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

Penalties for shoplifting vary widely depending on where you are. Some states specify that there is no jail time at all if the dollar value of the stolen goods is relatively small. A pilfered case of bottled water might end up costing a few hundred in fees and fines, but no time on the inside.

Still—if I’m going to spend that much on water, it better cure cancer or be bottled straight out of the Fountain of Youth. Your best bet is to just follow the commandments, and try not to steal. If you suffer a moment of weakness and you get caught: shut up and lawyer up.

I’m not one to judge (it’s not in my job description—at least not yet), but there’s nothing funny about driving under the influence of anything. Driving while drunk is incredibly stupid, irresponsible, and potentially deadly. For you, and everyone in your path. Driving stoned isn’t any better, no matter how mellow it feels or how enlightened you think you are.

And yet, short-sighted people do it all the time. DUIs, OUIs, anything-you-can-think-of-UIs could be any given defense attorney’s stock-in-trade, the main thing they do all day. They present a slew of challenges, because irresponsible behavior is so tied up with the diminished-capacity side effect of sipping liquid courage. It’s very tricky to prove your client’s innocence. Let’s keep the hopeful thought that if you, my friend, are guilty of driving under the influence, it was a special-circumstances one-time-only thing, and you didn’t hurt anyone. Everybody makes mistakes, and you deserve the chance to walk free and never, ever repeat your mistakes. Let’s take a sobering journey through how this might go down.

Long day at work, huh, champ? Of course a trip to the watering hole was in order. A highly understandable pit stop, an invigorating filling station for your sanity. It’s that sweet, necessary chance to take a few deep breaths after the end of a long hard day farming, constructing, accounting, filing, representing clients, whatever your labor. A time to pull yourself together before you return home to the loving spouse, the incontinent pet, or the deafening silence.

You only have one shot of tequila. Okay, only five. Who’s counting? Then you check your watch, pay your tab, and hit the road.

So many things could happen next. It’s not unheard of for cops to park and “do paperwork” by various booze dispensaries just so they can swoop in like a lioness scouting for wounded wildebeest out on the African savannah. (Factual reminder, it’s actually the lioness who does the hunting for the pride. Respect.) Typically, though, a driver who has had a few might be kind of loosey-goosey, all over the road, too fast then too slow. Maybe your cell phone fell out of your cup holder as you took a turn too quickly and you swerved a bit as you reached down to grab it. A number of conditions inside the car can cause this sort of driving, but yeah, it’s usually going to read “rockin’ the rotgut” to the cops, and they’ll hit the lights before you can straighten the tires.

Pay close attention now, buckaroo. You’ve been pulled over for weaving or whatever. The officer approaches, you open your window, and you have to just imagine in that moment that the man or woman who flagged you is Robocop, with the red computer display on the bottom of their visual field. It’s ticking off a few things cops are trained to look for:

• The old classic: slurred speech.Plenty of drunk folks can cope with that and speak with great clarity, though they might as well be reciting the Jabberwocky, for all the sense their well-enunciated words make when strung together.

• Leaky, red eyeballs.One of the dead giveaways, and it can occur in several different breeds of messed up.

• Shitty coordination.Maybe you take too long digging your ID out of your wallet. Or flop around like a fish freshly plopped on a boat deck as you lean over to grab the registration from the glove box. That magic sauce (or dust or smoke or what have you) we put in our bodies to cloud our brains screws our reflexes by default. Cops learn to look for that, and most of them can see through attempts to compensate.

• The pious confession.You roll up to the checkpoint unperturbed—you got this. But then maybe it’s the officer’s aggressively over-ironed uniform or those suddenly intimidating orange traffic cones or maybe you mistake your midnight munchies for a pang of conscience… something makes you fess up and tell the truth. Or a degree of it. “I just had two beers, Officer, but it was like several hours ago and I’m for sure not drunk.” Your smidgeon of honesty is enough to help you realize immediately, as does the officer: you’re delivering yourself to the hellish drunk tank in a proverbial hand basket, this one woven by your own heroic (and stupid) confession. This happens in DUI stops more often than you’d think. Sometimes a little bit of the truth won’t go a long way, it’ll just get you cuffed.

One or all the conditions that add up to a possible DUI being met, it’s time for tests. Some of which most sober people couldn’t pass. I for one cannot hopscotch backward while reciting the states of the union in alphabetical order. I’d wish you luck here, but that’s as hopeless as a goldfish headed upstream at Niagara Falls. So you likely fail this sobriety test miserably.

Good news, sort of! In many places, field sobriety tests are elective! It may be a good strategy to opt out. Bad news: there will be penalties for refusing the damned thing. And that refusal will probably trigger a reading of the “implied consent” agreement. See, in refusing that test, you’ve put yourself in a position to choose between two other tests: blood or breath. Refuse a breathalyzer or a blood test? BAM! Your license is automatically suspended.

Then comes the arrest portion of the festivities. If you’ve gotten this far, yes, the government-issued stainless-steel bracelets are coming. Hopefully you’ve fully digested what I’ve been feeding you up to this point and have kept your mouth shut. Because if the police have fully established what they consider probable cause—and refusal of any test tends to provide that—then you are about to go for a nice little swim in the drunk tank.

Now? You are definitely going to need an attorney. The Internet will be your friend here, though many attorneys who specialize in DUI cases are canny enough to put their smiling faces on signs and billboards about town where potential clients might catch sight of them from their backseat tour of the metropolitan district.

A lawyer whose bread and butter is DUI or one who at least is drunk-driving friendly will be able to negotiate the nasty maze of paperwork and procedures. He or she will hopefully be a familiar face at the courthouse, which believe me, can really help sometimes—don’t discount your attorney’s ability to charm other officers of the court. An attorney who is savvy with DUIs will also know their way around a plea bargain. If you go to court with a DUI charge, especially if it’s not your first, you really need that know-how.

If you end up in an attorney’s office, a chat will commence. I’ll try to give you a feeling for what that will be like without scaring the whiskey piss out of you.

• First thing’s first: a little homework.A good number of lawyers endorse this practice: write it down. Become an impassioned, detail-oriented memoirist of your DUI. A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Inebriant, In Cold Booze, you get the idea. This will be painful; it just will. But it’s necessary. And be honest. Chapter one: where were you and what were you doing before you got behind the wheel? Chapter two: how long were you driving, what were you listening to, what Foghat song were you jamming to when you first noticed the disco blue? Were you listening to “Slow Ride” while slowly weaving across the centerline? Map it out in words and know it cold. Name anyone in the car with you. Give your version of the pleasant conversation I’m sure you had with the officer.