers and watching Murder, She Wrote on his cruiser’s laptop. Pot feels like small change legally so it might be tempting to drop the dime on yourself—as in, “Oh, yes, officer, my friend did indeed deposit a gallon freezer bag full of dank in my trunk for safe-keeping, but I assure you I don’t partake.”

No.

The cops will act as if it’s fine, no big deal, buddy, because the law is on their side—it’s perfectly okay for them to lie to you. They can befuddle and trick you to their hearts’ content, providing whatever cops you’re dealing with still have hearts. You need to stay calm and quiet. Be Harold Lloyd with the composure of the Fonz. There’s no need to be rude or even get upset. If it feels like the situation is escalating regardless, invoke your right to an attorney and zip it.

• Most important—this can’t be stressed enough—avoid attention in the first place.It’s tempting to the young and invulnerable to test theories like, “Maybe cops will assume this brown roach at the end of this alligator clip is some stylish hipster cigarette.” They won’t. They won’t mistake that glowing cloud of sinsemilla around your head for a halo. Even in legal weed states, getting high in public may be illegal. As funny as it is to politely greet an officer with fragrant clouds billowing from your car window, toking up where you can be seen—including inside your car on a public road—is an open invitation to the police to take charge of your agenda and enhance your diet with jail-provided Nutraloaf.

This is the part you can print out, as suggested earlier. It can’t hurt, right?

Don’t consent to search requests.

Ask if you are free to get the hell out of Dodge.

Shut up.

Save it for home, where the police presence is—hopefully—negligible.

Man, Orson Welles. Many of us remember him from his days prior to pushing frozen peas and cheap wine and playing bit parts in Muppet flicks. Youngsters take note: the guy made some great films. The Third Man, for example. Orson as Harry Lime, a black marketer peddling watered-down meds in Vienna after World War II. Ol’ Harry wasn’t a gentleman, but the guy had respectable gab. One line is worth repeating here, even though it loses a little something if you can’t hear it in Orson’s stentorian tones: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”